Denying Self-Consciousness, Quantum and a Christian answer to the Problem of Evil

[Tassman]

Nope, and that does not follow. And I did not say that I took Genesis metaphorically, one could though. I'm agnostic on the matter, though I lean towards a more literal view

You, as a Christian, cannot possibly take the ‘fall’ in Genesis metaphorically because the other half of that equation, namely the ‘Atonement' (i.e. Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection) is held by Christians to be a literal event. It’s an article of faith central to the Christian religion.

The problem with a literal interpretation...aside from the improbability of Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead...is the impossibility of the existence of a literal Adam and Eve. “If humans are descended from a non-human ancestor, which biology shows definitively, then the story of Adam and Eve is wrong in its particulars without question”.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspo...ules-tell.html

[JimL]

Nope, that does not follow . . .

Problem, your sitting on the fence and getting splinters in your butt sliding back and forth, and in reality it does not work in the traditional belief of Christianity, nor your view. The Baha'i view nor mine is not remotely the view of traditional Christianity concerning the nature of Evil.

The issue is Evil, and the roots of very real Evil in traditional Christianity as understood by the Church Fathers and ALL the traditional Churches in history. A metaphorical approach and the absence of evil is not compatible with this history of belief in Christianity, and the conflict between Good and Evil, nor is it remotely your belief.

To support this just simply read the Book of Revelation, which portray's a classic black and white conflict between Good and a very real Evil.

The bottom line is the metaphorical belief in Genesis and the purpose of Jesus Christ is not compatible with traditional Christian beliefs concerning the nature of Evil.

You conveniently side stepped Tassman's question.

Again . . .

The view of the Baha'i Faith, and I, is there is no Evil infecting humanity, but humanity Created fallible with a will, and the actions of humanity that are wrong are simply absence of Good, and humanity has always been Created as fallibly human, and the spiritual evolution and advancement of humanity toward salvation as individuals and humanity as a whole.

Evil simply being the abscence of good assumes the existence of good, but it doesn't define what good itself is shunya. If I argued the opposite, i.e. that the actions of humanity that are right, are simply the abscence of evil, then I would be assuming that evil itself exists in some form. Neither good or evil are things that exist in themselves, they are relative to the interest of a subject, i.e. to the interests of humanity.

[Carrikature]

I think when you say that 'nothing about science says truth is being discovered' says it all. Science is about discovering truth. And if truth isn't discovered, why pester YECs to convert to old earth? lol

Claiming that truth is being discovered skips most of the conversation, which is convenient but not helpful for the current discussion. We use our principles and concepts to explore. We test and theorize to find ideas that appear to be internally consistent. There's strong reason to believe these ideas correlate with reality, but you can't establish conclusively that they do. You'd have to get past 'brain in the vat' and 'this is all simulation' arguments, first. Science tells us what we perceive. It doesn't tell us what is. And that's the answer to your question: why try to convert? Because one belief is inconsistent with what we perceive.

And you have experience of Will without knowing it is doing anything? Webster defines Will (the one appropriate here) as "used to express determination, insistence, persistence, or willfulness " What exactly is it that has determination without knowing it has determination? Will is a mental state of consciousness, not of rocks. A rock does not insist on doing anything.

I don't have to be such an entity for said entities to exist. You've discounted these possibilities solely on the strength of your own experiences.

I wouldn't claim a bacterium has anything like self-consciousness, but we could use your definition of 'will' to describe its deliberate motion towards light (for example).

This is a faith statement. You can't possibly examine my mental state. I could have given in and gone to sleep. I made a choice. Further, you can't be sure I have a mental state by observational data. All the philosophers agree that the solipsism problem is avoided only by assumption.

I don't need to examine your mental state to know that your brain interacts with the rest of your body. That's pretty basic.

The math is quite well understood, I use the same math in my business. The problem is what it means is not well understood or agreed upon. And I always hate cops who say, you can't introduce this or that concept to a debate. What makes you the traffic cop of argumentation?

You've answered your own question. You're not only introducing the concept but relying on it to support your beliefs while simultaneously acknowledging that "what it means is not well understood or agreed upon". That's not a sound basis for any philosophical argument.

Notice that I didn't say you couldn't introduce it, only that doing so is a fatal flaw. It always is, for exactly the reasons you already mentioned.

I think we can agree that something has continuity for the extent of our lives. Good job of mistaking Theseus for Thesian. But then, we all do make mistakes including me. It was the Ship of Theseus.

Meh, I misunderstood Theseus to be a place. It's not really germane to the discussion, though.

As I think I said, and you must have missed, every single interpretation of quantum requires an observer to do whatever that interpretation believes in. This places the consciousness square in the center of what happens in the universe.

What you did was reference someone's claim to this effect, not establish that it's actually true (nor have they done so).