Define God

You got it wrong.
DNA wise all human are coded and born with the primal instinct and the primary emotion of fear i.e. necessary to avoid dangers, threats and premature death thus ensuring survival.
A child will not be able to express feelings of fear consciously but the actions of primal fears in a child and adults are very universal.

Signs_and_symptoms of Fear
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear#Signs_and_symptoms

This is proof, fear [primal and emotion] is genetic.

I had mentioned above, there are two levels re the fear of death;

  1. Conscious fear of death

  2. Subconscious [subliminal] fear of death

1. Conscious fear of death
DNA wise a person will experience conscious fear of death intermittently when triggered by the sight of it or thoughts of it. Humans are programmed with inhibitors and modulators to ensure that the conscious fear of death do not manifest all the time.
This is a very natural to ensure all humans are not paralyzed by the conscious fear of death.

Anyone who has a persistent conscious fear of death is a mental case and has to see a psychiatrist. This mental illness is called Thanatophobia or Death Anxiety.

Death anxiety is anxiety caused by thoughts of death. One source defines death anxiety as a “feeling of dread, apprehension or solicitude (anxiety) when one thinks of the process of dying, or ceasing to ‘be’”.[1] Also referred to as thanatophobia (fear of death), death anxiety is distinguished from necrophobia, which is a specific fear of dead or dying people and/or things (i.e., fear of others who are dead or dying, not of one’s own death or dying).
-wiki

2. Subconscious [subliminal] fear of death
This is the critical issue.
I had stated above, the power of the subconscious mind is 10 time greater than that of the conscious mind.
The subconscious mind is very cognizant of the cognitive dissonance of must not die but will certainly die. This create a turmoil in the mind that manifests unidentifiable unease, anxieties, despairs, Angst that drives the mind to find solutions to ease the mental pain.

Angst means fear or anxiety (anguish is its Latinate equivalent, and anxious, anxiety are of similar origin). The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity.[1] The word angst was introduced into English from the Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch word angst and the German word Angst. It is attested since the 19th century in English translations of the works of Kierkegaard and Freud.[1][2][3]
It [Angst] is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil.

It is this cognitive dissonance and Angst that drives theist to a God as a very quick-fix solution and it is very immediate and effective.

Generally it is a relief but not instant relief all the time.
It is an instant relief when there is a conscious crisis and when one surrender to God there is instant relief.
For the majority of theist the idea of God is like a comfortable security blanket. For many theists, when that security is pull or tug, they will even kill the one who is pulling their security blanket - this is so evident.

There is non-theistic religions like Buddhism [including Zen] and others.
Others may turn to pain-killers and all sort of drugs to relieve the mental unease to their detriment in the long run.
Others keep themselves occupied with various interests to keep suppress these impulses from the subconscious mind for an idle mind is the devil’s playground.
Others turned to spiritual self-development programs to strengthen the inhibitors that inhibit the impulses of Angst.

My argument is that reasoning of the existential crisis is a fundamental and a potential, DNA wise, in ALL human beings.
It get triggered to be very active in various circumstances.
It is not likely to be triggered in a child until the person is in the late teens with a stronger self-awareness of death that feed backs to the subconscious.

As stated above, for most, the existential crisis is active within the subsconscious during late teens or early twenties, and for adults it can be anytime when the inhibitors are weakened by stress and various factors.

The existential crisis will manifest stronger as one get older because all brain cells naturally atrophized and for the said inhibitors they are not replaced.

Across the world, people have varying levels of belief (and disbelief) in God, with some nations being more devout than others. But new research reveals one constant across parts of the globe: As people age, their belief in God seems to increase.
livescience.com/19971-belie … m-age.html

Even the once world’s most famous [a]theist, Anthony Flew, succumbed to the existential crisis impulse in the later part of his life where his neural inhibitors eroded and the existential crisis impulse overwhelmed his rational faculty to some degree that he turned to deism.

It is possible for any [a]theist including me that the relevant inhibitors will weaken via atrophy in my later years. Thus I am taking steps to strengthen the relevant inhibitors so my mind do not drive me into theism in the future.

I have explained above, the conscious mind is not supposed to fear death persistently and have feeling of fears.
But deep down, the existential crisis is brewing strongly deep in the brain especially those theists who are zealous of a belief in God.

What??
As a Christian, you are not aware what is the core of Christianity for a Christian?
The core of Christianity is not the Bible but the doctrines of God expressed by Christ in the Gospel. The Epistles, Acts and OT [relevant verses] are merely supporting texts to the main doctrines within the Gospel of Christ.

For a Christian, the central focus in the Gospel is God’s offer within John 3:16 and the likes;

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The above is an offer for anyone to accept.
One a person accept the offer, there is an implied contract, i.e. a personal covenant with God.
Once the divine contract is signed, the Christian will have to comply with the covenanted terms as in the Gospel in exchange for an everlasting eternal life in heaven.

Thus the main purpose of Christianity for a Christian is to receive the promise in a contract of everlasting eternal life in heaven.
Everything else is secondary.

I am not an expert of the Bible, but I am well aware of the main doctrinal principle of Christianity from the Gospel alone. Note my explanations above.

Whitewash??
I have justified all my points.
I don’t expect anyone to agree with me based on blind faith but for one to review the justified arguments I have presented and counter them rationally.

Show me, where am I wrong or have presented clear-cut falsehoods in the above.

My point;
God is an idea which is a transcendental illusion manifested out a psychological driven existential crisis to ease existential pains and Angst.

War is said to either drive men away from God or into his arms. I can only imagine some of the things you had to watch or do in Vietnam as I was a child at that time, living not far away, but safely in Malaya.

But you are right about belief being predicated by peoples experiences. It was one reason why I had to leave the church and pursue a spiritual path which led me to the various traditions and to the awareness of how similar religions are, in a strange way. I was following Thomas Merton in doing so, although he was long dead by then. I was also led to believe that religion, including Christianity, had monastic beginnings, even if it was mixed. That is why it is hard for people caught up in everyday life to practise and why it seems so outlandish.

I question the existential threat that you see the people in the Bahamas are up against. The storm is still the storm, whether they believe or not. In fact, there are people that say that humanity only learns via confrontation, and that is one mighty confrontation. That is where we have to think things through.

We have spoken about dasein before. I understand the struggle with existence (or being) in the use of that word. All aspects of being cause a struggle with suffering in its various forms. Life is suffering, but there are ways to confront it. I read Peterson as saying that if you follow a few rules, you will find that existence aligns with you and things can get a bit easier, although the struggle stays. Buddha had some good ideas as well. It is the fact that there are ways to successfully struggle with being that is so astounding. I have read him as well as various other authors who have brought up the fact that things going right are some kind of miracle in a world that is caught up in decay and degeneration.

Closing that gap might be easier than you think, the problem is that it isn’t the solution that many Christians would want. If we could agree that the stories of the Bible have more to do with psychology than with history, we could pull the wisdom that is held in there out of the more dated stories. The value of the Bible is the thousand year tradition that rings true to life when you observe it that way and the message that the New Testament carries. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not a sensible thing to do. It is like felling a massive Hyperion, the grandparent of all tall trees, to have firewood.

I think we can’t ignore the fact that, since we have driven modern man out of the churches, there has been a degeneration of purpose. People are struggling to find meaning and we are seeing it in our societies. More people are depressive, suicidal or have other psychological disorders. Practitioners are saying that it is the lack of orientation and reduction of purpose to getting through the day. That is why it is true that religion is often a crutch that people lean on. When that, as in recent times, fails to support, or is corrupt, those being supported fall.

One could say, what’s it to me that these people are mentally ill? However, depression is something that sneaks up on people and can have purely somatic symptoms that have doctors baffled until it becomes clear that the cause is depression. It hits all kinds of people, not just those below the minimum wage or those reduced to beggars. It is also one reason why Jordan Peterson wrote his book, “12 Rules for Life” with a subtitle “An Antidote to Chaos”. There are human resources being lost to psychological disorders, not because they are incapable, but because they have lost direction.

I have always said, we live here and now, and hoping for something better on the other side is an option, but can’t be the prime motivator. It is this world, and our own space, that we have to put in order. The good news is that when a large group work together and align their purpose, 2 + 2 becomes 5. Unexpected things happen that improve conditions. They seem wondrous in the face of degeneration, decay and corruption. The problem is that to motivate people to do that, you have to have the bigger picture in view. That’s where a world view comes in.

I don’t think that it is possible to motivate in the way needed without a world view with defined goals and standards, complete with an interactive group that embodies that world view in what they do. That is where mutual obligation comes into the picture. Agreeing to do things based on that world view. God is then the conjectural eye in the sky, the meta-vision, and judge of all things.

Fear is a feeling induced by perceived danger or threat. A baby can’t perceive a threat, but it can’t be alone after growing for nine months inside the mother. That is probably the next discomfort after the traumatic experience of birth. But reading that quote from Wikipedia, it is the response that is inborn, not fear per se. Our bodies know how to react to threat or danger, but it must first be perceived.

Here again, the reaction is what is inborn, not a fear. Fear has to be perceived, regardless whether the threat is real or imagined.

Thanatophobia is a pathological disorder, an abnormal fear of death. It isn’t “normal”, i.e. in someone’s DNA.

Terror management theory (TMT) attempts to explain a type of defensive human thinking and behavior that stems from an awareness and fear of death. According to TMT, death anxiety drives people to adopt worldviews that protect their sense of self-esteem, worthiness, and sustainability and allow them to believe that they play an important role in a meaningful world.
psychologytoday.com/us/basi … ent-theory

It is an awareness, that it a perception of death that people fear. That means, it is comes when people become capable of perceiving death. This isn’t usually the case in children, unless they are confronted with death and it has a traumatic effect. Normally this fear grows with the death of parents, but also with the premature death of siblings. That is why older people tend to return to the church to find the meaning that is lost when people around them are dying.

Once again, this is all necessary if one develops a fear of death. I would say that the fear of futility or pointlessness of existence can make people take drugs to soothe their misgivings about life. Buddhism accepts that life is absurd and that suffering is the lot of mankind, but offers a way to cope.

I have never avoided the fact that an existential crisis can occur, but to say it is in our DNA is misleading. What is inborn is the bodies reaction to fear. But there are normal causes and abnormal causes of fear, which have to be separated from each other. That a growing fear of death is normal is something I accept, but to say that the cry of a baby is a sign of that fear is just as misleading.

Your reading. It may also be the way many people see it. I do not see it that way.

The sacrifice of the son is an age old mythological storyline, especially when you see Christ as the Logos, the word that created the heavens and earth. There is a deeper storyline there than this modern evangelical view. We can discuss the meaning of sacrifice seen through the words of the Bible and even in the Quran. How this reflects on key stories and practices, such as Abraham’s offering of his son, the Leviticus rites of sacrifice and purity, the Hajj, and the death of Christ. But that would have to be another topic.

The gods are primal images to describe deep phenomenon in the lives of human beings at a time when survival was the most important thing to talk about. The Ancients were considering how to understand the world and their role in it. Being pre-science, Gods, devils, angels and evil spirits describe influences they experienced and they developed stories which they enacted as a means to spread the information of how to live and survive. These stories became more and more complex and gradually a primitive understanding of human and animal behaviour crept in, which made the stories multi-layered.

When Israel formed, they were gathering all kinds of mythological descriptions of existence, and there were many. Each culture had their own gods but Israel saw this as primitive and chose one god, who was god of gods. This wasn’t an easy process and so they told a story that described how they were found and chosen by that one God. They developed a code of behaviour which became the Torah, and wrote themselves a history, based on the histories that they found in other cultures. They had heroes and Kings, but all the time, an underlying message was in these stories – Kings are not reliable but become self-serving. They envisaged a King that would not be so, but would be aligned to the will of God. The were various forerunners in their records, people who are said to have been closer to the ideal, but not quite. David was one of them.

The prophets described how God’s people betrayed him and they were punished by God, suffering defeat and being deported, finally losing ten of the twelve tribes of Israel. Only Judah and Benjamin remained. Christianity has it, that from these two tribes, only one person remained true to God and he was sacrificed. They saw it as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. And he was the One who died to save all from retribution of God, but only those who aligned with him and his spirit, the spirit of God.

The Sermon on the Mount spelled out a new law, one of love and compassion, which revolutionised the parts of the world in which it was spread. But then, for reasons we can only guess, it became a religion of the diaspora, of gentiles and not Jews. Still it was very effective in changing the religious landscape – until Rome adopted it as a state religion. That is when things started falling apart. It is amazing that there were still pockets of the faithful, which preserved and developed the faith until this day. Today we can look back on that miracle that occurred despite the terror and the pillage that became part of Christian history. Especially the attempts to wipe out Jews is contemptuous, but also the deaths of dissenters and so called heretics, who in fact were transporting the spiritual heritage of the faith.

Prismatic talks about ‘proof’ not understanding that proof is either legal or mathematical/symbolic logic, but has little to do with any complex phenomenon like the source of beliefs. And legal proof is a very contingent - depends on the laws, customs and particular jury or judge - whereas mathematics and symbolic logic do not have, for example, empirical and semantic issues. So right off the bat when he uses proof, we should be wary that we are dealing with certitude based on confusion. This doesn’t mean his argument is wrong, it just means that he doesn’t understand the frame his argument is in and since he refers to it as proof, then he is confused in his certainty.

That said, he also confused correlation and cause. It’s a complicated counterargument, but basically since we fear death and religions offer, potentially, a pleasant solution to this fear - this fear causes the belief in God, all the other testimony by religious people be damned. A so far correlation being taken as cause. There are also religions that have no very pleasant afterlives, sometimes as one possibility, sometimes as the only one. And there are many people who believe and are terrified of that afterlife, at least for them. There are also religions where the person does not continue, where there is a return to God or Self or Vishnu or whatever. Most people have fears that come up around intimacy, let alone dissolving into a greater whole permanently, and anyone with a knowledge of, say, certain traditions in Hinduism, know that the practitioner has to deal with tremendous fear to achieve the before death goals in the religion where there is union with (fill in the blank). Why people would put so much effort into trying to do something so terrifying before death if fear is the motivator for belief, I don’t know. And then there are whole swathes of scary religions, where being god fearing is the experience. Or ones with no afterlife.

He is also spitting in the face - by mind reading claims - of all the people who would disagree based on their experiences, not just religious ones, for why they believe, the role of religion in their lives and what their belief is based on. Both theists and atheists can agree, especially on philosophy forums, that the issue around belief is either faith or some kind of logical or illogical argument. Whereas, in fact, most belief has a huge empirical component. Whether one has grown up in the religion or one has converted or come to it later. These empirical facets can be anything from what they experience in prayer, contemplation, rituals, meditation, in meetings with religious experts - gurus priests, whomever - to the experienced effects of the practices on their lives to mundane, non-controversial affects of participating in what are often highly social practices to visionary experiences in shamanistic practices or other religious practices - experiences that are often predicatable and come in certain sequences - to quite a bit else. IOW the beliefs are based on a wide range of experiences and experiences in the context of practices led or taught by experts and more.

He feels that on paper he can prove, yes prove, that they are all wrong about the source of their beliefs-

What I notice is that atheists I know don’t seem to be very afraid of death - in fact their emotions often seem dampened in general. Even those who leave religions do not seem to me to be facing fear - except their fear that they might go to hell now. I haven’t heard of this huge guantlet of fear that atheists go through converting from theism to atheism.

And in fact it seems like atheists don’t fear death more then very religious people.

newsweek.com/fear-death-ath … ers-575496

There is even evidence that religious people are more afraid of death…

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7949111.stm

Me, I think there are a lot of factors involved, but I see no reason to accept Prismatic’s universal mind reading claims, especially since he seems to think he even could present a proof and also his weak grasp of correlation cause, and last because I found him, despite his claims otherwise, to be closed to any criticism.

If you enjoy the dialogue, great.

Agreed …

Yes, I can follow this argument. My estimation on the subject comes from two basic areas, Geriatric Nursing and Comparative theology. Jordan Peterson has spoken in both areas, which is why I quoted him to begin with. Having had a lot of experience with death and the dying, it is, as you say, a complex issue. I have had people who had so much faith that it almost bordered on certainty, who died as they planned by just lying in bed and closing their eyes. There was no fear in them. But I have had people of the other side of the spectrum, where, even though their dementia caused the loss of speech, they were scared out of the wits and hard to contain. They died with fever and Tachypnea, that is fast, shallow breathing, usually under drugs to calm them down. There were others who just held on, and very often we had the children tell their parents that it was okay to go, everything is okay. Relatives were often amazed at how fast these words soothed the dying. Some were outright atheists but prepared themselves and put all their family at ease and then just died.

You see, when you have experienced all these possibilities, it doesn’t make sense to say that fear of death is the main motivator to believe.

Agreed …

Yes, in my experience too, those afraid of death could be found on both sides.

It very common sense the feeling of fear is trigger by related perception.

But what is more critical is there is a neural algorithm that is already in place [DNA coded] which is ready to react to perception which will trigger the feeling of fear.
You are wrong to think this neural algorithm related to ‘fear’ is solely triggered and will react only to sense perception.
The point is this neural algorithm responsible for fear can be triggered by other than perception, e.g. by thoughts, dreams, and other neural activities the algorithm is connected to.

Thus there are many sources that can trigger the 'fear neural alogrith [re the fear emotions] which need not necessary manifest as a conscious feeling of fear, but rather the reactions are subliminal and they combine with other neural processes and manifest as Angst, anxieties and despairs when an acceptance of a God [illusory] will relieved these mental pains and discomforts.

You missed my point and focused too much on the concept of ‘fear’.
I had stated normal people do not ‘fear death’ persistently, otherwise that would be a mental and medical issue. Where such conscious fear is a phobia, it is not DNA driven but they are exceptions due to short-circuits in the brain.

My main point is focused on the DNA driven existential crisis driven by a cognitive dissonance arising from the combination of the subsconscious processes involving the algorithm that generate the fear of death and self-awareness at the subconscious level that generate Angst, anxieties, despairs, hopelessness, etc.
These are the impulses of the existential crisis that drive theists to cling to a God to relieve these mental pains of Angst, anxieties, despairs and hopeless.

When I state “subconscious fear of death” the central point here is the existential crisis because there is no question of direct feeling of death at the subconscious level.

Thus my point again;
God is an idea which is a transcendental illusion manifested out a psychological driven existential crisis to ease existential pains and Angst.
(there is no mentioned of ‘fear of death’).

I disagree.

Thus my point;
It is the psychological driven existential crisis generate existential pains and Angst that drive many [a]theists to seek pain killers, drugs and other avenues to relieve the mental pains and Angst.
(there is no mentioned of ‘fear of death’).

Why not DNA driven.

  1. It is coded in the human DNA, all humans will die eventually not more than 150 years of life based on present empirical facts.
  2. It is coded in the human DNA, all humans are coded with a neural algorithm to generate fear and other related responses consciously or subconsciously.
  3. It is coded in the human DNA, all humans will matured with a high sense of self-awareness in contrast to the primates.

The combination of 1, 2 and 3 plus others not mentioned generate an existential crisis within the subconscious mind that manifest a range of mental discomforts, anxieties, despair, and Angst that drive theists to cling to a God [illusory] to get immediate relief from those mental pains.

It is not my reading.
Rationally, what is Christianity is leveraged on Christ, i.e. Jesus Christ and the message Christ as son brought from God. This message is presented in the Gospels.
The central focus of the Gospel of Christ in relation to the individual is God’s offer within John 3:16.

If you interpret otherwise from the above, that is not Christianity per se.
You don’t have any god given divine authority to ignore John 3:16 and their related verses

It is the same with the Quran, where a Muslim must accept Allah’s offer of a promise of eternal life in paradise in exchange for the Muslim’s compliance to Allah’s commands in the 6236 verses in the Quran. The need for a contract with Allah is very explicit in the Quran.
Btw, I claim to be a reasonable expert on the Quran and Islam.

The mystics of Islam, i.e. the Sufis are heretics in accordance to the objective interpretation of Allah’s words in the Quran. Many Sufis are killed for that justified reason.

Yes, survival, which is still critical in the present age.

As I had stated the neural elements contributing to the existential crisis are DNA driven and are embedded deep in the brain.
Since they are the basic neural elements for survival and DNA driven, they cannot be got rid of but merely can be inhibited and suppress.
At present the average human being do not have strong inhibitors to inhibit the primal impulses of the existential crisis, the their resorting to a God [illusory] to do so.

Buddhism [proper] not from the sects and cults is a classic case of managing and modulating the existential crisis.
The existential crisis is well presented in the myth of the Buddha Story highlighting the threat of old age, illness and death [the corpse].
The central core of Buddhism is about how to deal with the existential crisis via the 4 Noble Truths and 8 Noble Paths [4NT-FP].
From the 4NT-8FP, the various schools and sects of Buddhism derive [in a range of efficiency] a wide range of strategies and approaches [mindfulness, concentration, theories, practices, etc.] to strengthen the inhibitors and modulators within the brain of the Buddhist to manage the inherent unavoidable pains manifesting from the existential crisis.

The changes and improvement in Buddhist practitioners can be objectively verified by images within their brain.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/1847442.stm

Scientists investigating the effect of the meditative state on Buddhist monk’s brains have found that portions of the organ previously active become quiet, whilst pacified areas become stimulated.

andrewnewberg.com/research
How do meditation and prayer change our brains? [for the better].

Your above is a straw man.

As explained in my post to Bob, my main focus is not on ‘fear of death’ but rather the existential crisis triggered by the various inherent neural algorithms in the brain encoded in the DNA.

I will accept any criticism that is well argued and justified.
In the above, your counter is a straw man.
So far no one has presented any convincing counters to my arguments.

Btw, you can test my hypothesis by observing the reaction of the majority of theists when any inkling is indicated to the threat of the belief in a God.
With any inkling of a threat to their belief based on faith, they will feel very uneasy and the defense mechanisms will be triggered. This is why there are blasphemy laws to protect criticisms of theistic religious beliefs.
At the extreme, theists will kill those who threatened their theistic beliefs, this is so evident with Muslims at present and even Christians in the past.

This is a sign when theists belief which they relied upon to suppress the terrible existential pains are threatened, they [driven subconsciously] will do what is necessary to ensure the terrible pains are kept suppressed.
If they cannot defend their beliefs, the inherent existential pains will return, thus the triggering of the defense mechanisms or even killing to ensure the existential pains are suppressed.

You can test this hypothesis by drawing cartoons of Muhammad is a busy city square in Afghanistan. If you survive this, you will be able to review the intensity of the anger of the crowd in merely a perception of the cartoons of prophet Muhammad being drawn. This is due to a threat to the security blanket they have from their belief and thus their reaction to that threat.

And a sinner, especially in some forms of Christianity, has grounds for terror no atheist faces. Even though I am only partly influenced by Christianity, for a very small part of my childhood, and not pushed at all by my parents, that concept of Hell sits somewhere deep down and creates fears that easily compete with any comfort the idea of Heaven might bring. I have also noted that there are tendencies in the personalities of atheists - for example a dominance of deduction over intuition, logic verbal thinking over other kinds of thinking - even in, for example relationship discussions - and a discomfort with emotion. Very rarely does anyone consider that their lack of belief, which is supposed to be the default, might be based on fears of losing control, emotional relations, intimacy and so on.

But arguments like that and Prismatic’s ultimately are a kind of ad hominim argument.

DNA wise all humans are coded with an algorithm to be receptive to threats re one’s survival and all sorts of reactions are triggered including fear which trigger ‘flight’ as in ‘fight or flight’.
In normal situations both theists and [a]theists will feel fear when that neural algorithm is triggered upon perceptions [even misperceptions] of a threat, e.g. facing a growling lion and other dangerous situations. This is the conscious fear of death.

I have mentioned many times, the primary basis and in most cases why people believe in a God is not due to conscious fear of death.
The drive to theism happens mostly within the subconscious mind is said to be 10 times more powerful than the conscious mind.

The primary reason why people believe in a God more zealously beside being born into a theistic family is due the terrible impulses generated from an existential crisis activating within the subconscious mind from a combination of existential elements, of which the avoidance of death is one of the elements.

Lack of belief in a God is because the person’s inherent existential crisis is not directed in the theistic direction. Why the majority’s inherent and unavoidable existential crisis is mainly theistic is due fact that the majority of people are theistic as accumulated over the past years. Point is a belief in God to deal with the inherent existential crisis is the most popular is because that is most natural, logical [crude reason] and effective.

A belief in a God even though illusory and not real would be no issue if theism is without cons and negativity to humanity’s progress. The cons of theism are more glaring as humanity evolve and progress further when the cons of theism will outweigh whatever pros it has. This is the reason why theism must be heavily critiqued.

Ad hominen??
Not deliberately, but in the case of the existential crisis, we MUST refer its existence within the individual, i.e. any individual thus involving the person discussed with.
When the existential crisis is highlighted in an individual, it will often trigger the defense mechanism to deal with a threat and thus feeling a sense of offense thus a claim of ad hominen.

But: Once you acknowledge this, in my view, you are then acknowledging that had your experiences been different for other reasons, you may well have come to reject God and religion altogether. As I did. In fact my point here revolves precisely around this:

“That is the question that has always fascinated me the most. Once I become cognizant of how profoundly problematic my ‘self’ is, what can ‘I’ do about it? And what are the philosophical implications of acknowledging that identity is, by and large, an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice? What can we ‘anchor’ our identity to so as to make this prefabricated…fabricated…refabricated world seem less vertiginous? And, thus, more certain.”

Here, of course, in relation to God. And how we come to define him. And that in relation to our moral narratives. And that in relation to the behaviors we choose.

Which then make the stakes here much, much higher:

If you are among the living and wish to remain so, the hurricane becomes an existential threat from God.

Are you arguing here that hurricane Dorian might be construed as an object lesson from God? An actual golden opportunity enabling the people down there to learn how to better deal with confrontation?

And that God then steered it out to sea because there and then He figured the people in Florida did not need this objective lesson?

Bottom line [mine]: How does a particular definition of God take into account these actual events themselves?

But this in my view is just another “general description”. Each individual embedded in their own unique set of circumstances will interpret and then act out their own understanding of what they think you mean here.

Yes, this is a “frame of mind” that some are able to find comfort in. But one way or another they have to come to grips with how the manner in which they define God is able to be reconciled with a man-made world “caught up in decay and degeneration”. And this is embedded in the manner in which I have come to construe the meaning of dasein above as a existential contraption.

And, then, on top of all that, they have to deal with what the folks in the insurance industry call “acts of God”.

Okay, but: How does this make it easier to close the gap between what you believe about God and what you are able to demonstrate that all rational men and women are obligated to believe in turn? After all, however one takes the stories in the Bible, there is still the part where substantial proof exists to confirm that in fact they are true or there is not.

And the baby and the bathwater still needs to be grappled with in a particular context.

Yes, that’s one way to look at it. Another way is to suggest that once “I” is no longer anchored to the will of God, this allows for considerably more freedom of choice in an autonomous universe. Purpose can be construed in ways that allow individuals to flourish in a manner that the religious are advised never to even imagine.

It cuts both ways.

True enough. But then others insist that this is embedded far more in the capitalist dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fattest political economy.

That the solution here is actually more a political struggle to uproot it. Again each individual embodying his or her own unique set of experiences will come to understand this differently. Sure, with God, “I” is anchored. As it is anchored to any number of ideological scriptures.

But the components of my own argument never go away.

But for any number of religious folks this is basically blasphemous. It is precisely the behaviors that we choose here and now that connects us to God for all of eternity on the other side. But here again my own argument is that these inclinations are rooted in “I” as an existential contraption. Some embody a set of experiences that take them in one direction here while others are predisposed to go in other directions. That there does not appear to be a way [theologically, philosophically, spiritually etc.] to take that into account and then to “think through” to the optimal frame of mind is my point.

And how is this world view not just another manifestation of dasein? Again, take your “general description” of how the world could be if others thought like you do out into the world and configure it into a specific context where degenerated conditions need to be improved. For example, the plight of immigrants in America. Or in Europe. In the age of Trump and Brexit. What might be done here if others thought like you do about God and religion?

Yes, I can understand that threats spoken to impressionable children can follow them their life long and influence them in later years. I think too, that there are as many psychological “types” of a believer as there are types of human beings. There will be those that need deduction, logical verbal thinking and a certain degree of control over aspects of life that discomfort them. There others, like me, who are at home with intuitive feeling, assessment of human actions, being at home with emotion, etc. Because the first group is not being fed what they need, they will wander away. It is only when the second group becomes effective and there is graspable evidence of that, that the first group can be reached. The Church seems to be very ineffective at present, despite their involvement in many areas of social action.

I agree that the scenario in which I reject God was something I thought through. I decided instead, that it was my imagination that was at fault. Anything that could be called God would have to be larger and so completely different, that my imagination, linked as it is to my spacial concepts, would be blown out.
Instead, I focussed on the fact that, given what we know about the universe, where does my consciousness come from? Even in nature, we have difficulty in finding a species that comes close to that, and if we did, then we would be able to work out how to communicate. This is two observations that had me thinking that coincidence aside, something has included our consciousness in the fabric of being. That, I concluded, would be worthy of the description/name God.

I think that, given the presence of natural laws, there should be a law of behaviour. That is, there is a given way to behave that is best suited to prolong life and assist coexistence and cooperation amongst sentient beings.

No, I am not suggesting that the hurricane is an existential threat from God, but that existence itself, as harsh as it seems, is what we are confronted with. Like I said before, the sages of humanity have come to realise that existence means suffering, but that a behaviour that aligns with the positives in life can help us overcome suffering.

I think there is only that way to go. Every one of us has examples of the struggle with existence, some far more problematic than others. It is for each of us to answer the question that always occurs, would it have been better not to have lived at all, or was it worth the struggle? The writers of the Bible and various other sources of wisdom have concluded it is.

The fact that we are confronted with a world that is naturally decaying is a challenge, which has led people to think up reasons for coping with it. There has been the hope that, after death, it will somehow go on … however you interpret that. It may be irrational, but isn’t our whole existence is somehow irrational?

I think that the challenge that sages were up against already sorted that. They were able to show that their prophecies regarding the purpose of life were effective to the degree that they were believable and people followed them. Many were incarcerated and killed though, despite this. But they were also a source of wisdom in areas of life that needed assistance, which helped some sages survive and even be revered.

That would be true if you have a view of God that is restrictive. If your view is somehow empowering, as is suggested by the spread of Christianity for example, then it gives you new perspectives.

The struggles within societies that essentially mean you have to “fight” to survive, are man-made. They can also be unmade. However, up until now, such attempts have gone terribly wrong. That is why I think that the best solution is from inside out. The “revolution of the soul”, however, is a struggle that few undertake.

If scripture becomes ideological, then we have the problem that we have with any ideology throughout history. It is the difference between ideology and religion that Jordan Peterson makes. As long as religion is helping you to achieve the “revolution of the soul”, no-one is being killed. As soon as it becomes a fight of one ideology against another, people die, especially if the reward is “on the other side”.

Exactly, the “revolution of the soul” is personal and has its dark night in which the soul struggles with reality.

I can’t help those who are focussed on a reward on the other side, even though I too hope there is, but the example of Jesus and his beatitudes will have us concentrate on this side, and on what we can do. Anyone doing something only for the reward contradicts his approach and is said to deserve punishment. I think the way ahead is very simple concerning an interaction with the world.

I think there would be a large shift to focussing on the here and now, people wouldn’t “sacrifice” themselves, but rather consider how to help effectively and just like revenge, “reward is mine [to give] says the Lord!”

Note I argued for the cognitive dissonance that generate the existential crisis.

The general rule of the mind in facilitating survival is the default of consonance and against dissonance [very unbearable to be in suspense], thus the mind will always find some sort of answers [even false ones] to resolve the dissonance.
The inclination of people tending towards God as the final answer is the mind’s default for consonance instead of the terrible dissonance.

Thus your leap of faith to a conclusion that a God is responsible for all your unjustified questions is a play of consonance to avoid the default dissonance.

This ‘consonance over dissonance’ has been at play ever since homo-sapiens first emerged into the scene.
Here is a scenario, when our ancestors [200,000 years ago] heard a sound [like a broken dry twig] they cannot be in state of dissonance to decide whatever the reasons are for that sound. From past experiences, their mind will jump into consonance mode and instantly confirmed there is a sable-tooth tiger around and so they ran for their life. Those who did NOT jump to conclusion and did not run would have the greater chance of being eaten by a sable tooth tiger.

Our ancestors, the successful ones to the present were the ones who acted upon consonance in the event of dissonance [they quickly jumped to conclusion] thus handed down to us the present generations the DNA that prompt a quick jump to conclusions, i.e. seeking consonance in the event of a crisis.

Note the example of the uncertainty ‘a piece of rope in the darker shade.’ The average mind will apply consonance and jumped to conclusion it is a snake, since generating caution and prevention is safer than the possibility dying from a poisonous snake bite.

Note the most obvious idea of causality, i.e. “cause and effect” which turned out NOT to be an absolute natural principle [as assumed for eons] till Hume argued convincingly the basis of ‘cause and effect’ is psychological, i.e. due to customs, habits and constant conjunction.

When humans became more driven [subconscious and conscious] by the existential crisis, they have to jump to conclusion via faith [as inherited from our early ancestors] to conclude a God exists to deal all complicated issues instinctively to soothe the terrible state of cognitive dissonance and existential crisis.

While the idea of God [from primitive to monotheism] has serve mankind net-positively in the past and till the present, the so far tolerated negativity from theism is very obvious.
The trend of theism is moving towards a net-negative situation in the future.
Thus there is a need to wean off theism from now on and deal with the inherent existential crisis using optimal, foolproof and voluntary approaches that are net-positive.

Thus I would define God on the above basis as leveraged on our ancestors handed down DNA driven cognitive dissonance and existential crisis.

I think there are a couple of approaches, at least, to thinking about religion. One tries to be bird’s eye view, and this leads to all the discussions of omnipotence and paradoxes between atheists and theists, for example. And even a discussion of dasein is much like that kind of discussion. Or you have the in situ, what happens to me, over a long period of time when I try on the heuristics and participate in the practices. I think most people who move into a religion are in the latter approach. And most people within the religion stay because of something like that. The sad thing is that the Abrahamic religions were written to include a lot of non-spiritual ideas that might have been ok heuristics for tribal cultures in warring regions or under empirical oppression and that also included some just well hatred. So you have these mixed bag books of heuristics and metaphors and morals. It is really rather amazing that some people from each of these religions develop lovely spiritualities and manage to help people and themselves without carrying over any of the unpleasant stuff. Of course the Abrahamic approaches are not the only ones.

And people out there are finding the in situ approach where they test their way in to shamanism say, where belief comes after a love of the practices and the changes they lead to, rather than this bird’s eye view type of this is good or logical (or not) approach, which is not, for example, how we come to treat the opposite sex or interact at work with our peers. IOW so much of life is filled with haphazard but the same time, sometimes, careful haphazard exploration, where we built up a connection or a returning to a process that works for us. A bit like falling in love and then doing the hard work to make a long term relationship continue to help and nurture us and even be a good thing for third parties.

But in the West we act like religions and lifestyles are belief driven and must be in all cases. So, it’s take out the debate board and get down to bird’s eye view discussions of stuff that in the end means very little.

I think there would be a large shift to focussing on the here and now, people wouldn’t “sacrifice” themselves, but rather consider how to help effectively and just like revenge, “reward is mine [to give] says the Lord!”
[/quote]
Notice Bob how you get the onus. What might you do or your beliefs do? Now you give an answer, which he will be skeptical about.

But he is not skeptical about his answer. What is his dasein based nihilism and bemoaning the unknown doing? Is it helping immigrants? He never needs to justify trying to spread his ideas. He has found a set of questions and activities and engages in them, just like everyone else. Yes, he doesn’t tell people to follow him, but he argues his case. He deconstrusts their ideas and evaluates both their origin and effects using his jargon. Is it helping? Now he can argue that he has no way to know if it helping since he has no way, at this time to know the good. Fine. But he is one of the sources of a kind of nihilism that judges anyone who can move forward into life without his hopelessness. The judgment may not be explicit, though it sometimes is: you have some kind of contraption, you are an objectivist (this is pejorative in his schema, and so is contraption though more implicitly).

What does all this…do?
What is its effect on immigrants?

The odd implicit objectivist judgment that we should be doing something to ameliorate the plight of refugees - do you Bob, live up to this judgment? - even though he presents as not an objectivist.

To me it is a meeting with a tearing down, a deconstruction, and this can be useful.

And this tearing down will put the onus on you, over and over.

And one can wonder if this deconstruction will make the lives of refugees better or your life better, even just on a feeling level, forget morals.

I think that the problem isn’t as big as you think. Agreed, there are many people with a simplistic approach, but by and large, the average church-goer wants to hear things that he believes he has worked out for himself and thereby receive confirmation. The general gist of Christian teaching regarding the OT is that one should “look for Jesus”, meaning that one should leave the questionable parts as outdated and take on the parts that are not contradictory. Paul definitely teaches a Gospel that supersedes the OT since the NT is the fulfillment of the OT.

And I think that the trial and error method, despite the availability of personal experience in others, is not something you can criticise. Children have often to feel the pain before they understand what mother means by “ouch”.

I agree that it is often difficult talking to people about their faith from the metaphysical perspective. Many people have settled on a set of beliefs and only want confirmation. People like me just challenge their beliefs, even if I am showing them just how deep scripture goes. The fact that I have found another perspective isn’t at all helpful for some people, which is why I leave them to it. I still have many friends in the church who avoid asking me questions, and if they do, they find it all very disturbing, whereas I find my discovery helpful.

I think that there is no way around it. If I’m asked I must answer. There are enough people who don’t want to know, even if they are Christians.

I appreciate you pointing this out, but he does allow me to answer him. I think it is very important to be put to the test, and that he does. I would agree with you that his stance isn’t particularly productive, but if I give him his due, he has reasons for the skeptical approach. Of course, you can’t always trust what people say about themselves, but I have chosen to take things at their face value on forums like this. I can’t check it out, so why bother?

The lives of refugees are not the subject, they’re just thrown in, just like the hurricane was. It is hypothetical, no more. I don’t know if I live up to some eternal standard, I have the feeling that I do not. However, the attraction of Christianity is the forgiveness, which you haven’t earned either way.

The only thing I disagree with is the DNA part. Otherwise, the way in which human beings have coped with existential crises is largely as you say, but it is a construct that needs fleshing out.

Sure, though I am not fond of Paul. I can’t remember the details. Some kind of internal harshness. Or wants a harshness turned inward. But I have a different set of issues with the NT. I do think many Christians to manage to separare the wheat ( :icon-lol: ) from the chaff in daily life. There can be problems when they hit what are, for them, anomalies: transpersons, 9/11, large incursions of refugees. Suddenly some of the harsher parts of the Bible seep out, perhaps not consciously, but with effect.

yes.

One must in life pick and choose, I think. What to reveal, how deep to go. When to protect oneself or, to put it less dramatically, when to avoid unpleasance for oneself or even both parties. When to ‘see what happens’. I don’t have any rules for myself, though my approach has changed over time and it is more dependent on my particular mood and hard to track intuitive reactions to the person, context, their mood and so on.

A kind of commandment?

Of course. Not sure how he could prevent you doing that, but of course. He does not have the fault of silencing people or trying to. Quite the opposite. The questions keep on coming.

Absolutely.

Sure, I wasn’t getting at hidden motives. I was describing the process as I see it. I think given the nature of his framing, you will bear the onus and any attempt to shift the onus or to share the onus, will fail.

If you think of a couple relationship and you have one person who is always put in the position of having to justify the effects of their actions and idead, and the other, through whatever means, is never really in that position, most people would think that this is an imbalance, a problem. Though probably most of us have allowed that imbalance that at some point and probably most of us, at least around some issue or in some period, have been the one who puts the onus on the other as a rule. And you and he are not in a couple relationship (yet, lol). But I think it is important in general to note that when two worldviews meet or set of heuristics meet through the people who believe in them, then each bears the onus for the effects of their worldview if either one does.

Otherwise it’s a bit like having a judgmental stepfather or a harsh, judgmental auditory hallucination. O:)

I think in Christianity, despite all the Jesus dying for our sins stuff, it is earned in the sense that you need to ‘get it.’ You need to realize it was wrong. You cannot think it was ok and apologize. You need to feel that you wouldn’t want to do it again. Not because of Hell, but because you get the cruelness of your act or attitude, say. Your empathy is awakened and applied to the act or attitude. You regret it.

Of course, I could be projecting, but I think, in the main, Christians don’t believe the forgiveness is without a change. I just looked up the eytmology of ‘earn’ which, it turns out, I love. It comes from ‘to do harvest work’. I was going to say that it perhaps isn’t the best metaphor since it has to do with labor for money. But I think, in a sense, it is work. I suppose I would call it brave introspection.

Note there is the primal hardwired elements of the DNA and there are the softwired elements.
The primal hardwired elements and programs of the DNA are the construction of the whole basic physical human, consciousness, primal instincts and the likes evolved and programmed from over 3 billion years [single celled entities] to the present complex humans.

The softwired elements are the various forms of physical and mental elements that are programmed from nurturing factors from the later hundred thousands of years.
For example, that different humans has different skin tones is due to their exposure to different environment and their adaption to it since a long time.
These has to be programmed in the DNA, else how are babies born with White, brown, yellow, black skin tones.

The existential crisis is a softwired kind of algorithm from a combination of the primal instincts and other later sub-routines. This is passed on to the next generations [active in many] via the DNA codings i.e. nature. If not, how else?

Yes, this sort of thinking is ineffably embedded in a brain that can precipitate a mind and that can precipitate an “I” able to think this.

And, here and now, I can’t even begin to explain that myself. It might be traced back to a God, the God, my God…or to the God of Spinioza…or to a wholly determined universe in which all of this is only ever as it ever could have been. And that’s before we get to simulated worlds, and dream worlds and Matrix/Inception realities.

That’s why I can only come back to the part where whatever you have come to define God to be, you are able to demonstrate that it reflects the most rational definition of all.

Otherwise, in my view, it all becomes entangled in “I” as the embodiment of dasein.

But this sort of “general description” assessment [like mine above] still needs to be explored/encompassed existentially by focusing in on actual behaviors chosen by actual individuals in relationship to the manner in which they define God. Otherwise it all gets yanked up into the stratosphere of dueling definitions and deductions. Natural laws either explain all of our behaviors, or God is involved, or, sans God, we are able to choose freely to think, feel, say and do the things that we opt for.

But how then to actually prove that?

But existence itself [to most religious people] is synonymous with God. Just as [ultimately[ nature must be.

But: Gun control, immigration, the consumption of animals, gender roles, the role of government, immigration, war and peace, capital punishment, abortion, busing, separation of church and state, and on and on and on: With or without God, what constitutes a positive in life? Clearly, given particular political policies, what some see as overcoming suffering, others see as creating it.

And that’s when, in presuming a No God world, the components of my own philosophy kick in.

Which just brings me back to this:

1] someone defines God in a particular way
2] this definition then allows them to reflect on the relationship between God, nature, natural disasters and mere mortals coping with the terrible results of them

But: How does their definition of God account for the fact that mere mortals are left to cope with the consequences of disasters that can only be attributed to God Himself?

Yes, but we still need to bring less restrictive views down to earth and explore them in a particular context. And then connect the dots between that and Judgment Day. A cafeteria Christian gets to pick and choose the behaviors that he or she presumes is okay with God. But then any number of other far more orthodox denominations protest vigorously that this is not the case at all. So, how then ought God to be defined here in order to reconcile this? Again, with so much at stake throughout all of eternity: immortality, salvation, divine justice.

But then all societies have to deal with natural disasters. And millions upon millions have been forced to fight to survive regarding calamities that are anything but man-made.

With regard to man-made struggles, who gets to actually decide who is to blame for this or that experience going terribly wrong? Who gets to decide how individuals from the inside out can make things right? What things? In what contexts? Given whose rendition of rewards and punishment?

And are we to just dismiss altogether the part played by those struggling to upend the policies of the rich and powerful who own and operate the global economy. Hoping against hope that they have a “revolution of the soul” in sync with what you construe to be “the right thing to do”?

In other words, from my point of view this sort of assessment…

…is just another classic example of the “general description”. The mentality of those who do not construe human interaction as I do given the points raised in my signature threads.

Their own non-ideological “revolution of the soul” all comes together “in their head” to create this wonderful rendition of how the world could be: youtu.be/Nz9BNwbKM0M

Some with God, some without.

Well, until [like most things] it all becomes “politicized”: npr.org/2012/01/13/14505950 … -bad-thing

Or, rather, so it all seems to me.

I agree that Christians often have difficulties in coping with modern life, but I must stand up for the fact that life in our western societies is getting ridiculous in many places. Christians are given a picture of harmony that can work but face a disharmonious world. It isn’t fair to make such conditions the norm and criticise people for their inability to cope.
Having said that, I think that the call of Christ to love one’s neighbours is so universal, that when you find people with misgivings or even outright hate of “others”, then you are right about them missing the mark. Paul does provide a vocabulary for such ill-feelings, which is where my problems with Paul lies. Discomfort is okay, but hate is clearly wrong.

I agree, that would be a more suitable approach.

No, but it is a requirement if you want to stay authentic.

I’m glad you noted that I am not in a relationship, but just reacting in a discussion. Like I said, having the onus is something you have to accept if you are going to actively stand up for a worldview. We have lost the ability to argue our cause and there are millions just sitting on the fence. That makes it difficult, but obviously, we haven’t spread the ability to express views enough or made people able to think for themselves, even though they assume sitting on the fence is an expression of their views.

I agree, and I must thank Jordan Peterson for putting it in terms that are not necessarily religious: The natural course of the world and everything in it is entropy, degeneration, and decay. If you align yourself with that, everything goes down the drain. If instead, you align yourself with all that is wholesome, uplifting and orderly, then you can reverse that course for the time that you can keep it up. Therefore, righteousness is an active behaviour that is preventing degeneration.

I know that several Christians told me that I was being too radical, but unless it makes a difference, you haven’t accepted forgiveness. This is born out by the etymological meaning of earn, which as you say, is work. We have to work at preventing degeneration if we are Christian.