Bob wrote:Prismatic567 wrote:The question of consciousness, i.e. the hard problem, does not warrant anyone to jump to the conclusion God exists.
What you missed out is the criticalness of the existential crisis and the terrible impulses manifesting from it.
An existential crisis is, as I have already said, not something to ignore. It forces people to recount what they consider important, valuable and desirable. It is, after all a matter of existence.
Here are the facts surrounding the existential crisis;
1. DNA wise all humans are programmed with terrible fears under any threats [real or apparent] of premature death.
There is no proof that the fears of humanity is genetic, but rather they start from the moment the unborn experiences its existence in the womb. Fear is reactive, even if the stimulus is imagined, and the body goes into flight or fight mode – to the degree at which it is able.
2. This is why babies and children will be very fearful and cry if they are away from their parents. They will feel relieved and secured in the presence of their parents.
The parent, usually the mother, is the only interaction it knows of and when this interaction is terminated (even in the short term), the baby cries until another soothing influence is given. The baby is getting to know its environment and its experiences in a spiral outwards. If it experiences something unpleasant it will cry. However, the experience of the child teaches it when to cry and they are not fearful from the beginning.
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 Fearhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear#Signs_and_symptoms This is proof, fear [primal and emotion] is genetic.
3. But for adults, they are endowed with self-awareness to be aware from empirical evidence, death is inevitable. While most can suppress the thought of death at the conscious level to some degrees, there is nothing to prevent the more stronger 90% subconscious mind to pick up this fact of death.
Self-awareness grows on people and young children can be confronted with death so that it becomes a reality for them. Once children realise that something as final as death can happen, they fear it. However, we all suppress the thought of death until we are reminded by circumstance.
4. At the subconscious level, a cognitive dissonance is generated, i.e. the person don't want to die but death is inevitable. Note more to the subconscious mind than the conscious.
A mental discomfort (psychological stress) can be experienced by any person who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, but it isn’t necessarily the case with death. Many people go through life blissfully ignorant until confronted with death.
5. This cognitive dissonance at the sub-conscious level in ALL humans generate terrible angst, anxieties and despairs to drive the mind to seek solutions to relieve this terrible mental sufferings.
I don’t believe that the fear of death is always present. The may be fears, like suffocating for example, but the fear is mostly concerned with the experience rather than its consequence. There are many fears that a human being can have without it being a fear of death.
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 deathDNA 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 deathThis 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.
6. For the majority of humans, the idea of God [despite factually illusory] is twisted and bent by the subconscious mind to be real and thus provide instant relief to the terrible mental sufferings.
No. God is not always the relief of fear, but the all-seeing eye. There are many children who are brought up on the idea that God is only good and they are quite shocked when they read that God is also a source of fear. I don’t see the instant relief, especially because many children have no idea of a God in the Judaeo-Christian sense. There are enough children in the West that only become aware of something called God when they are confronted with the idea in school or church. That can be relatively late. Then it is also a question of how the parents opinions influence children.
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.
7. For the non-theists they will find other non-theistic solutions which could be good or evil.
Like what exactly?
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.
For all the deflections and excuses you gave above, you cannot avoid the above fact of the existential crisis.
As I had stated the idea of God is manifested from very crude reasons, e.g.
-Every creation must have a creator [from cause and effect]
-The vast universe is an existing creation
-Only God the omnipotent an create a vast universe.
-Therefore God exists
You really push your argument that this reasoning is something that everybody goes through. I didn’t, for a start. I experienced Sunday school as a place where we were told stories that we immediately forgot when we left the room. I couldn’t even relate them to my mother, despite being an imaginative child. In all my games, God wasn’t a part of them, despite being “impressionable”. Speaking to other people, there are many who grew up completely ignorant of the idea of God.
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.
My first experience was when, at 11, I was on a summer camp run by Christians who read the Bible to us. On the way back, we had to cross the Bristol Channel on a small ferry and were caught up in a storm. Despite the storm being something I had never experienced in that way before, with the sea rising up above the boat only to fall immediately afterwards, I wasn’t scared. Waves came crashing on deck, soaking all those who were hanging over the rail to be sick. I was enthralled by the experience and felt quite safe, and connected for the first time with the God of my imagination.
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.
https://www.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.
The above is driven by crude reasoning without proper empirical groundings and each premise is full of holes but theists would not give a damn with proper reasoning and justifications as long as what they thought of is sufficient to relieve the terrible mental pains exuding from the above existential crisis.
Why such bad logic is accepted is because the belief in a God [despite illusory] really works to relieve the mental sufferings and in many cases almost immediately.
I don’t see many people with “terrible mental pains”, and especially not in church. I don’t know where you get this from. People do experience suffering in its various forms but their immediate reaction is not to believe in a God that will relieve that.
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.
If you were to research the scriptures of all religions, the main purpose for the believers are focused on the eschatological and salvation, for most the assurance of going to heaven with eternal life [a relief to the existential crisis].
You obviously haven’t read scripture. The book of Genesis first describes the situation of humanity in a myth that is very truthful in its estimation. It then goes on to describe the situation of the world. Then there is the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which are all very cryptic and gives food for thought. It is followed by the story of Israel, the rise of Kings and finally prophets.
The NT commences with the tragedy of Christ, follows with the hope of Christianity and letters to the communities and ends with Revelations, a book with seven seals. It is what theology takes from that great anthology that turns it into what you have said.
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.
The relieving and maintaining of the resolution of the natural existential crisis at the subconscious level is so critical that many believers are willing to kill if there is a threat to their belief or a calling by God to do so. [note Abraham willingness to sacrifice his son].
Such a permission is sanctioned within the Quran - words of Allah, the core scripture of Islam.
Christianity [based on Gospel] is basically a pacifist religion but it has it other negatives in hindering the progress of humanity.
Hearsay I’m afraid. It is what people with little knowledge of the Bible assume, but once you get to know it, it becomes quite another thing.
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.
While theism provide instant relief for the existential crisis which is good since past years but it has it cons. The point why serious criticisms of theism is needed now and the future is because its cons are slowly outweighing its pros toward the future.
For God to provide the maximum assurance to relieve the existential crisis, God has to be perfect, totally unconditional and second to none. But a God with such qualities is impossible to be real.
What is real is that which can be empirically justified with philosophical reasonings [not groundless crude reasons].
Thus God manifesting out of crude reasons necessarily to deal with the inherent unavoidable existential crisis is an impossibility to be real, i.e. a transcendental illusion.
I’m sure there are people like you describe, but all of them? I think not. You shouldn’t whitewash everyone with your theories.
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.
I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.