I enjoy talking to a person who takes care with their words. We, of necessity, lack certainty when talking about some things, E.G. “the existence of God.” It has never been possible (for me at least) to further build on that uncertainty.
To: Marshall McDaniel
Agreed. I think that the notion of certainty fails when it comes to imperceptibles, but that there still exists that old “neuronal insistence” when it comes to beliefs. Neuronal insistence is simply my term for the fact that :
(1) If the brain is indeed responsible for the shape and existence of conscious experience, then the brain is also responsible for beliefs;
(2) As such, the natural processes of the world that then impose upon and cause the nature of our neural processes in turn will by the nature of those processes produce the nature of our beliefs about the world;
(3) The nature of those beliefs then come from the “chance” causal interactions of the physical universe by how the causal web of the environment enmeshes the firing of our neurons;
(4) If this is true, then belief in the existence of God is imposed on some beings (theists) by Nature, and disbelief in the existence of God is imposed on some beings (atheists) by the same random acts of Nature.
(5) Subjectively, we claim that such beliefs come from teachings and “brainwashing” and doctrine or intellectual realization and so on, but it must be remembered that if the brain is behind everything, all of this is a result of the random causal interactions of Nature in the firing of our neurons.
(One person because of the way his neurons fire becomes a serial killer, the other person a social worker)
(If one claims that our neural destiny is not “random” but follows a consistent set of rules, does that not help a proponent of the absence of free will by implying a sort of “constraint” on the neural destiny, thereby in turn implying a higher determinism that notions of “randomness” would seem to loosen?)
(6) The uncertainty of the existence (and nonexistence) of imperceptibles would in turn open the door (by neuronal insistence in the form of deceptiveness or philosophical inquiry into epistemic “loopholes”-take your pick!) for a view of the world as containing a Judeo-Christian God as a disembodied conscious mind that “telekinetically” overdetermines the other four forces of the natural or physical world to yield a world in precisely the way that the world appears. If such a world is, then it would certainly be a world that does not make an effort to rise above the “uncertainty level” to skeptics after all.
(7) Such a theistically “lazy” version of the real world could stand the test against atheistic skepticism, but it would easily fall into the “convenient worlds” list. I can admit that. I suppose the uncertainty level to a skeptic SHOULD be raised by the appearance of miracles and all that, but I digress on this to at least the support of a theistically “lazy” world that appears and acts JUST LIKE a godless world yet containing a God.
My opine,
Jay M. Brewer
phenomenal_graffiti@yahoo.com