If you once believed...

I used to believe in God once, and I mean God; not Christianity, Islam or Hinduism (I AM officialy a Hindu, but I always believed that the Hindu mythology was a bunch of children's tales). I believed in an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent being.

But then (when I was about 6), I started noticing things. I noticed the absolute lack of any kind of proof. I noticed that Gpd never did anything... and slowly...I classified God like Santa Claus or the Easter bunny; a myth.
 
Crunchy Cat said:
I don't know what you consider to be 'mind'. If you're referring to thought, perception, memory, feeling, etc, clearly reality contradicts this.
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I was referring to the process that actually enables you to perceive, memorize, feel etc ("I think therefore I am").

If you think that reductionist models define this, then that is a contradiction
 
Cris said:
lg,

That you are probably using the wrong tool for the problem. The theory of emergence is probably more appropriate for this issue than the theory of reductionism. Although it is not clear what type of reductionism you are referencing.
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If you cannot draw a picture of the article that has "emerged" (in other words it disappears off your screen of perception) your theory has severe problems
 
cris
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but do you say that the basis for matter is pluralistic
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I think the intention was to contrast materialism from supernaturalism and nothing more.
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the question is whether matter is composed of several (or more correctly probably about 2 dozen according to reductionist paradigms) axioms that interchange (ie pluralism) or monism (there is an absolute cause or axiom upon which all other axioms hinge)
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(indicated by the numerous axioms present under current reductionist definitions)
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Reductionism isn’t relevant here since we can adequately view the mind as an emergent property of brain function.
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adequately view?
I doubt it.
How do you propose to see what you are seeing with?
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or monistic (there is some ground for einsteins unified field theory or some other similar thing)
”
Why is this relevant to the distinction of materialism versus dualism?
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mosism, pluralism and dualism exist independant of materialism and metaphysical paradigms.

That is you can have the view points of monistic materialism, dualistic materialism, pluralistic materialism as well as monistic transcendence etc etc
 
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lightgigantic said:
I was referring to the process that actually enables you to perceive, memorize, feel etc ("I think therefore I am").
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Good. In that case there is evidence that 'mind' exists. Neurons, dendrites, electrical stimulus, chemical reaction, drug inducment, EEG, brain damage, death are but a few supporting factors.

lightgigantic said:
If you think that reductionist models define this, then that is a contradiction
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I don't think I ever made any assertion about some reductionist model. If you want, I'll be magnanimous again and support it anyway.
 
Crunchy cat

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
I was referring to the process that actually enables you to perceive, memorize, feel etc ("I think therefore I am").
”
Good. In that case there is evidence that 'mind' exists. Neurons, dendrites, electrical stimulus, chemical reaction, drug inducment, EEG, brain damage, death are but a few supporting factors.
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Like most atheists that I bring this topic up with, you are confusing terms - all that you mention refer to the conceptualized self as opposed to the self as context - selfhood is not just "My name is jack smith" it is the very platform that enables an entity to develop a sense of I.

In other words even a brain damaged person feels confusion, happiness, terror etc - all of which are symptoms of selfhood.
 
lg,

In other words even a brain damaged person feels confusion, happiness, terror etc - all of which are symptoms of selfhood.
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But not if the areas damaged are those that are responsible for the emotions of happiness, terror, or confusion.

Selfhood cannot be seperated from the brain. It is the brain that maintains the state of selfhood. They are one and the same thing.
 
lightgigantic said:
Like most atheists that I bring this topic up with, you are confusing terms - all that you mention refer to the conceptualized self as opposed to the self as context - selfhood is not just "My name is jack smith" it is the very platform that enables an entity to develop a sense of I.

In other words even a brain damaged person feels confusion, happiness, terror etc - all of which are symptoms of selfhood.
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http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih4/self/guide/info-brain.htm

This information is a bit dated and I know there is better info out there. Brain trauma can affect and in some cases virtually eliminate a person's sense of self. I've seen TMS experiments where reduction of blood flow to a specific part of the brain reduces / eliminates a persons sense of self.

All existing supportive evidence shows that the sense of self is a result of the brain and not some nebulous 'soul'.
 
I was 12, sitting on a pew in an old arbor late at night. It was the arbor that sits in the middle of Pleasant Grove Campground, the site of a yearly revival that I have been going to since birth (I'm 31 now). My faith had been slacking steadily for many years leading up to this, but I was still praying at night out of habit, and pretending to REALLY believe out of fear. But this one night, I decided to test god by cussing at him loudly from the pew. I remember thinking that I was doing something really brave, as if I could have been killed by my loving god at any minute if I was wrong.

Looking back, it wasn't that this experience made me an atheist, I was already an atheist for a few years before this. What this experience did was sever the cord that had been brainwashed into my head. The cord of fear and social transgression. It got me over the hump of doubt and into the flat plains of full skepticism where I was able to roam with pride and confidence.

Since then, I have been quick to defend myself and my lack of superstition. Instead of allowing society to marginalize me, I prefer to point out to the superstitious just how bonkers they truly are.

Most of them wilt under the pressure. :)
 
New Life said:
I'm interested in finding out why people who were once believers in a God (any main religion really) choose to forsake that belief.
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I have always been boggled by how some people (mainly Christians) talk about "choosing" what to believe. Unless you are an irrational idiot, you can't "choose" your beliefs. Your beliefs are forced upon you by reason and evidence.

Suppose I offered walked up to you with a coin, a bag of money, and a gun. I toss the coin away as hard as I can, so that it lands far away where you can't see it. I then say "I will give you this bag of money if you believe that the coin landed with the heads-side up. If you don't believe that it landed heads-up, I will shoot you." Clearly in this case it is in your best interests to believe that the coin landed heads. But since you can't see the coin, there is no way of knowing and thus no way for you to believe that the coin landed heads-up. At best, you could lie and say that you believe that the coin landed heads - but in your mind you would still know that you really had no idea how it landed. Do you see my point? You can't choose to believe something despite the evidence, even if you wanted to believe it. If Christians really do simply "choose" to believe things, it implies that there is something deeply wrong with their fundamental thought processes.

Do you find yourself happier now?
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Again, the implication appears to be that whether or not something makes you happy has some bearing on how true it is. It would make me happy to believe that tomorrow I will be given a million dollars, but that doesn't mean that I believe it. It would make me very unhappy if a doctor told me that I had cancer, but I couldn't simply dismiss it just because I didn't like the idea.
 
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Crunchy Cat said:
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih4/self/guide/info-brain.htm

This information is a bit dated and I know there is better info out there. Brain trauma can affect and in some cases virtually eliminate a person's sense of self. I've seen TMS experiments where reduction of blood flow to a specific part of the brain reduces / eliminates a persons sense of self.

All existing supportive evidence shows that the sense of self is a result of the brain and not some nebulous 'soul'.
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As long as there is a sense of self there is life - when the sense of self is not there a person is dead
 
Cris said:
lg,

But not if the areas damaged are those that are responsible for the emotions of happiness, terror, or confusion.

Selfhood cannot be seperated from the brain. It is the brain that maintains the state of selfhood. They are one and the same thing.
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"Brain research has shown that systems occupying the posterior convexity of the cerebral hemisphere are innvolved in organizing Brentano's duality. When the parietal lobe systems are injured, the patient may no longer feel the arm on th e side opposite the brain injury to be his own. One of my students who sufferred such an injury dubbed her arm "Alice" and stated "Alice doesn't live here any more". Despite the loss of belongingness, the arm routinely performs many tasks , such as bringing a cup of coffee to the person's mouth, much to the surprise of the person when she realizes what has happened. Damage further back in the convexity produces "blind sight". Here again the person can perform many rountine tasks that demand an optical input from the blind side, but the patient is unaware of, is blind to, the input. With an intact brain , we are aware of ourselves as "seers" and of what is being seen.

In these and similar instances, awareness of one's bodily self and the environment is impaired. "Alice" isn't any longer part of me; this blind-sighted optically guided behavious isn't "mine". From such observations one can infer that ordinarily these brain systems operate to allow awareness of a corporeal "me" to occur. When impairment takes place, the distinction in awareness between perceiver and perceived no longer exists - much as a colourblind person cannot differentiate between red and green. In the absence of difference between perceiver and perceived (hand and cup; eye and colour) neither of them exists.

My main idea is to show where the different viewpoints come from, and then to have not only just an ontological monism, but also an epistemological pluralism. And the ontological monism comes essentially from one's experience"
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-Karl H Pribram

Pribram's holonomic model, developed in collaboration with quantum physicist David Bohm, theorizes that memory/information is stored not in cells, but rather in wave interference patterns. Pribram was drawn to this conclusion by two facts:

1. There are visual cortex response functions that correspond to Gabor functions, which in turn are related to hologram image functions.
2. Drastic lesions can be made in animal brains which reduce, but do not extinguish memories (training), as demonstrated by Karl Lashley in the 1920s.
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from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
 
spidergoat said:
I have lost my sense of self before.
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that was just your conceptualized self - if you lost your sense of thinking, feeling and willing you would be dead (and if you had a NDE it indcates that the self is not bound by current materialistic defintions, since your "self" would have completely disappeared off the screen only to reappear again (for something to reappear after disappearing it stands to logic that it must access a superior/unseen state of existence while in limbo)
 
I did lose my sense of thinking, feeling, and willing, and I wasn't dead or sleeping.


I must object to this:
for something to reappear after disappearing it stands to logic that it must access a superior/unseen state of existence while in limbo
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Not if it was a verb rather than a noun. Living is like a car running. When it is off, there is no limbo state of running, it simply has the potential to run under certain circumstances.
 
Crunchy Cat said:
When you're in dreamless sleep, there is no sense of self. Reality it seems contradicts your assertion.
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deep dreamless sleep is then similar to a NDE, which I have already given mention to


”
that was just your conceptualized self - if you lost your sense of thinking, feeling and willing you would be dead (and if you had a NDE it indcates that the self is not bound by current materialistic defintions, since your "self" would have completely disappeared off the screen only to reappear again (for something to reappear after disappearing it stands to logic that it must access a superior/unseen state of existence while in limbo)
 
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