Brian Greene and Richard Dawkins Discuss God

Quote:Why would you even think that freedom requires doing evil? What is wrong with you?

Didn't say that. Freewill merely requires the possibility of choosing to do evil. You can't get credit for choosing good if choosing evil was not possible to begin with.

(Aug 23, 2026 07:02 AM)Magical Realist Wrote:

Quote:Why would you even think that freedom requires doing evil? What is wrong with you?

Didn't say that. Freewill merely requires the possibility of choosing to do evil. You can't get credit for choosing good if choosing evil was not possible to begin with.

Do you see how you keep absolutely avoiding huge parts of my replies? No? Meh.

Yes, free will requires the ability to choose otherwise. Duh.

(Aug 22, 2026 08:19 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: A God is not synchronicity or collective consciousness. It is a very specific kind of person and being who has infinite power and lots of arbitrary demands. No such being has ever turned up in my experience. Lots of vague fantasy-induced euphorias involving something called his holy spirit. But nothing near to what is claimed for such a being.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Ignorance of this fatal flaw in your reasoning makes you susceptible to error. The shaky foundations on which you base your atheism can easily be detroyed by cogent reasoning (such as my argument entitled "One X, Therefore One God", which I wrote when I was elevated in intellect). Please, if you are going to base your atheism on shaky foundations, at least pretend to be a little bit open-minded.

Your high rambling are not cogent, logical arguments. They hurt your point much more than they help.

(Aug 23, 2026 07:28 PM)Ostronomos Wrote:

(Aug 22, 2026 08:19 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: A God is not synchronicity or collective consciousness. It is a very specific kind of person and being who has infinite power and lots of arbitrary demands. No such being has ever turned up in my experience. Lots of vague fantasy-induced euphorias involving something called his holy spirit. But nothing near to what is claimed for such a being.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

And lazy aphorisms can sometimes have a ring of truth which doesn't align with facts.  Absence of evidence, when determined with rigor, can often suggest absence as the most probable reason.  We often have a web of knowledge, of collateral facts about the world which connects with common sense when we find no evidence of something.

Looking everywhere a hypothesized thing might be and finding nothing lowers the odds it is there.  

If a claim predicts a clear, observable sign, not seeing that sign counts against the claim.  We shift the probability downward.

Forensic science is full of examples.  Absence of certain trace materials one would reasonably expect to find if a crime had been committed in a certain way is strong evidence against a particular claim.

Or in zoology.  Absence of leopard tracks or hairs or other traces in the area of a carcass would greatly decrease probability that a leopard was involved.

(Aug 23, 2026 07:28 PM)Ostronomos Wrote:

(Aug 22, 2026 08:19 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: A God is not synchronicity or collective consciousness. It is a very specific kind of person and being who has infinite power and lots of arbitrary demands. No such being has ever turned up in my experience. Lots of vague fantasy-induced euphorias involving something called his holy spirit. But nothing near to what is claimed for such a being.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Ignorance of this fatal flaw in your reasoning makes you susceptible to error. The shaky foundations on which you base your atheism can easily be detroyed by cogent reasoning (such as my argument entitled "One X, Therefore One God", which I wrote when I was elevated in intellect). Please, if you are going to base your atheism on shaky foundations, at least pretend to be a little bit open-minded.

I have over the years and thru experimentation with my own consciousness come up with my own ways of being spiritual without being religious--- of being agnostically mystical without being doxastically theistic. I cannot reconcile the inherent absolutivity and totalitarianism of a God-ruled universe with my own need to be a free and autonomous being. That type of moralism, in which everything gets framed in terms of submitting to an outside will, is so repugnant to me that I will never return to it. As of now, I live freely in a glorious and numinous reality that cannot itself be defined and yet continuously implicates me in some sort of yet-to-be-revealed narrative or game.

(Aug 23, 2026 11:20 PM)TheVat Wrote: Absence of evidence, when determined with rigor, can often suggest absence as the most probable reason.  We often have a web of knowledge, of collateral facts about the world which connects with common sense when we find no evidence of something.

Not applicable to the topic under discussion here.

(Aug 23, 2026 11:20 PM)TheVat Wrote:

(Aug 23, 2026 07:28 PM)Ostronomos Wrote:

(Aug 22, 2026 08:19 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: A God is not synchronicity or collective consciousness. It is a very specific kind of person and being who has infinite power and lots of arbitrary demands. No such being has ever turned up in my experience. Lots of vague fantasy-induced euphorias involving something called his holy spirit. But nothing near to what is claimed for such a being.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

And lazy aphorisms can sometimes have a ring of truth which doesn't align with facts.  Absence of evidence, when determined with rigor, can often suggest absence as the most probable reason.  We often have a web of knowledge, of collateral facts about the world which connects with common sense when we find no evidence of something.

Looking everywhere a hypothesized thing might be and finding nothing lowers the odds it is there.  

If a claim predicts a clear, observable sign, not seeing that sign counts against the claim.  We shift the probability downward.

Forensic science is full of examples.  Absence of certain trace materials one would reasonably expect to find if a crime had been committed in a certain way is strong evidence against a particular claim.

Or in zoology.  Absence of leopard tracks or hairs or other traces in the area of a carcass would greatly decrease probability that a leopard was involved.

Mindless matter is the ONLY alternative to God. And it was, along with materialistic reductionism, disproven. Therefore, we can be certain that God is real. 

I myself can attest to this. As I have access to a 6th sense.

The common sense reality does not align with a God. You must abandon common sense and embrace the reality of the Quantum to break the barrier between oneself and truth. God is the ultimate truth.

Oh-kayyy. (backs quietly from room)

(Aug 24, 2026 07:08 PM)TheVat Wrote: Oh-kayyy. (backs quietly from room)

LOL

“The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”― Joseph Campbell, Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research