Dear Theist...

[Lion IRC]

So I guess God is not imaginary, because God IS "perceived as real". Just not by you. It is also present to the senses. It is a feeling. When you feel angry are you sensing something? Is your anger real? There is a chemical state of your body that you feel and label anger. There is a chemical state of the body that people attribute to God. This is in fact the principle argument that God "exists", like your argument that "red" exists even though red has no existence independent of the "perception". (Out there are only molecules and photons bouncing around.)

The argument has been made that God must exist because we know right from wrong. In terms of your definition of "exist" this is exactly right. The only way that we know right from wrong is as a feeling, a sensed bodily emotional state. If you doubt this, read the book "Descartes Error" by the neurologist Antonio Damasio. He also argues that the associations between the representations in your brain and the bodily emotional states that they produce are in some part innate, or hard-wired at birth. Some people hold onto the illusion that all choices in life are resolved by some kind of rational conscious cost/benefit analysis of the incoming representations. Not likely. But that cognitive illusion does obviate the need to be present to the power of the limbic driver over our responses. We can always have reasons after the fact, so we can still avoid the reality that our life decisions are not consciously owned and there is no 'I' to make them.

God is mostly that thing which tells us right from wrong and champions the "right", which is really nothing but our innate "social" drives in conflict with our innate "selfish" drives. It's why God gets blamed for all the groupish things we do with our pecking orders and territoriality (again apparently quite necessary to our replication although unpleasant from our individual perspective). It's all just the kind of agent metaphor that the brain finds comfortable, like Zeus throwing down the lightning bolts, or you manifesting yourself at your keyboard.

When we want to hold onto our illusion of rationality and the conscious control of our agent 'I', then the power of the limbic driver seems too scary to deal with (particularly when manifested as the power of the group over our individual 'I'). It is natural to want to dismiss it all as a delusion.

Thanks Hiyymer,
I was just starting to wonder if this was just going to be another flippant thread.
I think one of the many reasons we can be sure about God is the persistent appearance of theism in humanity.
Just as hunger is proof of the existence of food, the proto-human who receives no external "teaching" or "indoctrination" about "the divine" (because there is no one to teach this in the first place) has a sensation of God existing.
Arif Ahmed said our senses are the primary means of deriving empirical evidence of "things".
I dont think "touch" and "sight" are as empirically finite as we currently "think".
A blind, deaf, mute, quadraplegic can still "sense" things - especially when unconscious.
Lion (IRC)
PS - Let the record show that the OP started it. This is not "preaching". (Shame on me!)

[Feck]

Is a delusion real just because lots of people have a similar one ?

[charlou]

PS - Let the record show that the OP started it. This is not "preaching". (Shame on me!)

There's no proscription of preaching here

[Animavore]

I think one of the many reasons we can be sure about God is the persistent appearance of theism in humanity.

So the common human trait of using their abundant imagination to fill in an answer where there is none is proof that all of these magical answers, from creation stories to other worlds, actually exist?

Pull the other one.

[devogue]

So I guess God is not imaginary, because God IS "perceived as real".

But perceiving something as real does not necessarily bestow "realness" on it. If I perceive that your fine post is real I can ask other people to independently verify its reality. But if I say that I really, genuinely perceive unicorns in my mind as real is that enough to persuade you that they are not imaginary?

Just not by you. It is also present to the senses. It is a feeling. When you feel angry are you sensing something? Is your anger real? There is a chemical state of your body that you feel and label anger.

Anger in itself is real, as is love, jealousy, hatred and other emotions. As you say they are the manifestations of a chemical (and electrical) state in my body. However, they are real reactions to particular stimuli. The crucial question is "is the stimulus real?" I have no doubt at all that people feel love and passion for God, that their belief and faith are real - that is not in doubt. But there is no evidence that the actual stimulus, the God concept, is real.

There is a chemical state of the body that people attribute to God. This is in fact the principle argument that God "exists", like your argument that "red" exists even though red has no existence independent of the "perception". (Out there are only molecules and photons bouncing around.)

This major "God of the Gaps" stuff. The all powerful, omniscient creator of the universe reduced to the level of qualia. I admit that the "essence of red" is mysterious, but how is the "essence of God" (which is not analogous) transported from the minds of advanced primates to the external universe? Why doesn't "red" have supernatural qualities and powers?

The argument has been made that God must exist because we know right from wrong.

And I think it's a very weak argument, a stupendous, gigantic, conceited extrapolation.

In terms of your definition of "exist" this is exactly right. The only way that we know right from wrong is as a feeling, a sensed bodily emotional state. If you doubt this, read the book "Descartes Error" by the neurologist Antonio Damasio.

I would agree with that, but which is more likely - that our sense of right and wrong is a result of "blind", "beneficial" evolutionary psychology or the hard wiring by a supernatural agent?

He also argues that the associations between the representations in your brain and the bodily emotional states that they produce are in some part innate, or hard-wired at birth.

By a designer? As per the OP - where's the evidence?

Some people hold onto the illusion that all choices in life are resolved by some kind of rational conscious cost/benefit analysis of the incoming representations. Not likely. But that cognitive illusion does obviate the need to be present to the power of the limbic driver over our responses. We can always have reasons after the fact, so we can still avoid the reality that our life decisions are not consciously owned and there is no 'I' to make them.

Sorry, I don't think I understand that. Are you saying that the conscious choices we make are illusory and that our emotions make the decisions for us - that it isn't possible to make a purely rational, conscious choice about anything because everything action has an underlying emotional factor? I would again point to my argument above - that emotions are real and valid, but the stimuli for emotions does not need to be. I remember imagining monsters in my mind while closing my eyes and trying to sleep - terrifying. I often had to turn on the light. The terror was real, the monster was not.

God is mostly that thing which tells us right from wrong and champions the "right", which is really nothing but our innate "social" drives in conflict with our innate "selfish" drives. It's why God gets blamed for all the groupish things we do with our pecking orders and territoriality (again apparently quite necessary to our replication although unpleasant from our individual perspective). It's all just the kind of agent metaphor that the brain finds comfortable, like Zeus throwing down the lightning bolts, or you manifesting yourself at your keyboard.

It looks like you are saying that God is our conscience. Why not just call it our conscience and leave out the God bit? Yes, God may be a metaphor, an attempt by our brains to make sense of things, a comfortable sofa that many of us like to park our minds on with a hot chocolate while a November storm howls outside. But does it exist outside the imagination? No.

When we want to hold onto our illusion of rationality and the conscious control of our agent 'I', then the power of the limbic driver seems too scary to deal with (particularly when manifested as the power of the group over our individual 'I'). It is natural to want to dismiss it all as a delusion.

It's not dismissing our core psychology as a delusion - it's not dismissing our emotional responses and the hold they have over us. It is dismissing the phenomenon of "God" as a mental construct not based in reality actually creating reality, our external universe.

[hiyymer]

Is a delusion real just because lots of people have a similar one ?

I have just argued that the representation that a lot of people call God actually represents something which relates to the experience of sensed bodily emotional states and their role in determining our responses, just as the color red represents a wavelength of light but does not exist out there as the quality red as we experience it. One could argue that the experience of certain greens is a delusion, because people who are color blind do not ever experience that particular color. Not everyone experiences it as transparently real, so it must be a delusion.

[Trolldor]

Our consciousness is not required for anything to exist in any state, try again.

[hiyymer]

I think one of the many reasons we can be sure about God is the persistent appearance of theism in humanity.

So the common human trait of using their abundant imagination to fill in an answer where there is none is proof that all of these magical answers, from creation stories to other worlds, actually exist?

Pull the other one.

Is the color red using our abundant imagination to fill in an answer where there is none. No it's a "real" perception, just as God is a real perception to many people. I would even argue that we all know what someone means by God, even if the perception is not "real" to us. The fact that some people, who experience God, also assert that certain mythological stories actually happened is not an argument relative to the experience of God. The whole issue of trying to raise the experience of God to something which is an all powerful agent existing in the scientific what really is, is not the same problem. I will join you in arguing against any such effort. It's really just a power trip. God is in our heads. So is everything else we experience. The only standard of what really is is what can be determined provisionally by induction. But give us a break. We can't live in what really is, for it is deterministic and devoid of meaning. I would never single God out for elimination on the grounds that it is only experienced, for our experience is all we have to live by. There is no good or bad anywhere else.

[devogue]

Oh, hiyymer...

Thanks for that thing about "red" - I had never consdiered it before. I'll never be convinced there is a supernatural explanation, but it is utterly bizarre and mind-melting. It reminds me of Aquinas' theory about transubstantiation - trying to explain the "redness" of red is like trying to explain or grasp infinity.

[Trolldor]

lol. "Redness" of red.
The redness of red isn't like trying to grasp infinity, it's like trying to translate the light spectrum in to information.

[devogue]

lol. "Redness" of red.
The redness of red isn't like trying to grasp infinity, it's like trying to translate the light spectrum in to information.

Yes, but the information is interpreted by our brains as "red". Why is red "red" - where does that actual colour that we so take for granted come from? I know this is a bit silly, but please indulge me for a second and imagine our brains had interpreted the different wavelengths of light as patterns, so "red" would be monochrome clusters of hexagons, "green" would be monochrome clusters of triangles and so on. In such a scenario the concept of red as a "colour" would be just completely inexplicable because our minds would be completely unable to grasp the concept of colour.

Explain the colour red to me. Explain the mind's interpretation of that particular wavelength of light. Explain the properties of "red".

[hiyymer]

Oh, hiyymer...

Thanks for that thing about "red" - I had never consdiered it before. I'll never be convinced there is a supernatural explanation, but it is utterly bizarre and mind-melting. It reminds me of Aquinas' theory about transubstantiation - trying to explain the "redness" of red is like trying to explain or grasp infinity.

I don't think it's all that strange, if you consider that our experience is a part of a biological mechanism which has been created over the eons by a process of trail and error called evolution. The only requirement of our experience is that it works, not that it is an accurate representation of what really exists. Color is an elegant solution for distinguishing things in the visual field, and works pretty much that way for a whole range of species, whether they see chartreuse where we see red or not. Very good for distinguishing pray or predator or a tasty morsel. Consciousness is ultimately just an integrated view of the stimuli to which the subconscious brain responds. It's a mystery, but it's function doesn't seem to be. Consider "you" in your experience in the same light.

[BlackBart]

After you with that Spliff, man

[Animavore]

I think one of the many reasons we can be sure about God is the persistent appearance of theism in humanity.

So the common human trait of using their abundant imagination to fill in an answer where there is none is proof that all of these magical answers, from creation stories to other worlds, actually exist?

Pull the other one.

Is the color red using our abundant imagination to fill in an answer where there is none. No it's a "real" perception, just as God is a real perception to many people. I would even argue that we all know what someone means by God, even if the perception is not "real" to us. The fact that some people, who experience God, also assert that certain mythological stories actually happened is not an argument relative to the experience of God. The whole issue of trying to raise the experience of God to something which is an all powerful agent existing in the scientific what really is, is not the same problem. I will join you in arguing against any such effort. It's really just a power trip. God is in our heads. So is everything else we experience. The only standard of what really is is what can be determined provisionally by induction. But give us a break. We can't live in what really is, for it is deterministic and devoid of meaning. I would never single God out for elimination on the grounds that it is only experienced, for our experience is all we have to live by. There is no good or bad anywhere else.

What the hell are you even talking about? Red is something I can see. The t-shirt I have on right now is red. So what? Most people agree on what red is except those that are colour blind. People who say they experience "god(s)" do not agree on what it is. Some say it's "love", others "hate", some say "awe", some say it's "mystery", the fact that people can't uncouple their descriptions of god(s) from their human emotions or experiences suggests that, rather that there is a god, they are mistaken. You have to ask which is more likely? Is there a god that created us, or do the anthropomorphic analogies and descriptions of god(s) suggest that we created god out of our imagination?
I'm going with the latter. The former is just too silly to take seriously.

[Trolldor]

lol. "Redness" of red.
The redness of red isn't like trying to grasp infinity, it's like trying to translate the light spectrum in to information.

Yes, but the information is interpreted by our brains as "red". Why is red "red" - where does that actual colour that we so take for granted come from? I know this is a bit silly, but please indulge me for a second and imagine our brains had interpreted the different wavelengths of light as patterns, so "red" would be monochrome clusters of hexagons, "green" would be monochrome clusters of triangles and so on. In such a scenario the concept of red as a "colour" would be just completely inexplicable because our minds would be completely unable to grasp the concept of colour.

Explain the colour red to me. Explain the mind's interpretation of that particular wavelength of light. Explain the properties of "red".

The actual "colour" comes from how the light reacts with our cells. 'red' is still red, even the red as we see it exists when we're not there. Nothing is dependant on our consciousness observing it. We merely have the tools to look at red in a particular manner.
Bats "see" in sound, does that mean that their sound is different to our sound? No, that's utter fucking nonsense. It's precisely the same sound viewed in a different way. Our 'view' of red, is a view of one characteristic, it isn't something created by us.