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Author Topic:   Still small voice of God found
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 62 of 77 (789880)
08-21-2016 9:17 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by Tangle
08-21-2016 7:33 AM


Tangle writes:
If it helps, let's be specific, when you see a picture like this, is it god telling you to feel sorry for this person and want to help or is it a universal human reflex that's built into us - something we can't help?
When you see people who are prepared to blow themselves up in order to kill others including children then at the very least I would say that it isn't universal. For those of us that it does touch, I contend that one way or another it touches us because the ability to love is a gift that comes from God, no matter how He did it. I suggest also that it is a gift we can reject.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by Tangle, posted 08-21-2016 7:33 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by Tangle, posted 08-22-2016 4:56 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


(1)
Message 63 of 77 (789881)
08-21-2016 9:22 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by ringo
08-21-2016 2:11 PM


Re: God In A Box
ringo writes:
So you're just preaching Intelligent Design, which is just another form of creationism.
No. I'm theistic so I believe that there is an intelligent designer but I do not agree with "Intelligent Design" the political movement. They have corrupted a self-explanatory phrase and turned it into a movement to discredit evolution.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by ringo, posted 08-21-2016 2:11 PM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by ringo, posted 08-22-2016 11:44 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 68 of 77 (789946)
08-22-2016 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 64 by Tangle
08-22-2016 3:24 AM


Re: God In A Box
Tangle writes:
To be clear, I gave you a prime mover only for the purpose of the argument. My personal position is that we do not know and may never know but I believe (proper use of the word) that there isn't/wasn't one.
I think that's what I said but if it wasn't clear that's what I meant.
Tangle writes:
But as a matter of pure fact, empathy is a physical emotion that we are born with just like all our others. To some degree it can and is changed in a positive or negative way by our upbringing, but if there is a defect, it can not be added - hence sociopaths and pyschopaths.
It seems to me that when a child is born it really doesn't have anything more than a survival instinct, primarily the need to be fed. I would think that the child's emotional development starts pretty much right away after birth and starts to receive love, or possibly an absence of love which starts off the emotional development.
I agree that there can be a defect that causes psychopathic behaviour but I also think that this can come about through abuse or other triggers.
Tangle writes:
When the scientists are doing things like this....
But there are also scientists that do believe that God touches our heart so it isn't all that cut and dried. We both gravitate towards the ones that agree with our own position.
I am not going to debate about something that I have no idea of how to even pronounce.
Tangle writes:
If so why is he doing it less in some more in others and not at all in a few? And to what end? And are we not then puppets in his strings?
We are not puppets as we can observe, (on the assumption that my position is correct), people do respond to a large extent or to virtually no extent at all. We are free to reject it completely.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 64 by Tangle, posted 08-22-2016 3:24 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by Tangle, posted 08-22-2016 3:56 PM GDR has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 69 of 77 (789948)
08-22-2016 2:02 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Tangle
08-22-2016 4:56 AM


Tangle writes:
Those that kill others do it for many reasons - when your country dropped the A bomb twice on Japan it did it for complex competing and very human reasons and despite our knowledge of the devastating human consequencies. When we saw the picture of the napalmed girl in the Vietnam war we all instinctively cried out for her - only a psycopath couldn't. But the war continued. Our evolved brain has both primitive and automatic functions and the later developed cognative functions that overcome them.
First off, I'm Canadian. There is nothing there though that I don't agree with. I just don't see that as either supportive of either the theistic or the atheistic position.
Tangle writes:
You have your target incorrectly identified. Empathy is a primitive reflex developed in other primates and lower order animals, we are the only species that is able to override those reflexes with conscious thought of cause and effect. If you must plant your god somewhere in us it's in the prefrontal cortex where executive processing and cognitive functioning occurs.
Fair enough, but as I said in another thread there is a big difference between feeling empathy for the starving children in Africa for example and actually doing something about it that negatively affects our own situation. Some people will feel empathy and say "isn't that awful"; some will donate financially and maybe even enough that they keep the old car instead of buying a new one, and some, like some of the doctors I know, actually travel there risking there own health in order to help out.
There is a difference between feeling empathy and actually doing something sacrificially.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Tangle, posted 08-22-2016 4:56 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Tangle, posted 08-22-2016 4:29 PM GDR has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


(1)
Message 70 of 77 (789949)
08-22-2016 2:09 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by ringo
08-22-2016 11:44 AM


Re: God In A Box
ringo writes:
That's a pretty fine distinction - like saying you like everything about Donald Trump except his socks.
There is the "Intelligent Design" movement which purports to be scientific and argues against evolutionary theory. I mean it only in the sense that we are the result of an intelligent designer without suggesting any methodology as to how it was done, and without suggesting that it is science based.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by ringo, posted 08-22-2016 11:44 AM ringo has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by ringo, posted 08-23-2016 11:52 AM GDR has not replied

  
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