Atheists/Agnostics: How Much Sense Does God Make?

How much sense does God as a concept or entity make to you?

  • Atheist: God makes a lot of sense, no problems intrinsic to his existence

  • Atheist: God makes moderate sense, but I still have a few qualms or questions

  • Atheist: God makes no sense, and/or is absurd

  • Agnostic: God makes a lot of sense

  • Agnostic: God makes moderate sense

  • Agnostic: God makes no sense, and/or is absurd


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FrumiousBandersnatch

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...The only one that I can come up with that isn't rooted in desire or want is...because he can. That's about as impersonal and non-interventionist as it gets. It's completely apathetic.
But being able to, or knowing that you can, do something is not the same as doing it, and isn't in itself a motivation.

I can do various things that I'm not motivated to do. An omnipotent entity can do anything and knows this - but is it motivated to do everything?
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Motivation implies a goal, which implies finitude, and therefore incompleteness. As such, God wouldn't fit this picture.
Creating a universe that didn't previously exist implies prior incompleteness, else the universe would be redundant.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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I'm saying there's desire in the sense of conscious or unconscious feeling inclining a person in a certain way, and there's also desire in the sense of preference, which doesn't involve feeling and refers only to one's abstract idea of the good in a particular situation.
This pretty much corresponds with Frankfurter's first and second-order desires - although I'd argue that latter desire does involve feeling, but associated with 'will', i.e. deliberative thought (Kahneman's 'System 2' thinking), whereas the roots of the former are subconscious ('System 1' thinking). I guess it depends on the definition of 'feeling'...
 
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Ana the Ist

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Sez you. To me, the distinction is seen every day by English speakers.

I'm sure they do...it just has no consequence in this argument. If we were to ask "why does god have a "preference" of any kind...guess what we're gonna be coming back to? Desires/wants.


But these examples don't underscore the fact that phenomenologically speaking (in the moment of your experience during these things), you have conflicting desires of different size. Getting out of bed is the smaller desire and staying in it is the bigger one. So again, what is it that allows you to forego the bigger desire and choose the smaller one?

I just explained that...in a fair amount of detail. It ultimately comes down to a much larger desire of being able to provide for myself and my wife. That one desire actually motivates a lot of behavior.

Why is it that you think I sleep in until I'm not tired on my days off lol. As much as 10-12 hours at a time.
 
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I'm sure they do...it just has no consequence in this argument. If we were to ask "why does god have a "preference" of any kind...guess what we're gonna be coming back to? Desires/wants.

Again, the idea that everything goes back to desires is your contention. Mine is that people use want/desire as a feeling and want/desire as a (non-feeling) preference reflecting value.

I just explained that...in a fair amount of detail. It ultimately comes down to a much larger desire of being able to provide for myself and my wife. That one desire actually motivates a lot of behavior.

Why is it that you think I sleep in until I'm not tired on my days off lol. As much as 10-12 hours at a time.

But for every instance that it's applied to my life, the desire as feeling isn't bigger, and that's exactly what makes it necessary to exert my will. The desire as non-feeling preference is bigger. This is why I think we're having semantic differences.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Again, the idea that everything goes back to desires is your contention. Mine is that people use want/desire as a feeling and want/desire as a (non-feeling) preference reflecting value.




But for every instance that it's applied to my life, the desire as feeling isn't bigger, and that's exactly what makes it necessary to exert my will. The desire as non-feeling preference is bigger. This is why I think we're having semantic differences.

What's a non-feeling preference? I can have a preference for vanilla, or brunettes, but these are very much based upon feelings.
 
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The implication of all that is that God acted "as if" He wasn't depressed...

Only if God has a biochemistry.

It looks as if this interpretation needs something like Harry Frankfurt's second-order desires, i.e. desires about desires. In the case of acting to counter depression, the first order desire would be dysfunctional or negative (the depression), and the second order desire would be the desire to stop feeling that way, which, given suitable prompting, would provide the motivation for corrective action - making it an effective desire, which Frankfurt associates with the will, in contrast to first-order desires, that are not deliberative.

Sounds like bullsh*t to me. ;) (jk)

I don't necessarily disagree with this. My point is that you need something beyond desire to actualize the second smaller desire, and push yourself away from the immediate stronger one. But the moment you've done this and utilized this mechanism (the will), you've by definition moved beyond desire. The will, among other things, is a non-desire-related mediator of desires, and not another desire.

It seems to me that what motivates you is either your desire to do the things you have to do that day, or your desire to avoid the consequences of not doing them.

As you say, sometimes the desires are insufficient to motivate you to get out of bed; or perhaps the desire to sleep, or the desire to avoid facing those responsibilities outweighs them and motivates you to remain; however, I see no instance in your example where your motivation is not the result of a desire.
I don't follow you; can you explain?

Motivation, in any serious psychological context, seems to imply desire by definition. That's why I'm sticking to using motive, which can imply a reason for doing something.

Reasoning is motivated by desire.

Two sides of the same coin: reasoning inspires desire, and desire filters out reasoning. The cognitions we have determine the feelings and therefore inclinations for behavior that we have, and the feelings we have filter out which cognitions are most apparent to us in the moment.

This effectively makes it random.

Which is begging the question by appealing to a determinist language. "Random" means not caused by outside influence according to determinism, but according to libertarianism by definition free choices are not caused by outside influence. It's a very screwy idea for sure, because our tendency is to seek out reasons and causes for things, which again reflect a useful determinist framework, which has its place.
 
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What's a non-feeling preference? I can have a preference for vanilla, or brunettes, but these are very much based upon feelings.

Preferences might be packaged with previous experiences of feeling, but in the moment preference need not involve accessing these feelings. Back to depression: a person who is depressed may know on a rational level that if he does X and Y he'll feel better, even though he's incapable of feeling what it's like to have X and Y when he imagines them.
 
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Ana the Ist

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Again, the idea that everything goes back to desires is your contention. Mine is that people use want/desire as a feeling and want/desire as a (non-feeling) preference reflecting value.



But for every instance that it's applied to my life, the desire as feeling isn't bigger, and that's exactly what makes it necessary to exert my will. The desire as non-feeling preference is bigger. This is why I think we're having semantic differences.

I think you're confusing the immediacy of a desire as making it "stronger" than certain non-immediate desires.

When do you feel the immediacy of the desire to go back to sleep? Right when you're getting up of course...but that doesn't mean you don't have a stronger desire to handle business as it were.

When do you feel the immediacy of eating ice cream? When it's right in front of you...but that doesn't mean you don't have a stronger desire that's keeping you healthy.

Does that solve your problem?
 
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I think you're confusing the immediacy of a desire as making it "stronger" than certain non-immediate desires.

When do you feel the immediacy of the desire to go back to sleep? Right when you're getting up of course...but that doesn't mean you don't have a stronger desire to handle business as it were.

When do you feel the immediacy of eating ice cream? When it's right in front of you...but that doesn't mean you don't have a stronger desire that's keeping you healthy.

Does that solve your problem?

Only if I limited desire to preference. But with those examples I'm speaking of desire as feeling.
 
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Only if I limited desire to preference. But with those examples I'm speaking of desire as feeling.

Is it not? Does the person who desires to be healthy not feel ashamed when they stuff their face full of gummy bears? Where do you think that feeling of shame comes from if not a contradictory desire?
 
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Is it not? Does the person who desires to be healthy not feel ashamed when they stuff their face full of gummy bears? Where do you think that feeling of shame comes from if not a contradictory desire?

In the examples you gave in your last post, your use of desire didn't reflect stronger and weaker feelings; they reflected preferences. When I'm in bed in the morning and about to get up, my desire as feeling to stay in bed is stronger than my desire (as feeling) to get up. Now, my desire as preference might be bigger in getting up.
 
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Ana the Ist

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In the examples you gave in your last post, your use of desire didn't reflect stronger and weaker feelings; they reflected preferences. When I'm in bed in the morning and about to get up, my desire as feeling to stay in bed is stronger than my desire (as feeling) to get up. Now, my desire as preference might be bigger in getting up.

Consider this article...

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/528151/the-importance-of-feelings/

It goes into some detail about how the mind is only emergent from emotions, not logic or reason. More importantly, it mentions a study (which I'm having trouble finding) as such...

"His insight, dating back to the early 1990s, stemmed from the clinical study of brain lesions in patients unable to make good decisions because their emotions were impaired, but whose reason was otherwise unaffected..."

Now, if I could remember the study correctly, this is a rather generous description. There was at least one patient who's emotional center was so damaged that a decision of chicken or turkey for lunch was paralyzing. He literally could not decide...he could rationalize the choice between the two, but he couldn't choose without a desire of one or the other.

I know it seems like you reason your way towards a choice...but you don't...the science suggests there's an emotional basis for every decision you make.
 
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Consider this article...

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/528151/the-importance-of-feelings/

It goes into some detail about how the mind is only emergent from emotions, not logic or reason. More importantly, it mentions a study (which I'm having trouble finding) as such...

"His insight, dating back to the early 1990s, stemmed from the clinical study of brain lesions in patients unable to make good decisions because their emotions were impaired, but whose reason was otherwise unaffected..."

Now, if I could remember the study correctly, this is a rather generous description. There was at least one patient who's emotional center was so damaged that a decision of chicken or turkey for lunch was paralyzing. He literally could not decide...he could rationalize the choice between the two, but he couldn't choose without a desire of one or the other.

I know it seems like you reason your way towards a choice...but you don't...the science suggests there's an emotional basis for every decision you make.

I have no difficulty with there being an emotional basis with regard to choice (for us human folk with dat biology); we need at least a flavor of something in order to ascertain its value in most if not all cases.

What I have difficulty with is the idea that the bigger desire or want always wins. That, to me, is patently false, and here we have to go back to bad language: any strong-willed person is constantly pushing against his immediate inclinations which entail stronger desires (as feelings) and exerting himself (choosing) toward weaker desires (as feeling) that are ultimately better. This weaker desire can have (but not always, e.g., depressives) a flavor of the good thing to it, but this desire is still qualitatively smaller than the immediate desire.
 
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@Ana the Ist, the summary of our discussion seems to go something like this.

I say that I will something insofar as I push against bigger desires (as feeling) and go with smaller desires.

You seem to respond by saying that anything we choose must be the bigger desire precisely because it's chosen.

My response is that this reflects desire not as feeling but as preference -- which can involve feeling, but doesn't attend to the contention that we can and often do choose smaller desires as they're felt in the moment.

So you're using desire as preference in response to my use of desire as feeling. That's the problem with our disagreement, IMO.
 
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Ana the Ist

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I have no difficulty with there being an emotional basis with regard to choice (for us human folk with dat biology); we need at least a flavor of something in order to ascertain its value in most if not all cases.

Wonderful...you see my point then. What compels a god without emotions, desires, or wants to choose to do anything? What kind of relationship could you have with a being who feels nothing, desires nothing?


What I have difficulty with is the idea that the bigger desire or want always wins. That, to me, is patently false, and here we have to go back to bad language: any strong-willed person is constantly pushing against his immediate inclinations which entail stronger desires (as feelings) and exerting himself (choosing) toward weaker desires (as feeling) that are ultimately better. This weaker desire can have (but not always, e.g., depressives) a flavor of the good thing to it, but this desire is still qualitatively smaller than the immediate desire.

Well with regards to your thread here...I guess we need not be concerned with this.
 
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Ana the Ist

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@Ana the Ist, the summary of our discussion seems to go something like this.

I say that I will something insofar as I push against bigger desires (as feeling) and go with smaller desires.

You seem to respond by saying that anything we choose must be the bigger desire precisely because it's chosen.

My response is that this reflects desire not as feeling but as preference -- which can involve feeling, but doesn't attend to the contention that we can and often do choose smaller desires as they're felt in the moment.

So you're using desire as preference in response to my use of desire as feeling. That's the problem with our disagreement, IMO.

Well consider this...the feeling you associate with staying in bed, comfort, satisfaction, whatever it is-is something that you feel strongly in that moment because you have an affinity towards it.

Yet the possible consequences of staying in bed, losing your job, losing the respect of your peers, losing your professional reputation...are probably all things that you have a very strong affinity against. Things that would cause you shame, things that would make you feel awful...

So while it may not be a feeling that you have in that moment, it's a feeling you know you'll have by experience. It's something that you strongly want to avoid...so strongly in fact, that it's enough for you to escape the comfort of bed.

I think you're making the mistake of assuming that I mean you have to have an emotional desire in that moment...but it doesn't always work that way.
 
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