Our thoughts are the same as yours really: nuerochemical/electric reactions developed over millions of years.

 

Yes, but I would go a step further and say they are nuerochemical/electric reactions filtered thru language.  This is called linguistic determinism theory, and while it doesn't explain all things we may consider thoughts.it nevertheless, I believe, explains the thing we mostly consider 'thought'.  I have yet to see a compelling refutation of this theory.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism

 

Language is the tool we use to organize these reactions/impulses into coherent meangingfull things we call thoughts.

 

If theism is true, what are our thoughts?

Does this question not puzzle you even more being as that we, at the very least, know empirically that chemical reactions and electrical impulses occur within the brain and have effects on mental states, while this whole spirity soul thing has absolutely no evidence nor even so much as a coherent definition?

That's because 'truth' and 'reason' aren't things.
Language is a practice. We use language to describe things.
Perhaps we might describe how the world is.
If the description is accurate then we call the description true and if not then we call the description false.
Reason is our method of working out truth from falsity.
So if we call someone 'irrational' then it means they aren't using the right methods to judge whether something is true or false - they might as well be taking a random guess!

Welcome to the RRS - exposers of bad guesswork!

I guess this is why I'm so puzzled.  You say truth and reason aren't things? What do you mean by that? You say that if somthing is accurate, you take that as true. What do you mean by accurate?

If all of your thoughts can be ultimately reduced down to chemicals in the brain, how do we know that certain chemical reactions are true and other chemical reactions are false?

How can we be cetain that the chemical reactions in our brain are true? Some sort of theory about a language filter does nothing to solve this problem because how is the filtering being accomplished?  By, assuming atheism is true, chemical reactions going on in the brain.  But we still haven't established how we can know truth if we assume that all we have as our thoughts are chemicals reacting.

 

The answers to your questions may be found in science: neurophysiology, chemistry, psychology and the field of artificial intelligence.

First of all, true or false is not a 'thing'. There are many philosophical debates about what constitutes truth and falsehood; but in context of reasoning [by formal logic] it is an assesment of whether a given statement does not contradict other statements that are presumed to be infallible. For example, if we know that all cats are felines, saying that a dog is a cat would result in falsehood, since dogs are not felines (see syllogisms). So, in your brain, truth and falsehood are results of your minds' verification of something against something else. When conflicts occur, your mind tries to resolve it. This is why it is perfectly possible to arrive to wrong conclusions stemming from what seems to be the right opinions; and this is also the cause for many a mental disorder. The mind can not reconcile accepting conflicting statements as true. The problem is furthered even more when the mind has to deal with statements that are uncertain (e.g. "some people are not here right now&quot or circular ("bible is true because bible says its true, ergo everything that contradicts bible is false&quot

How can you be certain what's true and what's false? Well, formal logic has it all laid out for you. The methodics of reasoning as well as common pitfalls (as well as deliberate manipulation) are all extensively researched and documented since ancient times. In terms of logic and reasoning, truth is observed when there is consistency. Religious arguments from Christians violate them on two basic points:

1) Arguments that God exists at all, in their various forms, fail, since there is no evidence to support it other than circular arguments from sacred books regarding their sacredness, whereas numerous other evidence supports the exact opposite.

2) Arguments that God is the Christian God Yahwe (which are only valid if the above arguments are true) and not Allah or the Lord and the Lady or Flying Spaghetti Monster also collide with competing claims from other religions, which are no more or less valid objectively (i.e. when evaluated outside of Christian context) that those of Christianity.

Hope that helps.

 

Well thanks for the responses here guys but unfortunately, we haven't gained much ground. Some guys are tossing around some interesting theories but they are nevertheless assuming that their chemical reactions are providing real and true insight without demonstrating how.

 Obviously most atheists trust that their chemical/elictrical brain reactions are giving them real insight but how do you know this to be true?  Can you prove it? Or is this just a faith assumption?

Not only that but he apparently can only feign indignance over 'unacceptable answers' without offering any rebutal of his own, and what's worse, he steadfastly ignores any calls upon him to provide his justification for thought reason or truth in his own unsupported worldview. As is often the cause with theists he is merely an antagonist having no justifications of his own to propose with anything more substantial than a handwave and a 'godidit'.  

tell you what mountaineer, lets get on a level playing field here.  You wouldn't want to ask of us something you can't answer yourself, now would you?

So, the basic argument underlying your initial questions is this...

"I assert that God causes thoughts in our brain and it can't be explained by natural occurances".

Okay, we got that.

Are answer is...

"I assert that thought processes are a natural occurance and can't be explained by supernatural occurances"

Okay, we are on a level playing field.  Got it?

Now, what you are doing is asking us to become cerebral neuro physicists and answer how the process works.

I will tell you right now that the process is out of my realm of expertise.  Is it in yours?

Can you tell us the material process that god uses to create thoughts?

Keep in mind that saying "god did it"  makes you lose automatically. We say "nature did it" and by  Parsimony, we win.  You only complicate the matter by introducing a concept you can't explain that is infinitely more complicated than nature.

And finally, you avoided my other post where I pointed out you were pretending to ask honest questions but really trying to disquise old presuppositional arguements.

Do you wish to answer that as well?  would you like to come out of the closet..so to speak?

10,000 bc

caveman1:  Lightning!

 caveman2:  what causes that stuff? Fascinating!

 cavenman1:  it is beyond our capablity to account for.  It must be a great spirit in the sky..lets call him Yahwee!

caveman2:  But.....

caveman1....booga booga.

2007

internetguy1:  Thoughts!

Internetguy2:  what are they?  fascinating, no?

internetguy1:  we can't account for it, it must be from a great spirit in the sky..er wait, outside of time and space.  we shall call him Jesus!

internetguy2:  but....

Internetguy1:   Booga booga.

Don't attack him people, he doesn't understand how our brain works - instead of accusing him of playing games with us, recommend a good scientific book that explains (if possible, in simple language) how our thoughts are produced. I bet there are many, and I would like to read one myself - so if anyone has any recommendations, please share.

I had a huge post typed out for this thread.

Then I deleted it.

 

I cannot abide people who, when faced with something not immeadiately definable or understandable by them, they attribute it to god.

 

GODDIDIT!

GODDIDIT

goddidit goddidit goddidit goddidit goddidit goddidit goddidit!

 

God did it is less of an answer than even the stupidest theories presented by an un-educated person.

God did it says that you never want to find any further knowledge, and may not accept any if it comes to you. 

God did it encourages us all to stop trying to explain, to stop trying to further ourselves, to stop wondering about the world. 

greg, I'm not asking you to explain how thoughts are produced in the brain.  Regardless of how they are produced, assuming materialism, the real question is how you can know anything for sure.  How do you get absolute truth out of the chemical reactions.

This is a real question greg.  I'm not trying to be funny and I do have an open mind.  I don't know everything but I do know some things.  I guess the problem here is that this question is unanswerable if atheism is assumed.

 As far as my world view goes, I believe in objectivity beyond the chemical reactions that go on inside of our brains so as a Christian, I don't have any problems with this issue.

Its only when atheism/materialism is assumed that this becomes a problem.  How can we say atheism is true when we can't even justify why we should trust any particular chemical reaction over another.  Remember, its not about how thougths are produced.  Thats actually irrelevant here because we are assuming materialism and that is what is most important.  

 I think this is an interesting topic and I appreciate everybody who is adding to it.

Incase you missed it the first time:

Let me introduce you between two types of 'because'.
There's rational justification and causal explanation.
A causal explanation is why something does happen.
A rational justification is why something ought to happen.

Example:
"Why did you bandage your arm?"

"It was bleeding."
"Some chemical reactions in my brain moved my arm to do the action."

 

 

The first is a rational justification of why the person chose to scratch his arm. The second is a causal explanation of how it happened. So causal explanations (like our minds being chemical reactions of the brain) do not affect our rational justifications. That make sense?

To apply it to your latest post:

That our thoughts are chemical is a causal explanation.
This doesn't affect our rational justification.
It's completely irrelevent to how we make judgements based on our first person view of the world.

It seems you are misrepresenting athiesm (the 2nd comment on the thread). It doesn't not solely mean a lack of belief in a god. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athiesm 

 

 "...in its broadest definition, it is the absence of belief in deities sometimes called "nontheism"." From the cited source.

One of the definitions of atheism, and by far the most common used by atheists themselves, is exactly as he stated. If by "it doesn't solely mean a lack of belief in god" you mean there are other definitions used by some people, you could be correct. However, it seems a silly point to make as the person who made the comment obviously uses the definition he stated. In either case, it was not a misrepresentation of atheism to define it as he did as that is an accepted (and the most common) defintion of atheism.

I know some of you guys want me to talk about my beliefs and thats cool. I don't have any problem with that but this thread was supposed to be about atheism and our thoughts.

Some guys don't think its a legit question to ask how we can trust our thoughts within an atheist world view and thats ok.  If this question is irrelevant to you then more power to you.  It is however, a pretty important question for me. 

Anyways lets look at some of the things that some guys are saying.

Tilberian said this :

You keep asking over and over how we know that the reactions in our brain add up to Truth, as in, an accurate depiction of reality. My answer is: they don't. We don't know Truth. You don't and nor do I. For all we know, we may be brains in a vat (a la the Matrix) and everything we sense could be an illusion.

We don't know truth...... ok...... is that ture?

You also said this : Because of this, it is technically wrong to ever state that you Know anything.

And somehow we know this?  

  

 

I am an atheist and I think an open analysis of different systems of thought is very important.  When I look at the christian worldview, I end up puzzled.  If christianity is true, then what are our thoughts.

 

This has me puzzled.  Please explain....

 

 

 

 

Well, let me sum it all up for you in a nice and not-so-mind-bending package

As human beings, we owe to ourselves to be honest with ourselves and other people. Believing in something without having a slightest justification is an equivalent of lying to yourself. Every human being has a right, I would even say a God given right to lie to themselves; however, that right stops the moment you are trying to tell a lie to another person as if it was truth. That's deception: disgusting, dishonest, and most amoral of all evil things a person can do, for deception is rooted in cowardice and fear - the innate fear that you are wrong and that all your hard effort is in vain and that in the end there is no reward and you will die just like everyone else - lucky if without suffering. Deception is the worst of all evils because it undermines mutual trust, erodes perception of reality, shuns away the truth, and people who engage in all of that typically do not have the balls to admit it.

I am sorry to say that to you, but you do not have any justification for your beliefs other than the Bible, and the Bible does not have any justification for itself other than itself. Whether human beings are prone to faith, or whether the limits of science preclude it from answering questions of spirituality that you seek is completely irrelevant to the fact that in the specific case of Christianity, Christian belief is an instance of self-deception that is propagated to other people by force and indoctrination, against their will, using their intellectual weakness and lack of education in critical thought, and results in opression of these people and especially those surrounding them who did not consent to participate in this lie. Those people happen to be us, and we are not going to stand by and allow it to do to us the same thing it does to you.

I think you feel pretty sad about us heathens not being saved by Christ, but let me reassure that we feel pretty sad about you having had been deprived of choice. Religion is an intellectual rape, and you are its unwilling victim. We are terrified both by watching you getting raped, and by the fact that you defend your rapist. Which is the more humane, which is the more real, and which is more truthful of an emotion is for you to judge on your conscience.

Either way, be well.

DIXI

WRONG!!!! People are trying to force Christianity on us all the time:

ID attempting to be taught in schools, the anti-choice movement, "In God We Trust", "Under God", 10 commandments tablets in public buildings, the Christian War on Science, anti-gay marriage, etc, etc, etc.

"Truth", in the strictest religious sense, is a loaded word.  No one, regardless of religious position, has the faintest idea of what "truth" is.  Since it is completely relative to the belief system to which one is immersed, it is true only until you encounter different beliefs and altar your mindset. 

The "facts" that are thrown around by both sides to prove / disprove arguments get tripped up by the same antagonist - the discovery of new knowledge.  As we learn more, we tend to adjust our world view to make our existence more bearable.  Religion, in my opinion, is just a lack of knowledge, and nature abhors a vacuum.

Because they don't have an invisible sky friend who supposedly wrote a book three millennia ago telling them how he invented cars and his advice for choosing the best one. 

"Truth", in the strictest religious sense, is a loaded word. No one, regardless of religious position, has the faintest idea of what "truth" is. Since it is completely relative to the belief system to which one is immersed, it is valid only until you encounter different ideas or beliefs and alter your mindset.

That being said, the "truths" that are thrown around by both sides to prove or disprove an argument get tripped up by the same antagonist - the discovery of new knowledge. As we learn more, we tend to adjust our world view to make our existence more understandable.  However, most (read almost all) "believers" have made a conscience decision to ignore any information that might interfere with cherished dogma.  That is the definition of "closed minded".  Rationalist, on the other hand, don't filter new information through "the God lens" to determine if it has merit.  I (and I'm sure most others) would walk lock-step with the theist if they could produce even an ounce of evidence that wasn't buried under a ton of circular reasoning.

Bottom line - the rise of religion was due to a lack of knowledge, and nature abhors a vacuum.