Given your assumptions I’m sure what you say must truly seem undeniable. But I don’t share those assumptions. Best of luck to you.
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That was hard not to notice, that the conjectured “it” has personal attributes.
And
Not unlike certain empirical evidence.
To you, too. I hope you win a few lotteries, for your own sake.
Dear Mark,
All right that you don’t share my assumptions. But I would be thankful if you could clearly formulate your assumptions.
So far you state:
Here you deviate from conventional atheists like Richard Dawkins.
But additionally, you declare:
By assuming “something” and not someone here, you are assuming “human interactions or cultures as being mechanistic”, emerging from evolutionary mechanisms, very much in agreement with Richard Dawkins.
Thereby, what you call “yourself” would also be reduced to “something”, “no one”, at the end of the day.
In my view you are paying a high price for the lack of consistency, and harming yourself.
This said, you will have all my respect whatever decision you make.
Not really. Just because I understand it too poorly to say definitively that this mystery is a who and not a what does not imply I must believe it just a dumb force like gravity. That I view it as arising in consciousness the same as my self does not mean it cannot be thought of as a who. I think there is a dynamic relationship between these products of consciousness but with different roles and abilities. My wife and I have different roles and abilities but there is nothing mechanistic about either of us or our relationship.
In seeking to understand myself and humanity it is not from any desire on my part to view it as something mechanistic. That seems to be coming from you.
Thank you for your concern but I don’t think adopting a degree of certainty I don’t actually feel will cost anything at all. Assenting to truths I can’t verify would probably be more damaging.
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How do you do that or why do you imagine there is?
The difference between us is that you have chosen to believe the Bible and your own interpretation of omens indicate you yourself are the son of God, a younger brother to Christ himself. I’m not sure how I failed to recognize the humility of your position. Did you never need a single conjecture to figure this all out?
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Well, then there is the empirical evidence you deny. Why should I not be confident that I had a biological father? I am confident that I have a heavenly Father for similar reasons.
The infused meaning amongst the “omens” of Maggie’s sequence, for instance(s), was obvious and actually explicit and obvious to everyone, if you would revisit them, and not at all open to personal ‘interpretation’.
And the disparaged ‘omens’ have way less woo than the imagined personhood of your “it”.
(@MarkD: heavily edited above, so you may wish to withdraw your 
, if you can.)
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We could talk about epistemic humility again if you like. It is not about conjectures at all – it is rather about propositions to either believe or disbelieve, and is there evidence to support them. (The answer over the millennia: Yes, empirical even.)
Magnificent!
Here you are taking the right pattern of explanation: The relationship between you and your wife.
Where there is a dynamic relationship, there is a someone at each end of the relationship.
The same holds for the relationship between you yourself and the ‘it’ you refer to as “arising in consciousness the same as my self”, and as “something more within which knows me better than I do myself and sees more clearly than I can into what really matters”:
Either you are someone, and then at the other end of the “dynamic relationship” there is someone (just like your wife is someone). Or at the other end there is something, and then you (and your wife) are something (and not someone) as well, i.e.: you are understanding you yourself and humanity as “something mechanistic”, very much as Richard Dawkins does.
Amazing!
You are making the same discovery as Augustine of Hippo did:
“ You [God] were more inward to me than my most inward part”.
But by some kind of Kafkaesque mental barrier you do not dare to call You, the person you are discovering within you, at the other end of the relationship underpinning your being and life.
This is interesting!
After all that you are witnessing within you, what other verification would you still like to get?
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I’ve been distracted and forgetful as I have much to do before an event this Sunday. I feel like I want to answer you here though I also feel you are too eager to draw conclusions where I would leave the pieces in the air a bit longer. I very rarely if ever reason from dichotomies so it is off putting to be told that I must choose between A and B. That sort of reasoning does not appeal.
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In my view the position you endorse is tricky.
Consider the following statements:
A: MarkD and his wife are human persons and therefore deserve a dignity that animals and machines don’t deserve.
B: MarkD and his wife do not deserve more dignity than animals or machines.
Would you claim that “it is off” if you are told to choose between A and B?
Would you leave the pieces in the air a bit longer?
Your position is harmful for you yourself and humanity after all.
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I’m done here. You are entitled to your opinion.
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Dear Mark,
I would like to clarify, that I do not aim at all to prevail in this discussion.
My point is simply to stress how important it is for the flourishing of humanity and each of us to keep to the axiom that humankind has a special dignity and value animals and machines do not have.
Atheists and those who reject the existence of the spiritual have no real reason for saying that. And then there are those who argue for human extinction.
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Indeed! Which is the “real reason for saying that”?
Undoubtedly, a strong reason is this:
The Word became flesh! “God became human so that we might become God”.
Thus, arguing for the extinction of God amounts to argue for human extinction after all.
And the other way around:
The rejection of the axiom that humankind has a special dignity and value animals and machines do not have, promotes atheism.
Notice also that humanity could flourish as a community that lives according to moral rules and law, thanks evolution :
By producing a sharp difference between humans and the other extant species through elimination of intermediate varieties, evolution laid the groundwork for assigning rights, and made it possible that humans live respecting each other and humankind prevails over all other species.
So, I dare to shout:
Humans of all countries unite to protect humankind, in the name of God’s Incarnation and Evolution!
M Suarez,
Can you clarify this, please? It is not orthodox theology on the face of it, but maybe you’re talking of how Lewis said we were to become like “little Christs.”. Thanks.
I take issue with that wording, I’m afraid. God became human so that we could be adopted into his family and become “joint heirs with Christ.”
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And what about Galatians 2:20:
“It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”
If I become Christ himself, then I become God in Christ!