Consciousness — the internal dialogue that seems to govern one’s thoughts and actions — is far less powerful than people believe, serving as a passive conduit rather than an active force that exerts control, according to a new theory proposed by an SF State researcher.
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William Lane Craig, in a recent video, has declared, as a get out of jail free card for free will and neuroscience, a soul-brainstate-consciousness model for decision making.
This is an excellent succinct synopsis of the issue of contradictions and abrogation in the Qu’ran. The Qu’ran can be broadly split into two based on when and where the revelations took place. This article is reblogged with kind permission from Beyond the Cusp – thanks! This is a quick synopsis for those of you who are unaware of things Qu’ranic:
The Quran as we know it today is in reality two quite different books. The older Quran was written in Mecca while the later Quran was written in Medina. This lead some scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to refer to the Quran by its two parts, the Mecca Quran and the Medina Quran.
This came into our mailbox here at SIN. It is a medical miracle anecdote, in the same strain as a post from the other day:
I have just returned from a surgical mission trip to the Dominican Republic. Although I am an atheist my schedule was such that it was most convenient for me to travel and work with XXX Ministry XXX, a frankly Christian evangelical organization operating out of Texas.
As the annals of history have it, in the sixth century Emperor Justinian had all the schools of philosophy that competed with Christianity finally closed. This was the last we heard of the Epicurean School, whose tradition had remained culturally vibrant for seven centuries. Epicurus had been among the first to propose the atom—2,300 years ago—the social contract as a foundation for the rule of law, and the possibility of an empirical process of pursuit of happiness: a science of happiness. These progressive schools were oases of tranquility, reason and pleasure known as Gardens, where the ideals of civilized friendship flourished and men, women and even slaves engaged in philosophical discourse as equals.
Faith is a term which is bandied about with carefree abandon, but what does it really mean? As I wrote to Christian apologist David Marshall some years back:
David
Part of the problem is that you are extracting these issues from their real world application and in a sense making them irrelevant. Let’s apply the faith vs reason to real life instances:
I received this email today from an old friend:
Hi mate,
Hope you’re well.
I’m reading your little book of unholy questions at the moment and thought I’d share a prayer story with you. When XXXX was pregnant with YYYY and we had the 12 week scan, the physical measurements and blood factors indicated that YYYY had a strong likelihood (60%+) of having a chromosomal disorder (Down’s syndrome or worse).
Here is an excerpt from my book, Free Will? An investigation into whether we have free will or whether I was always going to write this book:
Firstly, let us look at whether God himself has free will at his disposal. This is important because one of the primary characteristics of God is that he is perfectly free, not being constrained by the sorts of influences that humans are. It is often said that if God created all things then every thing that he created must have some attribute of his. Man has free will and, therefore, one of God’s attributes must be that of free will. Of course, this might be a circular argument, begging the question of whether we have free will ourselves. The bible is littered with examples of where God supposedly chooses people, things, cities and tribes. Here, in Numbers 16:6-8 God chooses who will be holy:
New findings by the National Centre for Social Research have confirmed the long-term collapse in affiliation with the Church of England and the huge increase in non-belief.
Strikingly, the research also found that there had been a ten-fold increase in those identifying with Islam in the past 32 years. In 1983, Islam represented around half a percentage point of Britain’s population but in 2014 it had reached 5%, the research found.
This is a reminder of a project I am working on for which I need your help: I was thinking…
Profiling is often seen as highly controversial by many. This is the act of looking into the common properties of a particular type of person (criminal, terrorist) and using that knowledge to direct resources into particular areas or people in order to get a maximum return on your investment (cost of stop-checks, border controls, airport security etc).
I did an interview yesterday on the popular UK podcast Godless Spellchecker mainly on the topic of free will, but…
Religion is a highly psychological affair. In fact, I would argue that the entirety of that which religion really is, to humanity, is psychological. Everything that religion is and does for its adherents is psychological in nature. One of the strongest dimensions of religion is its dealings with death. I have talked about this before with regard to Terror Management Theory.
This is something I wrote four years ago on my previous blog, but thought it was interesting to bring up again. I thought about it in response to a comment over on fellow writer Rebecca Bradley’s Lateral Truth piece, “Social Justice: A Millenarian Movement”:
Recently, the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association) has been toying with the idea of employing the Rooney Rule when shortlisting and interviewing candidates for managerial positions in football clubs in England. The rule demands that clubs must interview at least one black person for manager when recruiting.
This fascinating Dutch article (to which I do not have a link, unfortunately) was translated by a facebook friend Leon Korteweg:
My translation (aided by Google Translate) of an article that appeared in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant. Reading and translating this article made me somewhat emotional: I’m delighted by the rise of atheism exactly where it is most needed, which gives me hope, but I’m also saddened by how many victims it takes to make that change happen.
The general election is only just over, and I am sorry for being off my usual topics. I will return to them shortly. I would like to provoke thought on what motivates voters to vote for particular parties, briefly and rather anecdotally and theoretically.
Bangladesh is not the place to be for freethought. What is to be done against this vicious brand of anti-intellectualism and attack to freedom of thought?
From The Guardian:
Pun intended.
My depressed sadness has turned into anger.
Today is a bad day for fairness. It is a bad day for democracy (think AV/PR). It is a bad day for the electorate who seem far less politically educated than I realised (and if my school has anything to go by, very very ill-equipped to be responsibly voting)
The British Humanist Association has produced this gem of a useful chart in the context of the UK elections coming…
I was trying to work out what is going on in Syria, and what the implications of rebel victory were, as well as who, exactly, the rebels were in light of media bias.
I came across this article from an interesting source called EA WorldView (based in the University of Birmingham, UK).