Some Thoughts on Love
December 13th, 2006 by 
drunkentune
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
American psychologist and philosopher William James argued in his 1884 article “What is an emotion?” that our emotions begin in the body. While they feel ephemeral, they are rooted in the movements of muscles and flesh. 
What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling of quickened heart beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose bumps nor of visceral stirrings, were present?
Without the body there would be no fear, for the emotion begins at the perception of a bodily change. The pupils dilate, the upper lip rises, the eyebrows rise and the forehead furrows, the lips stretch, the eyes widen, and the brow sweats. This theory was radical for his day, and made many people uncomfortable, so without the quantifiable scientific data to back this up, it was promptly tossed aside. Emotions must reside in the mind, it was said.
prefrontal cortex or somatosensory cortex, Damásio recorded that the injured felt no emotion whatsoever. They were not paralyzed, but the connection between the body and the mind was severed. They were unfeeling robots. It then can be said that the data shows that without a body, one cannot experience emotion.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)
the believer's worldview; either omnipotence, anthropomorcism, or a pantheistic god. I wish to quckly defenistrate pantheism, since Philaletheia doesn't concern itself with something so pedantic. Really,
I find pantheism nothing more than name games and attempts to feel good - New Age desires for an imaginary connectedness to the void.
Anthropologist Dr. Phillips Stevens Jr. sets out the definition of ‘magical thinking’ as a belief in the interconnectedness of all things through a spiritual connection. According to Stevens, we invest symbols with meaning: “the vast majority of the world’s peoples … believe that there are real connections between the symbol and its referent, and that some real and potentially measurable power flows between them.”
When we do not know the facts, it is natural to believe in magic, or a supernatural god that both loves us and is without body. When we do not give it much thought, a supernatural being that is not human is allowed to experience human characteristics. Yet, without a body or brain, if this God existed, it could only mirror our emotions. It could
do so perfectly, yet it would only be a mirror. No chemicals would react in God's brain, for God, by definition, has no brain. God could not cower in fear, for Go, by definition, has no body. Is God then omnipotent? The classic definition of God is in part that God is omnipotent, yet God cannot experience something six billion humans have
every single day: Love.
The facts suggest that magic and the supernatural do not and cannot exist. The facts suggest that emotions
cannot exist without the body, and certainly not without the mind - two things that God neither posess. I hope the evidence I've presented will help you question your faith, or at least make you think. Perhaps I am
wrong, but really, all I have to work with is evidence.
Posted in belief, naturalism, scripture | 
December 13th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
I think that while we live on earth, our bodies/minds/spirits are woven together and not at all independent. So, the neurological cases you describe are explainable. However, one of my interests is near-death experiences. There is a vast collection of near death experiences available to read at http://www.nderf.org. One interesting feature of most of these is the incredibly intense emotional experience. Now, before you dismiss these as entirely anecdotal, I would like to point out there are cases of people blind from early life who have near-death experiences and later report seeing the clothing, equipment, and appearances of people in the emergency room/operating room and are correct! There is a report of a woman who had a near-death experience, and upon being revived reported that her sister had died while she was in her experience. The nurses inquired, and found out that indeed her sister had died right at that exact time. To me, that shows high probability that their minds/spirits on “departing” the body are capable of perception. In fact, experiencers of this phenomenon usually report their experience at near-death as more vivid, real, full, and emotionally moving than anything else. So, it is no stretch at all for me to believe that mind/spirit beings without bodies can experience emotion or perceive things.
December 13th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
“Love” is a bio-chemical response which has its origin in the natural material world.
A boring explanation to be sure, but one that can be evidenced nontheless.
December 13th, 2006 at 10:25 pm
When I say that I love chocolate, is that love?
When I say that I love my spouse, is that the same thing?
When I say I love science and reason, is that the same thing as the first two?
If I damage my prefrontal cortex, will I still love my spouse, and desire chocolate, and still thirst for reason and science? Are all those things the same thing and are they all controlled by the prefrontal cortex? And if so, how can I even continue to consider myself the same person after that?
I think the argument is a fair one to have, but I don’t feel you’re playing fair, like a scientist would. Emotions are not well ordered things, that can be operated on ceteris paribus, and so I think you stray well into straw man territory on this argument.
December 13th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
hbergeronx,
What leads you to this conclusion?
What evidence is available suggests either physicalism or behaviorism to be highly likely - much more than dualism, or other supernatural beliefs. You stimulate specific parts of the brain and people become sad, depressed, happy, or any number of other emotions. After suffering mental illness people may spontaneously cry, laugh, or engage in other emotional behaviors. Those with a removed part of the brain do not act the same, and may become emotionally charged and quick to anger, or emotionally dull.
Your ‘love’ of chocolate, your spouse, and science, are all processes of the brain and body. At least, all the evidence points to this conclusion. “Love [is] within the brain, the release of Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Oestrogen, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Testosterone, and Vasopressin.” How is this a straw man?
I think your last three questions are all red herrings, and are irreverent to the conversation. I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t arguing that the body was responsible for all emotions. Instead, without a mind or body, ‘love’ simply cannot apply to God. In fact, neither can any other emotion.
“…how could a being without body or brain experience love?”
“The facts suggest that emotions cannot exist without the body, and certainly not without the mind - two things that God neither possess.”
December 13th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
beepbeep:
I think I’ll try that one out on my wife. “I bio-chemically react to you.”
drunkentune:
I have a little broader idea of the concept of love. For example, love is the committment and resulting actions that I practice with my wife, family members, and friends, regardless of how I am feeling emotionally at the time. Likewise, I practice it with my neighbors and enemies even when my bio-chemical self would rather not. English, unfortunately, does not have a way to easily distiunguish this range of meaning. Biblical Greek does, somewhat. They use three words: eros, phileo, and agape. Eros is mainly erotic bio-chemical, such as you describe. Phileo is brotherly and friendship love and has a bio-chemical component, but is deeper in committment. Agape is more like parental love, and is much less conditional on emotion, as many parents will tell you. This is the word used in this passage. To equate what this passage is saying with bio-chemical emotions, I think would be a little too reductionistic, given that love and giving of self/son are equated, something not as emotional as actional.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Because, that’s love as emotion. The love that you’re quoting from John 3:16, though, isn’t necessarily an emotion, though. The three loves I mention are all called love, and yet they’re very different things governed by very different chemicals in my brain. I agree with that. But where I think you’re being unfair is that the writer of John is talking about a very different thing.
Think of gravity, for example, the way Newton thinks of it. Now, clearly, that gravity is a lie, a philosophical made-up thing that corresponds well to the universe and yet can be used predictively, even though there wasn’t a real physical force which moves instantaneously. So in addition to physical objects, we have things called conceptual objects such as gravity or quantum mechanics which are approximations of things we can’t explain perfectly yet.
Perhaps that is what the writer of John is talking about- the concept of love that’s not in one’s head, but is a way of talking about something I don’t understand. You’re saying you understand absolutely what the writer means when they say love, and then knocking that over.
that’s the straw man.
I’m saying you can’t even well define the different kind of loves that I mentioned, no less a theoretical concept written down less than 2000 years ago and then translated a handful of times across multiple cultures and languages. I don’t think that’s a fair fight, and as long as you play on your own battlefield, you’ll always win it.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Well, your post has made me think, so it’s working.
As far as God having emotions without a body, I do not know. It seems according to the text, Christianity is claiming God can have a body at times, but can exist elsewhere as well (that’s in the OT too, but might be proxy language). But it does not happen to tell me where he is when not in a human body, other than he is “in the heavens” meaning he is basically everywhere according to ancient cosmologies.
Perhaps I might call on Dr. Johnjoe McFadden [wiki], Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Surrey, who thinks that human conciousness resides in the electromagnetic field of the brain. So if this is true, then perhaps God dwells wherever electromagnetic energy is present — his glory and appearence is sometimes described like lightening in the Bible. Perhaps someday we will discover that he is there, and it will also explain near-death-experiences. But now, I am just using my imagination here, which probably won’t due, and still is as much to you as saying I do not know. Which I don’t.
I’m not that big on the concept of omnipotence, especially if it means we’re going to start talking about making immovable rocks. I believe that passages in the Bible constured for absolute omnipotence in the Greek sense are really talking relationally (of course, you knew I was going to say that). God is saying, “as far as your concerned, I’m faithful, because I have the power to do what I say I’m going to do.” So I do not argue for omnipotence. I argue for relational faithfulness.
One thing I will say is that I think some of the “facts” above are still “theories” in my worldview, which do not have all the finality and awe, and still leave this item for consideration pretty wide-open for me. To be honest, I’m saying, “Gee, God thinks more than I do, feels deeper things, and doesn’t always have a body and a brain like a human. Hmmm. Wonder what that says about humans.” Weird, hugh?
December 13th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
I’m going to take a stab at translating John 3:16, for atheists, and since I’m an atheist, that should be ok.
What does that word *love* mean? is it an emotion? Or is it like a missing variable in a big equation, that’s just dying to be written down? This love, for me, is like the love I get when I figure something out- it’s an emotion for me, sure, but I also feel like the thing needed to be figured out independently of my emotions, that there was a hole in understanding and I’ve managed to close it.
I think Christians feel like God couldn’t understand what it meant to be a person, and had to walk in people’s shoes a bit (knowing full well it would suck) to understand what we go through, rather than just dictating 613 rules that are impossible to obey at once. That’s what John is writing about, I think.
December 13th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
soulster,
Thanks for your comment. I was surprised you brought it up - it just so happens I was talking with a friend today on the Greek classifications of love. Of course, that was something he was studying in detail, while I had only heard of it in passing. It didn’t even cross my mind to apply them here.
I don’t see this as ‘conditional on emotion’. I’m sure if you ask any parent why they’re investing time and energy into their child while they’re slowly being driven insane, the immediate answer will be nine times out of ten: “Because I love them.”
I’d say that this type of love is expressed in the body and brain, and is only a result of the body and mind. If you took away the emotions of a parent, I don’t see how they could say they ‘loved’ their child and still be truthful.
hbergoronx,
If God’s love is “something I don’t understand”, then God cannot experience love the same way we do, correct?
Many Christians perhaps have a more base faith, and truly believe that God does love them. Are these Christians then wrong in their cherished belief?
As I said before, “Your ‘love’ of chocolate, your spouse, and science, are all processes of the brain and body. At least, all the evidence points to this conclusion.”
Are some emotions not the processes of the brain and body?
If so, what evidence do you have to support this?
Does God have a brain and body?
Can God experience emotions, such as anger (Deuteronomy 32:22; Jeremiah 21:5; Numbers 11:1; Exodus 22:24; Psalm 78:38), love (1 John 4:8), compassion (Psalm 86:5,15), wrath (Isaiah 60:10; John 3:36), or repentance (Genesis 6:6; Exodus 32:14; Judges 2:18; 1 Samuel 15:35; 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Chronicles 21:15; Psalm 106:45; Jeremiah 26:19; Amos 7:3; Jonah 3:10)?
December 14th, 2006 at 12:05 am
What I’m saying is that according to both Christians and Jews, God does not experience emotions, but what God is said to have experienced is something like our emotion, but different, because we don’t understand exactly what that is. They’re attempting to talk about it anyway, though.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:26 am
hbergeronx,
I understand your point, but what I’m getting at is much more diabolical for Christians to deal with. In fact, I accept your argument, because it helps mine. If believers agree that God can only experience something like our emotions, I’d argue that their vision of God cannot hold.
While you agree that “God does not experience emotions”, what I’m getting at is that it is impossible for God to do something all humans routinely do; namely, experience emotions. God can only inhabit a form of relative omniscience that soulster argues for.
soulster,
I do like you argument. While I disagree with it, I find it very interesting, and am still mulling it over. My initial response to it is that I believe the argument could be made that if God is not omniscient in the classic sense, then is God omnipotent? Is God all-loving? If the argument is made well, three descriptions of God tumble like a pack of cards.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:32 am
RE: hbergeronx
I don’t think that emotions are well-ordered. But their origin is a material one.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:35 am
“Love” is the word humans use to explain a variety of complex emotions. And certainly what a serial killer might define as “love” most of us would totally disagree with.
A brutal parent physically punishing their child to within an inch of their life, might say that they are doing it because they “love” them, but however we define love, it’s origin is our brain, not in our hearts.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:37 am
Ok, I know I’m being posty, but I want to touch on this too.
This is also a straw man.
Let’s assume Christians who believe that god loves us exactly and precisely the way we (emotionally) love. Then, that god is experiencing an emotion, and emotions are biological, so god is biological, so I can knock over this easier, more well defined god. Poof!
Yeah, that was easy. But no, I think any Christian who you tell this to will look down their nose at you for thinking them such simpletons.
When they talk about god being angry, it’s not the “dad beat me with his belt” type parental anger. It’s (I think) more like the anger experienced by a dad who lets his kid drive the car and the kid crashes it. Yeah, some dads will belt the kid over that. But most dads will be angry because if they drove, they wouldn’t have crashed the car, but he’d agreed to let the kid have free will and trusted the kid after teaching him the theory of driving as best he could, and the kid crashed it anyway. It’s a little emotion, like frustration, or anger, but isn’t something that you can easily put to any word. It’s knowing you could have done better, and yet you couldn’t, because the doing was done by someone else. It’s a theoretical thing, like an unsolveable equation, where it stays unsolved no matter how smart you are.
December 14th, 2006 at 12:52 am
I’m not arguing that god does not experience emotions- mostly because i don’t believe a god exists. I’m just saying that from a pure debating standpoint, you are creating straw men that are easily overturned, and not trying to muster the hardest, most coherent argument, and take that on directly. As such I think that you’re being unfair, and I’m attempting (apparently poorly) to call you on it.
(Apologetics?) is a tough subject for believers. You don’t honor that difficulty when you assemble easy arguments, and then marvel at how easily they are overturned.
I guess I wish you’d spend less time on the easy stuff, and more time on the things you can’t reason out as easily. These sorts of arguments have been argued better (Bertrand Russell’s “why I am not a Christian”, for example) many times over. Can’t you construct a better argument, though, without resorting to the “simple” christian or the “naive” deist? If not, then isn’t Soulster arguing with an immovable object? What’s the point in that?
December 14th, 2006 at 8:03 am
hbergeronx,
I’m not here to debunk Christianity. Please read the ‘About’ page at the top. If I were to take an all-out attack on Christianity with POE, I’d be a jerk. That’s not the point of this website. I’m here to either bring forward little bits that may help some Christians question their faith, or just think for a bit - and to help foster dialogue between atheists and theists.
While I have read Russell’s papers before, and plenty of other arguments, I find the biological bit interesting, and wondering how Christians deal with the apparent problem.
There are two options:
1. God does experience emotions, just as it says in the Bible.
2. God does not experience emotions, even though it says he does in the Bible. The classic definition of omnipotence doesn’t fit with what we understand about the universe.
On a side note, I have met many Christians that do believe that God loves them, emotions and all. They have quoted scripture, and are convinced that God lives in the firmament. Not everyone is well-versed in arguments. If their god does not hold up to a simple argument, they can do some reading.
Of the two posts I’ve written concerning Christianity, I’ve focused on deism and “simple” theism. So what? A majority of Christians today without thelogical education have a “simple” form of theism or “naive” deism.
December 14th, 2006 at 9:21 am
If God is love,
and if “Love, for example, is curving of the corners of lips, the softening of the eyes, the relaxing of the body, the rising of blood pressure, along within the brain, the release of Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Oestrogen, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Testosterone, and Vasopressin,” does it not follow that God is curving of the corners of lips, the softening of the eyes, the relaxing of the body, the rising of blood pressure, along within the brain, the release of Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Oestrogen, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Testosterone, and Vasopressin? Hasn’t a study already concluded that God = psilocybin mushrooms?
December 14th, 2006 at 10:19 am
@brad -
I think it does follow.
Or, if we want to put it another way: let’s suppose that emotion is an epiphenomenon arising from the state of our physical system. If the universe is somehow contained within the God system, might it be possible that similar epiphenomena might arise based on the state of the universe? Might it be possible that the curving of the corners of my lips, the softening of my eyes, and the relaxing of my body are emotions for God in the same way that they are emotions for me?
December 14th, 2006 at 10:21 am
I understand that. So you’re going around, debunking a whole bunch of things that are not called christianity, and then saying, “look, most Christians believe that”. How is that different?
December 14th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
hbergeronx,
What are you getting at?
I have not attempted to debunk anything here. I have shown my personal opinion on the subject, along with some related information. The evidence suggests that there cannot be emotion without the brain or body - a statement of fact. The resulting conflict I see interests me.
There are two general classes of Christians I have enountered. The first believes point one I made below; the second, point two.
“There are two options:
1. God does experience emotions, just as it says in the Bible.
2. God does not experience emotions, even though it says he does in the Bible.”
The first group believes, even when their belief contradicts what the evidence suggests; the second does not strictly follow the Bible, and tends to redefine the classic definition of omnipotence.
In my personal experience, I find the first group to be generally ignorant of argument or dogmatic, ignoring facts that contradict their teachings, while the second group interperets the Bible and God’s characteristics in a novel - and certainly more interesting - way, as with soulster.
December 14th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
brad,
Could you point us to the study?
Matthew,
I don’t think your argument works. Firstly, I think it’s a stretch to equate human emotions and God emotions are the same. Humans aren’t neurons, at least I don’t see how one could argue for this, and since God does not have a body or neurons, I still think what you’re arguing for is the inability for God to produce emotion.
As a side note, I’d like to pull your argument apart for a moment. When no animals existed - as both the creation account in the Bible and in recent evidence in cosmology and evolutionary biology agree that there was a time that animals did not exist - did God not have emotions?
December 14th, 2006 at 3:17 pm
drunkentune: I'm not sure I could be or want to be classified with such basis statements. It seems I've spent so much time creating big systems of thought, that I would be dispirited to find myself expressed in a sentence ;). But you may describe me as you like, of course.
Then perhas it is time to let such descriptions tumble. I do not use these descriptions in my thinking, except to say in the last case "I find God all-loving, and think you might be able to as well". Judging on context, I'm not sure any of the statements in the Bible about God's nature were meant to be taken as absolute definitions. I do believe God experiences emotions, or at least what can be explained as emotions to us through analogy and serves as real sensitivity in interaction. And, therefore, I would also disagree with the static/inert view of God based on a certain Christianized Hellenism (that God must be a great unchanging singularity).
For example, the argument goes: if God is all good can he change? No, because to change would mean he must change into being less than all good. Then his emotions cannot change, because if happy is good, to be sad, or anything else, is less than good. Likewise, if we affect God's emotions, we are changing God, therefore he is dependent on us, and changes, and is not as great as he could be. But that's a silly argument because it's just playing with words. It all depends on what you're talking about. What's better: a clock whose hands change or one that doesn't? That's easy. So you can be 'all good' and yet dynamic. In fact, in relationship, usually the more dynamic, as long as dynamic is faithful, the better.
'Good' is a label and a judgment anyway. Is God always good? Ask Job. He says 'no' for a while then 'yes' at the end. I don't think the Cannanites during the conquest thought Yahweh was good. There are places where people in the Bible call God terrible and frightening, accuse him of all sorts of stuff. Deson't sound like they think he's good at that point to me. So, relationally speaking, when someone, even in the Bible, makes the theological statement "God is good", they are talking about how they find him, and how they suggest others find him. If I say, "drunkentune is good" I have not made him absolutely so or can claim to know his nature entirely, but I have found him good, and may suggest to others that he is.
While I agree with the idea of analogy, I do not agree that things like God having emotion, thinking, changing his mind, etc. are simply anthropomorphisms, like so many of the omniscient/omnipontent camp. There is little reason to have a God that I cannot have a real relationship with (one unmutable, unfeeling, unthinking, etc., which is my reason for believeing he has emotion rather than, 'because the Bible says so'). His nature beyond what is revealed in that relationship is shrowded in a great cloud of things I do not know, some of which make no sense to me.
So now, I cannot say God does not have emotions, or I would have no relationship with him (which would violate my experience, my interpretation of the evidence, my theological aesthetic, and my hope). So I simply have this unanswered question: I do not know how he has emotions without a human body and brain. To answer my question, I will likely be left to ponder certain possibilites for a very long time: Perhaps we do not understand conciousness yet (that it is not tied exclusively to biological process), perhaps he has a body of a type, perhaps he indwells energy, etc.
December 14th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
soulster,
I guess when I was categorizing you, I was considering yourself, as this website purports, a seeker of truth, and not dogma.
I was thinking a bit on your comments, and I realized that your worldview gets around some of the nasty problems facing many literalist Christians. There’s no need to answer the Problem of Evil, since “omnipotence” and other characteristics of God are merely approximate labels we give, and the problem of omniscience and omnipotence conflicting never arises:
“Judging on context, I’m not sure any of the statements in the Bible about God’s nature were meant to be taken as absolute definitions.”
“I believe that passages in the Bible constured [sic] for absolute omnipotence in the Greek sense are really talking relationally (of course, you knew I was going to say that). God is saying, ‘as far as your concerned, I’m faithful, because I have the power to do what I say I’m going to do.’ So I do not argue for omnipotence. I argue for relational faithfulness.”
It’s interesting, your argument that they are not anthropomorphic characteristics, but analogies. I’m still working it over, but I like it. I do disagree with it (I’m the resident atheist, after all) on other grounds, but it’s quote good.
December 14th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
RE: ” God is curving of the corners of lips..?”
Poetic emotional appeals are fine and dandy, but this smacks more of an example of Pavlov’s Dogs rather than a discussion about what love is and its origins.
That comment isn’t meant to be impolite, by the way - just an observation.
December 14th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
drunkentune:
It has been through wrestling with atheist rebutals of the omnipotent-omniscience-omnibenevolent god that I have come to this view in some respects. There is, after all, an agnostic within me, who, I think by grace, is not evicted even now, but shown some hospitality. I found that static god ugly in too many ways to want to know him. I had seen in Jesus a God I was beginning to trust relationally, but beyond Jesus there wasn’t much I wanted for a time. Then, as I started to get better at entering the narrative, I began to understand how we had misused it. Not in the ways literalists claim of wrong details, but that we forged it into an anvil to bend others to, and in so doing created a god we thought indestructable, invulnerable, and ultimately inaccessible. I started hearing desenting voices long ago silenced or forced to the margins by cultures of control. I discovered that that ugly god was not as biblical as I once thought. In some ways, I have given up the new ways of defining god as an object of study or as a cosmic machine, and have found what I think are more ancient paths of knowing him as Friend, and in so doing, I can let more things dwell in the darkness beyond my vision, undefined. After all, when I consider myself honestly, I cannot truly see that far or that deep.
December 15th, 2006 at 11:40 am
@dt -
Isn’t this the argument hberg made earlier?
I wouldn’t argue that so much as that thoughts and feelings are simply side-effects of sufficiently complex systems. If you can get emotion and consciousness from a system as simple as a human being, isn’t it possible that you could get something even more interesting from a system as complex as the universe?
December 15th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
I agree with the idea that our emotions are intrinsically tied to our body. However, I don’t see why this should lead one to question how God can love without a body. God is, by definition, super-natural, so I don’t see the reason for applying what we believe about human emotions to God. It would be sort of like observing that chickens come into being by hatching from an egg, and then asking how stars can possibly exist, since they don’t hatch from eggs. A really bad example, I know, but hopefully it somewhat demonstrates my confusion.
December 15th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Here is a link to a near death experience by an agnostic: http://www.nderf.org/annette_s's_nde.htm This para-normal experience seems to indicate perception and emotion in the absence of normal brain functioning, while she was "floating" above the scene. So, I disagree that we have no evidence that emotions might be felt apart from the brain functioning. Maybe the evidence is not definitive, but in science multiple case reports are sometimes all you have to establish that an otherwise true axiom may have exceptions.
December 15th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Matthew,
I don’t dispute that emotions formed from human beings and the entire universe would be very “interesting”, but that has little bearing on the fact that such a being still does not have a body or brain, and would be unable to experience emotions as we do.
Benny,
I don’t think I’ve done my argument much justice. In essence, God cannot experience emotions as we do, for God has no body or brain. For this to occur, either believers must disregard the universe as we understand it, and all the evidence that leads to the conclusion that emotion cannot exist without the body and brain, or conclude that God is not omniscient.
I don’t see how the answer “God is supernatural, so therefore God can have emotion” works.
It’s an argument that gives an axim, “Because of God’s very being, God can do anything,” that contradicts the evidence that God has neither brain nor body, so God cannot experience human emotion, and ‘resolves’ with the answer, “Your forget the axim: Because of God’s very being, God can do anything.”
December 16th, 2006 at 12:15 am
This is getting interesting, for I seldom play the part of defending theist beliefs
Now, the part of your argument that I still don’t understand is the step from “God has no body or brain” to “God cannot experience emotion as we do”. As I said, I agree with you that evidence seems to indicate that HUMANS can not experience emotions without a body. But where is the evidence that allows one to extend this conclusion to God? Because God is super-natural, I don’t think there CAN be any such evidence. The argument is not “Because of God’s very being, God can do anything”. Rather, it’s “God is not human, so human rules do not apply.”
Another thought. Perhaps you are right, and God does not/can not experience human emotions. But perhaps the love ascribed to him is not the human kind of love, but a super-natural love that only God can experience. And the authors of the Bible used the word love simply because it was the best approximation they had available.
December 16th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
RE benny
How about this.
God is an abstract concept which represents a human philosophical ideal. It represents our nature if we were capable of perfection.
As we are not perfect, (whatever this means), the god concept becomes the philosophical yardstick by which we measure our “goodness and “badness.”
God doesn’t have a body, never had a body and won’t have a body, (except an imaginery one)because it is a human constructed and created abstract concept.
Any attributes or characteristics which any god concept has, has them because we, as humans, gave them to the concept in the first place.
December 16th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Hi beepbeepitsme,
That’s a very logical conclusion, but only if one starts from the premise that God is only an abstract concept. It’s what you believe, and what I believe, but I don’t think it’s what most theists believe. If we want to involve them in this conversation, I don’t think we can really start with that premise.
December 17th, 2006 at 12:01 am
Benny:
My conclusion is that the gods, as we define them, are abstract human created concepts but my starting point to reach this conclusion wasn’t the conclusion itself.
A sociological, cultural and anthropological investigation of the history of religion suggests that this is what the god concepts are.
They are our creations, therefore we embue them with the qualities which best suit our geo-political and socio-cultural dynamics.
December 17th, 2006 at 10:09 am
beepbeep:
Sure you’ve looked at the evidence. So have I. But we interpret it differently. I think that Benny is right. I find myself not wanting to comment in regards to your posts because your tone is as if you conclusion is indisputable and I’d have to be an idiot to disagree. Well I disagree, as do many educated and intelligent people, so none of it is indisputable.
Of course, you have a right to use the tone you do, and say things as you see them. And I am by no means trying to discourage your helpful and intelligent contributions. But I am more attracted to people who say “maybe” and “perhaps” and let me make conclusions — even if they are very sure of their conclusions themselves. This has more to do with me and other people than you, and the power of subtlety and understatement in conversation.
December 17th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
I agree again with Soulster. Think back to the fifteenth century, when a bunch of very dubious men decided that some upstart young woman could easily be tricked. She entered the crowded room and went straight to the disguised Dauphin, though she had never seen him before. Those skeptics were convinced it was a miracle, and Joan of Arc went on to save France. History doesn’t record his voice, but the lone remaining skeptic would not be so confident that all the others who witnessed that miracle were fools, particularly after the Maid of Orleans whooped the previously unassailable English army!
December 17th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
Ed,
Perhaps not the best example? I’d be worried if people today still considered a likely schizophrenic somehow in tune with a higher order.
Allowing someone that far gone could be very dangerous - for starters, look at the American public and their 43rd President.
December 17th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Re soulster:
“I find myself not wanting to comment in regards to your posts because your tone is as if you conclusion is indisputable and I’d have to be an idiot to disagree.”
I am surprised at that. I don’t consider that I have an aggressive tone at all. Perhaps it is just an exmaple of a difference in cultural psychology - and how we emotionally interpret the written word.
I present what I consider to be my honest conclusions concerning a topic, but I don’t intend to wilfully emotionally or psychologically harm anyone.
Perhaps such harm is unavoidable though, if we are presented with arguments or ideas which conflict markedly with how we see ourselves and our position in the world according to how we see ourselves?
I don’t know. Maybe it is just the natural outcome of being presented with views which are diametrically opposed to those we hold ourselves?
Re: “Sure you’ve looked at the evidence. So have I. But we interpret it differently.”
Maybe so, but this would assume that evidence is not neutral. That it is, in some way, slanted towards a particular position which then should be taken as conclusive.
I would like to think that “evidence” IS neutral. It is our interpretation of evidence which is NOT potentially neutral.
The temptation may be there to interpret “evidence” according to our already held beliefs, but wouldn’t this just be an example of shoehorning information to fit?
I apologise if the content of my text has been interpreted as brusque. My intention has not been to emotionally damage anyone, merely to have a lively and polite discourse concerning concepts which concern us all.
If you have problems with my posting at this site, just let me know. I am amenable to criticism.
December 17th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Schizophrenia results in loss of initiative and trouble with concentration, as well as hallucinations. Her symptoms were more likely the result of temporal lobe epilepsy (complex partial seizure disorder, in the current terminology). And my example is meant not to argue for this miracle or not, but to show that people tend to have different levels of readiness to believe something that goes against their worldview. What Soulster and I seem to want to elicit is a discussion of why the same people seeing the same evidence can arrive at such radically different conclusion. In my example, there were a lot of people who were predisposed NOT to accept a young woman as a military leader, and in fact, the men in that room eventually left her to her awful fate by her English captors. So, think of it as an example of true skeptics faced with unexplainable, seemingly supernatural events (this wasn’t Joan’s only miracle according to the Catholic Church). Why did they change their worldview? What would it take to change your worldview? Would you need a personal experience of the supernatural? Could you rely on the report of others? Would the religious need a personal experience of evidence that contradicted their belief? Could the religious rely on the report of others? If your answer, as a believer or a skeptic is that NOTHING can change your worldview, then I say that is a blind self-confidence. And that is the real problem with George W. Bush and most French people
(joking, I’ve liked every French person I’ve ever met)
December 17th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Re: My personality
I am a sweetheart. I would send everyone a picture of myself, but I am running out of places in the backyard to bury the bodies of unrequited lovers.
(That was a joke - There is plenty of room left. I just stack them on top of each other.)
Ok - the second part was a joke too. lol
December 18th, 2006 at 11:36 am
beepbeep: I'm not hurt in the least, and I am sure you're a sweetheart. (And that those poor souls in shallow graves welcomed death rather than suffer the agony of their passion, so you are indeed merciful.)
I do not find your comments threatening, and there may be readers here who need to be "threatened" by them. So in that way, perhaps it is helpful for you to continue your line.
But that wasn't my point. Sometimes I think to myself, "Well if beebeep thinks all this is indisputable fact, and I'm 'willfully self-deceived', and none of what I say has the least bit of coherence jusged by its own integrity, and faith is really some rubbish about ignoring things and tossing out data, than what's the point? I am so prejudged by her worldview, there is no possible escape tragectory and our conversation will crash and burn." That's all I mean to say. I simply fear we are missing each other in some ways.
For example:
This is exactly what I'm saying. Evidence is neutral, or could be (Perhaps it's better to say 'reality is neutral'). Interpretations are not. They are where we judge evidence to point here or there. Where we might disagree is whether it is possible for anyone to not interpret evidence based on already held beliefs. I say no (but that could be because I am more post-modern than modern). We all interpret the world through worldview. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that you think perhaps that some people do not, or that they do not do so as much as people of faith. That is what I think I hear, and is a position I find hard to converse with. I am by no means accusing you of wrong doing or of trying to hurt anyone, but as a matter of explaining how I'm hearing you, I would say some of these comments sound to me like a lack of openness (although that could be just an error in interpretation, or it could be just me and my insecurities).
I respect your contributions and have enjoyed your comments, some of which are among the witiest here — which is needed given our corporate tendency towards pontificating. I hope that similar feedback would be given to me if I seem to be coming off in a way that does not maximize dialogoue, which I am sure is neither of our intentions.
December 18th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
RE soulster
You are indeed a gracious host.
December 19th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Ed (Comment #38),
In the case of God (which is what Philaletheia is about, not the existence of the supernatural -essentially moot to the discussion), I suppose a list would work:
1. Unlock the locked box beside my bed.
2. Answer any prayer I give (Matthew 18:19; Mark 11:24; Matthew 7:7).
The Bible says that I am allowed to test for God’s existence, so that’s enough for me.
In the case of the supernatural, I still don’t know what it is.
What would you define the supernatural to be?
When someone tells me that aliens abducted him or her and probed them, I’m skeptical of their claim. I don’t believe in such foolishness. In fact, I’m so skeptical that I am essentially certain that they are wrong.
When someone tells me that Pan, the goat god, will watch over me, I’m skeptical of his or her claim. I don’t believe in such foolishness. In fact, I’m so skeptical that I am essentially certain that they are wrong.
When someone tells me that Jehovah will save me, I’m skeptical of his or her claim. I don’t believe in such foolishness. In fact, I’m so skeptical that I am essentially certain that they are wrong.
I should hope that you would respond just as I did: You would dismiss their claims, because to you, they are obviously foolish. You don’t believe extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. It isn’t an appeal to authority; it’s just an appeal to heresy:
1. Person A makes claim C.
2. Therefore, C is true.
The whole world could claim C to be true, for all I care. That still doesn’t make C true.
It depends on the report, and the evidence to support it. If someone was charged with a crime – let’s say the theft of a large diamond – and the evidence was brought before the judge. The prosecutor had a little circumstantial evidence tying the defendant to the crime, so the defendant was brought in for questioning, and happened to have the diamond in his possession when interviewed. I’d find it hard to believe his argument that a demon had deposited the diamond in his breast pocket moments before questioning.
That is a supernatural hypothesis, and as with all other supernatural claims, there will always be a natural hypothesis that is more likely to occur.
December 19th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Drunkentune,
Unfortunately, it does not appear that God responds to our individual whims to prove himself to us. However, if you were travelling to a neighboring city, and a bright light blinded you, and a voice simultaneously told you that God exists and to stop opposing him, and that voice told you to go to a certain place in the town, and find a certain ordinary fellow, and that fellow healed your blindness, and subsequently you received periodic messages from God, what then? Would you be so changed as to be beaten to a pulp or die rather than deny God? What I am saying is that faith in God may rely more on our willingness to trust the reports/experiences of others than that of our own personal experience. I would say the same for science. I remember that physics lab in college where I had to do some measurements to come up with Planck’s constant. I did it over and over, and got the same wrong answer. How do I know my answer was wrong? Because I trust the report of the many who have done the measurement correctly rather than my own personal experience.