emphryio

Thanks for responding Starboy.

Let me try to keep it short.

I think animals think just like humans do. The idea that something other than thinking must be created to explain their actions seems unnecessary outside of religious dogma. (Isn't there some saying about the simplest explanation etc...?? Occam's Razor... ???)


I've spent at least an hour trying to understand this and finally got it.

You're saying that because the emotion can be removed (without removing the logical thought), emotions are seperate from logical thoughts?

But you can't have the emotion in the first place without thinking? (logical or otherwise) The emotion just doesn't come out of nowhere. So the emotion comes directly from the logical (or illogical) thought. So they are connected.
Agree?

Surely you don't think humans (at least) can produce emotion in themselves without some sort of thinking first?

But I guess that's the only explanation I can think of. You must think emotions come from ... that fantastic and ridiculous thing called instinct? Is that it?

I personally can produce emotion in myself directly as a result of logical thought. Can you produce emotion out of nothing? Please explain. I really want to understand this.

HelenM

Please provide evidence that theists are mentally ill if you truly believe this. Without supporting evidence I think this comment is inappropriate.

Helen

agapeo

Hi Wyz, (hope ya don't mind the shortened version)

I appreciate that you took the time to respond to my response to you. In the interest of keeping this topic on track, somewhat, (despite the efforts of certain other individuals to the contrary ) I will let the semantics issue go. But I would very much like to respond to this:
Sometimes I do. But no for the most part, I am here primarily to learn, not to teach. Most of the people I see posting on this Board are very well read and intelligent, so I'm not sure what I could possibly offer them that hasn't already crossed their paths. But I do enjoy having discussions on certain issues from time to time. Generally I try to avoid saying much because it tends to "suck" me in to the point of taking up too much of my time. Mind ya, I'm not complaining since, in this topic, I did open my mouth a tad bit too much.

Starboy

Emphyrio,

Perhaps our differences are the result of our understanding and use of the word thinking. Webster’s list is as:

I consider thinking to be defined by 9 in other words as a synonym to the word reason. I consider emotion to be automatic like a reflex. I suppose you could say that I consider emotion to be reflexive behavior and as such is without thought or reason.

I do think that humans can experience emotion with no form of thinking. The most obvious example of this is to compare the behavior of a newborn baby to that of an adult. There is no doubt in my mind that a newborn is experiencing emotion. There is also no doubt in my mind that a newborn is incapable of anything approaching what I would call thinking and that a newborns emotions are not triggered by anything I would call thinking. Newborns operate purely on instinct. They are primal creatures whose behavior is easily understood as being triggered by things like hunger, fear, loneliness and so forth. The mentally handicapped have a great deal of trouble exhibiting what we would call rational thought but they have little trouble displaying emotion.

Lastly, as to your point that emotion must be thinking because you can trigger emotion with thought. I do not consider that to have much merit. You can also trigger a reflex by stimulating it, that doesn’t make it a thoughtful reaction. It is more like a spasm. We are just now beginning to understand the effects of pheromones and other substances on our behavior. The existence of such things is clear evidence that automatic behavior in humans exists and IMO emotions are in that category.

Perhaps we agree, but if that were so it would be because we do not share the same definition for the words “think” and “emotion”. What do you mean when you use those words?

Starboy

[ November 23, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

emphryio

I'm going to have to think about this for awhile.
Possibly I have dismissed the concept of instinct out of hand. I have done this because it seems the equivalent of "Calling what we don't understand, God." (Instead calling certain things instinct.)

But why does a newborn know to cry when it is born? How does it know to bother doing anything? Etc. I have always said it was actually through "thinking". But if you go back far enough, eventually something other than thinking is needed to get the whole process started. And once you allow for SOMETHING else in the very beginning, then the floodgates can open.

Furthermore I seem to have some idealized vision based on little logical consious thought concerning human's potential of complete awareness of all that occurs within their brains.

Let me think for awhile.
Concerning my definition of "thinking", it has suddenly become ... a bit hazy.

Pseudonymph

I second the call for evidence regarding this...In fact I'm still waiting for evidence in another thread that the vast majority of drop outs and drug users are theists.

Mental illness?

schu

Hi Helen;

If a child believes a security blanket will keep him from harm we just think he believes that because he is a child. If someone 25 years old carries around a security blanket we would think him strange.

If a child thinks there are spooks, phantoms, ghosts we think he is just a child and thinks like a child. If an adult thinks these apparitions exist rational people think there is something wrong with him.

Xians claim to believe in a holy ghost and other assorted apparitions. For an adult to think as a child thinks would seem to me a manifestation of mental illness.

Further, a person has to abdicate their reason to believe the Bible. The number of contradictions and impossible events in the Bible prove it to be a fiction. To claim to believe it one has to give up their reason. Seems to me if one has given up their reason, they are no longer sane.

You many not know that this thread started in RRP, but there I don't think unsupported comments are inappropriate at all. If they are, you should be fussing at the xians who post there. As far as I know GT has yet support one of her religious assertions.

Hope this helps Helen. If you would like any more clarification, just ask.

Yours in skepticism, me 99% you 1%

Schu

agapeo

Ahh, pardon me Schu, but that wasn't evidence. That's what is called making assertions. Can ya do better than that?

Goliath

Well, since a vast majority of people (at least in the US) are theistic, would it not stand to reason that a majority of drug users and drop outs are also theists?

Sincerely,

Goliath

schu

Why should I have to? All the claims of the xians are assertions made to try and support a old book of myths. As I pointed out about GT and I'll also say about you, neither of you do more than assert what your feelings are about the god in your head. GT does it with childish one liners and you elaborate ad nauseam, but your content is the same.

I don't know why the hall monitors moved this from RRP to this rarified area of II. It seems to me if someone posts in RRP, they expect people to rant, rave or preach about it. For the moniters to move it from there is to remove the expectations for responses of the original poster. I usually only skim over these posts, but inasmuch as they have chosen to move this here I don't mind making my assertions here.

For you and Helen to object to my assertions is pretty funny when neither of you can give a description of god that is consistent with the descriptions in the Bible. As far as I can tell, all your descriptions of god are assertions. And the descriptions in the Bible are assertions made by tribal Semitic of 2 to 4 thousand years ago.

God in the head = mental illness to me. And it appears to me that xians must willfully ignore all contradictory and impossible things in the Bible. People who are schizophrenic have reasons for their illness. People who deliberately ignore reality in the face of the evidence have only their selves to look to for the cause of their mental problems.