Ephesians 2:10

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 9 here:

Ephesians 2:10 (For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.)

I think you have a poor conclusion here. I don't see your point connected to the verse. Let me go a bit further in this verse for you to comprehend. It said " For we are his workmanship" Human is created by a creator.
...

My emboldenizationin'.

For debate:

Is the notion that we are created by a god the most reasonable and rational conclusion to be had?

[EduChris]

...Positing a volitional agent without physical form is, I contend, not a rational argument...

The "evidence" that we have is our entire physical universe. What we seek is a rational explanation for this universe--particuarly, the "specificity" of the universe (to use ThatGirlAgain's terminology). Our universe is not some amorphous, uninteresting, inert blob, but rather a highly organized, information-laden, consciousness-inhabited spectacle, which, so far as we can tell, didn't have to exist.

No one claims to know all of the precise steps which came together to produce this universe, with all of its very specific physical "laws." However, we have the following general options:

1) Chance. This is the "Poof! It just happened!" option. On the one hand, it's form is like an explanation, but in reality, it is a lack of an explanation. When we explain something in terms of "chance," it means that we do not have a full and complete causal chain for all of the steps involved. As a practical matter, sometimes we might be wrong to attribute something to "chance." In such cases, there really is an explanation, but we just haven't discovered it yet. But I am not using "chance" in this way here; when I speak of "chance" as the explanation for the specificity of our universe, I mean that there literally is no complete causal chain which explains the universe from start to finish. In this scenario, the explanation for our universe is simply that it was somehow possible, and we just happened to pop into existence for no particular reason at all, without any need to address the question of whether any other universe(s) might also have popped into existence.

2) Necessity. This is the "Omniverse" option--all possibilities are necessarily instantiated. We don't know how many universes are actually possible, but the simplest assumption is an infinite number. In this universe, I ate Cheerios for breakfast. Although it might seem like I could have eaten Corn Flakes instead, in reality I could not have done so; that option was already taken in some other universe. This explanation eliminates the need to explain why our specific universe came to be: there wasn't any option. All possible universes just had to become actualized, and it just happens that we are in this universe--with its set of possibilities assigned to become actualized--rather than in one of the multitudes of other universes.

3) Volition. This is the theistic option. In order to rule out this option, we have two options: 1) we could present a very strong argument that our human volition is an illusion, a chimera, an impotent mirage which does not actually cause anything to happen in our universe, wherein absolutely everything derives from chance and/or necessity; or 2) we could present a very strong argument that volition cannot exist in the absence of some highly specific physical substructure (such as our brain).

The first problem with the "volition-as-illusion" option is that we have excellent prima facie evidence that our personal volition does cause (or select) certain things to happen, for the purpose of realizing some subjective value. This prima facie evidence is as direct and unmediated as anything could ever be, and so the burden of proof needed to deny the efficacy of our volition seems insurmountable. The second problem with the "volition-as-illusion" option is that we have a diffiicult time explaining how evolution could have produced conscious thoughts which have no bearing whatsoever on behavior. Conscious thoughts which do not affect behavior in any way cannot have been built and honed according to adaptive advantage, for the very reason that these conscious thoughts produced no behaviors at all. Thus the "evolutionary accident" explanation for SME seems too ad hoc to be taken seriously, especially since we apparently do use our inner conscious subjective thought life to weigh and evaluate arguments, resulting in specific behaviors every single day.

The problem with the "volition-requires-physicality" option is that we don't know this. We can't know this. When it comes right down to it, we don't even know what "physicality" is. We sometimes assume that we know, but yet appearances can be deceiving. We are not solid masses, but rather mostly empty space. Physicists seem to be finding newer and smaller particles every year, and now we have begun to speak of "virtual particles" as opposed to "real particles." No one has ever seen a virtual particle, or even a real particle; these are just hypothetical postulates that help us explain and predict results of very complicated experiments and procedures, all of which are multiply mediated through any number of mechanical apparati and any number of human observers, each of whom might interpret the results in various ways. At the end of the day, we don't know what our subjective mental experience really is: we can't measure it or weigh it. We can tamper with it in various ways, by poking around in the brain, but this hardly proves that an actual brain is required for SME, any more than a leaky straw proves that there is no water in the glass.

So any way we look at it, we apparently have some sort of "possibility reservoir" from which our very specific universe became actualized. The "chance" option doesn't give us an actual explanation, and it seems entirely ad hoc. The "necessity" option requires an infinite number of other universes, the majority of which will be amorphous blobs, in order to avoid the ad hoc problem. But we have no empirical evidence for these other universes, nor can we have ever have any empirical evidence for them, even in principle, since we don't have the luxury of getting outside our own universe to observe these putative universes.

This leaves us with the third option. If this option can be shown to be logically impossible, then we should pick one of the other options--either one, actually, since it wouldn't make any difference if volition is an illusion.

But we don't have any good basis for excluding volition, and every reason for retaining it. The "volition" option is the least ad hoc, the most privative, and in best accord with our natural sense of who we are as persons. This option alone provides the possibility that some answers to some questions are actually better than other answers. This option alone provides the necessary metaphysical framework for the sort of wordview most of us employ in our daily lives. For all of these reasons and more, most people have been, are, and will continue to be, theists.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 21:

This seems our principle bone of contention, so let's mark it by itself...

...Positing a volitional agent without physical form is, I contend, not a rational argument...

The "evidence" that we have is our entire physical universe. What we seek is a rational explanation for this universe--particuarly, the "specificity" of the universe (to use ThatGirlAgain's terminology).

I'm not so sure if I accept a charge of specificity. Such language seems too subjective (while admitting here we are subjectivin' to beat the band).

I note also that where I propose a volitional agent would require physicality, you present the physical universe as evidence it doesn't.

Our universe is not some amorphous, uninteresting...

Uninteresting is a purely subjective value.

inert blob...

A "blob" is what we make of it. Where some see a "blob", others may see an amoeba.

but rather a highly organized...

By who's determination must we consider the universe "organized"?

information-laden...

I contend that where there's something, there's information to be had. Upon considering such, a charge of "information laden" is only dependent on one's ability to investigate.

consciousness-inhabited spectacle...

This is where I contend all evidence indicates that consciousness-inhabited would be a product of the brain, a physical form, as expressed through the mind.

"Spectacle" of course being a rather incredulous position, but danged if I don't agree.

which, so far as we can tell, didn't have to exist.

I can agree with that, with a qualifier to follow...

No one claims to know all of the precise steps which came together to produce this universe, with all of its very specific physical "laws." However, we have the following general options:

1) Chance...

Snipped for brevity and for I'm kinda with ya here.

I would add that as above, where you declare "didn't have to exist", you are positing a position based on chance, but saying such a position is not warranted.

2) Necessity. This is the "Omniverse" option--all possibilities are necessarily instantiated...

This is where I propose that necessity is the ultimate rule that things act according to their properties. In this fashion then, the universe could be considered "necessary" because of its own (pre-) composition.

We'll cover this next'n completely because it seems the fundamental deal here...

3) Volition. This is the theistic option. In order to rule out this option, we have two options: 1) we could present a very strong argument that our human volition is an illusion, a chimera, an impotent mirage which does not actually cause anything to happen in our universe, wherein absolutely everything derives from chance and/or necessity; or 2) we could present a very strong argument that volition cannot exist in the absence of some highly specific physical substructure (such as our brain).

Of course we have more data to sift through, but I'm gonna point out the notion that EduChris seemingly accepts that volition can't exist without some physical structure (with apologies if that ain't what he's getting at here).

The first problem with the "volition-as-illusion" option is that we have excellent prima facie evidence that our personal volition does cause (or select) certain things to happen, for the purpose of realizing some subjective value. This prima facie evidence is as direct and unmediated as anything could ever be, and so the burden of proof needed to deny the efficacy of our volition seems insurmountable.

I don't argue that our volition need be efficient, but that there it is, as expressed in the physical brain.

The second problem with the "volition-as-illusion" option is that we have a diffiicult time explaining how evolution could have produced conscious thoughts which have no bearing whatsoever on behavior.

Where I perceive light, it has little impact on my hearing. Thus, the perception of light need not impact on my behavior, except for when it does.

Conscious thoughts which do not affect behavior in any way cannot have been built and honed according to adaptive advantage, for the very reason that these conscious thoughts produced no behaviors at all.

As above, where I perceive light, that notion need not impact on my ability to know a fire, which produces light, may be a good way to cook a biscuit. Thus, my sense of taste is impacted, somewhat tangentially, by my sense of sight.

I contend that our perceptions of our various senses have presented in us an ability to extrapolate, and that such is not in conflict with the ToE (not that you directly argue against it).

Thus the "evolutionary accident" explanation for SME seems too ad hoc to be taken seriously, especially since we apparently do use our inner conscious subjective thought life to weigh and evaluate arguments, resulting in specific behaviors every single day.

When something "seems", we are displaying our ability to cognitize, to think, to discern, and such are or is the very product, best we can tell, of a physical brain.

The problem with the "volition-requires-physicality" option is that we don't know this. We can't know this.
...

I contend this is an argumentum ad ignorantiam, where you propose we can't know it ain't, so therefore it is.

When it comes right down to it, we don't even know what "physicality" is. We sometimes assume that we know, but yet appearances can be deceiving. We are not solid masses, but rather mostly empty space.

With all respect, this reeks of a "god of the gaps" argument - noting you're willing to clarify.

Physicists seem to be finding newer and smaller particles every year, and now we have begun to speak of "virtual particles" as opposed to "real particles." No one has ever seen a virtual particle, or even a real particle; these are just hypothetical postulates that help us explain and predict results of very complicated experiments and procedures, all of which are multiply mediated through any number of mechanical apparati and any number of human observers, each of whom might interpret the results in various ways. At the end of the day, we don't know what our subjective mental experience really is: we can't measure it or weigh it. We can tamper with it in various ways, by poking around in the brain, but this hardly proves that an actual brain is required for SME, any more than a leaky straw proves that there is no water in the glass.

This condition does nothing to show that a volitional agent wouldn't require physicality. What it does is show that where we don't know something, some'll insert a god into that gap. I say that with the full appreciation that I may misunderstand what you're getting at.

So any way we look at it, we apparently have some sort of "possibility reservoir" from which our very specific universe became actualized.

I fear the use of "specific" in this sense may be borne of an entity observing such from within. It is a subjective term, even if one may produce objective criteria for determining just how "specific" this universe may be.

The "chance" option doesn't give us an actual explanation, and it seems entirely ad hoc.

Agreed, if we discount the purely mathematical notion of "danged if there it ain't, and what are the odds on that".

The "necessity" option requires an infinite number of other universes...

I'm not so sure it does, where necessity would be understood as stuff acting according to its properties.

the majority of which will be amorphous blobs, in order to avoid the ad hoc problem.

Okay, so the majority of all other universes are amorphous blobs. Here we sit in one that aint. How might such a condition show us the rational take is that a god created humans?

But we have no empirical evidence for these other universes, nor can we have ever have any empirical evidence for them, even in principle, since we don't have the luxury of getting outside our own universe to observe these putative universes.

So then, we discount as irrational a belief in other universes, and sit here wondering my we should consider a god as creating this'n, so by extension, humans.

This leaves us with the third option. If this option can be shown to be logically impossible, then we should pick one of the other options--either one, actually, since it wouldn't make any difference if volition is an illusion.

But we don't have any good basis for excluding volition, and every reason for retaining it.

By what rationale should we include volition if we don't contend that such is borne of a physical brain (or analogous component)?

The "volition" option is the least ad hoc, the most privative, and in best accord with our natural sense of who we are as persons.

While I contend it's a very ad hoc position, given that it refuses to accept that volition, through thought, is seen as a component of a physical brain.

This option alone provides the possibility that some answers to some questions are actually better than other answers.

Providing for a possibility is not providing for a most rational basis. It's possible I'm smart, but impossible to find an entire planet that'll agree with me about it.

This option alone provides the necessary metaphysical framework for the sort of wordview most of us employ in our daily lives. For all of these reasons and more, most people have been, are, and will continue to be, theists.

Argumentum ad populum.

[Mithrae]

The "volition" option is the least ad hoc, the most privative, and in best accord with our natural sense of who we are as persons.

While I contend it's a very ad hoc position, given that it refuses to accept that volition, through thought, is seen as a component of a physical brain.

I hope you don't mind me butting in, but as you note this does seem to be a core point of disagreement, and it seems to me that EduChris has offered two points here which you haven't really answered.

In his prior post, the hypothetical suggestion that far-future technologies might possibly produce computers "comprised of pure energy and virtual quantum particles" which possess the capacity for thought/volition some folk say will be achieved by our mundane metal and plastic computers this very century. Obviously even the latter, if it occurred, would show that volition/thought needn't come from a brain. I'm not sure whether you deny or doubt the future possibility of 'computers' with a similar capacity for thought and choice as our own? But assuming for now that you do not, your objection would not really be that thoughts and choices come from brains, but that they come from physical stuff.

• EduChris wrote:
  Physicists seem to be finding newer and smaller particles every year, and now we have begun to speak of "virtual particles" as opposed to "real particles." No one has ever seen a virtual particle, or even a real particle; these are just hypothetical postulates that help us explain and predict results of very complicated experiments and procedures, all of which are multiply mediated through any number of mechanical apparati and any number of human observers, each of whom might interpret the results in various ways. At the end of the day, we don't know what our subjective mental experience really is: we can't measure it or weigh it. We can tamper with it in various ways, by poking around in the brain, but this hardly proves that an actual brain is required for SME, any more than a leaky straw proves that there is no water in the glass.
  
  JoeyKnothead wrote:
  This condition does nothing to show that a volitional agent wouldn't require physicality. What it does is show that where we don't know something, some'll insert a god into that gap. I say that with the full appreciation that I may misunderstand what you're getting at.

I could be misunderstanding him too, but I think what he's getting at is that the word 'physical' - which we associate with tables, houses, planets and so on - can often imply limitations which the available evidence does not support.

To use a different term, what I'm aware of regarding our current knowledge or strong theories about 'stuff' is that:
- there are several different types of 'quarks,' several different types of 'leptons,' and several different types of 'bosons' which, as far as we currently know, make up all the stuff
- there are four fundamental ways in which bits of stuff interact with other bits of stuff (called gravitation, weak interaction, strong interaction and electro-magnetism)
- there are four inter-related 'dimensions,' which don't serve as a mere substrate or place to be for stuff, but are themselves actually affected by it
- there's a great deal more 'dark stuff' in the known universe than there is 'regular stuff,' but we don't know anything much at all about it
- the tables, houses, planets and so on which we see and touch are mostly not stuff at all; there's really very little stuff on earth, let alone in the universe as a whole
- far as we can tell, stuff doesn't have a single discernable nature, instead behaving both as we'd conceive a particle might and as a wave might

Now supposing it's true that volition does have to come from stuff, what have we reliably learned? Or what possibilities can we reliably exclude?

[Flail]

...Positing a volitional agent without physical form is, I contend, not a rational argument...

The "evidence" that we have is our entire physical universe. What we seek is a rational explanation for this universe--particuarly, the "specificity" of the universe (to use ThatGirlAgain's terminology). Our universe is not some amorphous, uninteresting, inert blob, but rather a highly organized, information-laden, consciousness-inhabited spectacle, which, so far as we can tell, didn't have to exist.

No one claims to know all of the precise steps which came together to produce this universe, with all of its very specific physical "laws." However, we have the following general options:

1) Chance. This is the "Poof! It just happened!" option. On the one hand, it's form is like an explanation, but in reality, it is a lack of an explanation. When we explain something in terms of "chance," it means that we do not have a full and complete causal chain for all of the steps involved. As a practical matter, sometimes we might be wrong to attribute something to "chance." In such cases, there really is an explanation, but we just haven't discovered it yet. But I am not using "chance" in this way here; when I speak of "chance" as the explanation for the specificity of our universe, I mean that there literally is no complete causal chain which explains the universe from start to finish. In this scenario, the explanation for our universe is simply that it was somehow possible, and we just happened to pop into existence for no particular reason at all, without any need to address the question of whether any other universe(s) might also have popped into existence.

2) Necessity. This is the "Omniverse" option--all possibilities are necessarily instantiated. We don't know how many universes are actually possible, but the simplest assumption is an infinite number. In this universe, I ate Cheerios for breakfast. Although it might seem like I could have eaten Corn Flakes instead, in reality I could not have done so; that option was already taken in some other universe. This explanation eliminates the need to explain why our specific universe came to be: there wasn't any option. All possible universes just had to become actualized, and it just happens that we are in this universe--with its set of possibilities assigned to become actualized--rather than in one of the multitudes of other universes.

3) Volition. This is the theistic option. In order to rule out this option, we have two options: 1) we could present a very strong argument that our human volition is an illusion, a chimera, an impotent mirage which does not actually cause anything to happen in our universe, wherein absolutely everything derives from chance and/or necessity; or 2) we could present a very strong argument that volition cannot exist in the absence of some highly specific physical substructure (such as our brain).

The first problem with the "volition-as-illusion" option is that we have excellent prima facie evidence that our personal volition does cause (or select) certain things to happen, for the purpose of realizing some subjective value. This prima facie evidence is as direct and unmediated as anything could ever be, and so the burden of proof needed to deny the efficacy of our volition seems insurmountable. The second problem with the "volition-as-illusion" option is that we have a diffiicult time explaining how evolution could have produced conscious thoughts which have no bearing whatsoever on behavior. Conscious thoughts which do not affect behavior in any way cannot have been built and honed according to adaptive advantage, for the very reason that these conscious thoughts produced no behaviors at all. Thus the "evolutionary accident" explanation for SME seems too ad hoc to be taken seriously, especially since we apparently do use our inner conscious subjective thought life to weigh and evaluate arguments, resulting in specific behaviors every single day.

The problem with the "volition-requires-physicality" option is that we don't know this. We can't know this. When it comes right down to it, we don't even know what "physicality" is. We sometimes assume that we know, but yet appearances can be deceiving. We are not solid masses, but rather mostly empty space. Physicists seem to be finding newer and smaller particles every year, and now we have begun to speak of "virtual particles" as opposed to "real particles." No one has ever seen a virtual particle, or even a real particle; these are just hypothetical postulates that help us explain and predict results of very complicated experiments and procedures, all of which are multiply mediated through any number of mechanical apparati and any number of human observers, each of whom might interpret the results in various ways. At the end of the day, we don't know what our subjective mental experience really is: we can't measure it or weigh it. We can tamper with it in various ways, by poking around in the brain, but this hardly proves that an actual brain is required for SME, any more than a leaky straw proves that there is no water in the glass.

So any way we look at it, we apparently have some sort of "possibility reservoir" from which our very specific universe became actualized. The "chance" option doesn't give us an actual explanation, and it seems entirely ad hoc. The "necessity" option requires an infinite number of other universes, the majority of which will be amorphous blobs, in order to avoid the ad hoc problem. But we have no empirical evidence for these other universes, nor can we have ever have any empirical evidence for them, even in principle, since we don't have the luxury of getting outside our own universe to observe these putative universes.

This leaves us with the third option. If this option can be shown to be logically impossible, then we should pick one of the other options--either one, actually, since it wouldn't make any difference if volition is an illusion.

But we don't have any good basis for excluding volition, and every reason for retaining it. The "volition" option is the least ad hoc, the most privative, and in best accord with our natural sense of who we are as persons. This option alone provides the possibility that some answers to some questions are actually better than other answers. This option alone provides the necessary metaphysical framework for the sort of wordview most of us employ in our daily lives. For all of these reasons and more, most people have been, are, and will continue to be, theists.

Excellent and thought provoking summation. I have a question: on what basis do you conclude that theism is the default position from volition as opposed to deism? From my ignostic point of view, the specificity of particular Gods emanating from theism like the BibleGod or KoranGod etc are non-sensical; whereas I could concede some basis or argument for deism (a supreme supernatural creative entity of some sort that chooses not to intervene in the world).

[Xian Pugilist]

It seems the human brain is as much a mystery as what was the first particle of nothing that started this whole process.

We know hoe the brain works. We know the mechanics of it. Its chemical and electrical navigation. If you feel pleasure its two particular components coming together like a puzzle and the result is pleasure. What we can't answer yet is why they come together at certain, repeated times.

Well in a fight or flight scenario you are flooded with the right chemicals....but what told the chemicals that came together to give you the feeling of flight or fight? Something has to direct whicn chemicals do what when and where. You will say the eyes see and register the threat, the brain reacts. We just keep going deeper and deeper, what chemicals had to be connected and why were they suddenly connecting at that moment to cause the brain to release the chemicals to cause the thought that caused the chemicals that.... blah blah, its like how many times can you tear something in parts before there only remains something that can't be torn apart?

So, chemically speaking if we were to reproduce the brain, we could dump the right chemical combinations into a punch bowl and we would get all the combinations our minds can create. But why does the brain produce more of some than others? We controlled the intake to the bowl, but what floods the brain during orgasm or fear. How did the chemicals that connect to make the reaction evident to our brain know to be more, consistently at that point? They don't know....

[Mithrae]

The second problem with the "volition-as-illusion" option is that we have a diffiicult time explaining how evolution could have produced conscious thoughts which have no bearing whatsoever on behavior. Conscious thoughts which do not affect behavior in any way cannot have been built and honed according to adaptive advantage, for the very reason that these conscious thoughts produced no behaviors at all. Thus the "evolutionary accident" explanation for SME seems too ad hoc to be taken seriously, especially since we apparently do use our inner conscious subjective thought life to weigh and evaluate arguments, resulting in specific behaviors every single day.

I suspect this would be a valid argument only against some views. I'm not wholly up to speed on the nuances between epiphenomenalism, emergentism and so on, but I understand that many people consider mental states (SME) to be the same as brain states, but seen from inside. We know that feeling angry is very different from seeing someone yelling and screaming; that being in love is very different from hearing that someone offed themselves because their girlfriend of two weeks was dead. It seems only reasonable to conclude that what we see in neurobiology won't look the same as what the person thinks and feels - but that doesn't mean that they're not ultimately the same thing.

The behaviours which we subjectively associate with conscious thought would therefore be associated with the brain-states which are conscious thought, and therefore be as subject to evolutionary selection as anything else.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 23:

I hope you don't mind me butting in...

Heck naw, come one, come all! The more brains we throw at this, the better.

...
In his prior post, the hypothetical suggestion that far-future technologies might possibly produce computers "comprised of pure energy and virtual quantum particles" which possess the capacity for thought/volition some folk say will be achieved by our mundane metal and plastic computers this very century.

I've never considered hypotheticals to be a valid means of determining stuff, where any hypothetical can be framed in such a fashion to support one's position. Further, I deem it not very rational to argue that far-future stuff, of which we can't accurately rely on predictions, should be considered rational as relates to the claims presented in the OP.

Obviously even the latter, if it occurred, would show that volition/thought needn't come from a brain.

If.

That said, my point stands that we have compelling evidence to indicate volition requires physicality, whether it's a computer or a brain behind it (while noting you allude to such here in a spell).

I'm not sure whether you deny or doubt the future possibility of 'computers' with a similar capacity for thought and choice as our own?

While accepting such seems likely, I prefer not to make the case that it will.

But assuming for now that you do not, your objection would not really be that thoughts and choices come from brains, but that they come from physical stuff.

Exactly, and I 'preciatet the more thorough explanation you provide. I'll amend any reference to the brain here to include computers that might possibly end up doing them some volitionin'.

I could be misunderstanding him too, but I think what he's getting at is that the word 'physical' - which we associate with tables, houses, planets and so on - can often imply limitations which the available evidence does not support.

To use a different term, what I'm aware of regarding our current knowledge or strong theories about 'stuff' is that:
- there are several different types of 'quarks,' several different types of 'leptons,' and several different types of 'bosons' which, as far as we currently know, make up all the stuff
- there are four fundamental ways in which bits of stuff interact with other bits of stuff (called gravitation, weak interaction, strong interaction and electro-magnetism)
- there are four inter-related 'dimensions,' which don't serve as a mere substrate or place to be for stuff, but are themselves actually affected by it
- there's a great deal more 'dark stuff' in the known universe than there is 'regular stuff,' but we don't know anything much at all about it
- the tables, houses, planets and so on which we see and touch are mostly not stuff at all; there's really very little stuff on earth, let alone in the universe as a whole
- far as we can tell, stuff doesn't have a single discernable nature, instead behaving both as we'd conceive a particle might and as a wave might

Which, as we see, is nothing more than stuff acting according to its properties. In this fashion then, I contend that proposing some volitional agent as the most rational means of determining a god created humans is not the most rational way to go about things.

So, we can say that I, JoeyKnothead, am composed in part of a heaping pile of empty space (among other less comforting terms), but that there's some physicality to me. My brain, or a computer, doesn't exist entirely of empty space, so we can conclude there's some physical properties involved in being me.

Now supposing it's true that volition does have to come from stuff, what have we reliably learned? Or what possibilities can we reliably exclude?

Such seems more a problem for the claimant, where I present rational explanations that don't require some non-physical, ethereal entity to have produced humans, but that I propose humans are the product of a universe full of complex electro-chemical reactions.

[Xian Pugilist]

Mithrae, you taking your name from the god, or mithradates, one of four persion/greek kings?

For the record, anything proven, ever, starts with a hypothetical.

[Waiting4evidence]

...Is the notion that we are created by a god the most reasonable and rational conclusion to be had?

Depends on what you mean by "a god." If you are referring to "volitional non-contingent reality," then yes, there is no other epistemically justified conclusion so long as human beings possess genuine consciousness and volition. But if we do not possess these qualities, then there are no epistemically justified conclusions at all, just as there are no meaningful questions.

In other words, either theism is true, or else non-theism is absurd.

I have a very simple question for you:
Is it POSSIBLE or is it IMPOSSIBLE for a volitional entity to exist without being contingent on anything?

If it is impossible for a volitional non-contingent entity to exist, then God as you just defined it does not exist.

If it is possible for a volitional non-contingent entity to exist, then WE could be it. No God necessary.

The only way you can avoid this simple reality is by special pleading

All you're saying is this:
1) We exist therefore God created us
2) God exists therefore... err... therefore... mmmm... oops!
3) Let's come up with fancy words like "volitional" and "non-contingent" to cover up the flaw in our argument

[Xian Pugilist]

...Is the notion that we are created by a god the most reasonable and rational conclusion to be had?

Depends on what you mean by "a god." If you are referring to "volitional non-contingent reality," then yes, there is no other epistemically justified conclusion so long as human beings possess genuine consciousness and volition. But if we do not possess these qualities, then there are no epistemically justified conclusions at all, just as there are no meaningful questions.

In other words, either theism is true, or else non-theism is absurd.

I have a very simple question for you:
Is it POSSIBLE or is it IMPOSSIBLE for a volitional entity to exist without being contingent on anything?

If it is impossible for a volitional non-contingent entity to exist, then God as you just defined it does not exist.

If it is possible for a volitional non-contingent entity to exist, then WE could be it. No God necessary.

The only way you can avoid this simple reality is by special pleading

All you're saying is this:
1) We exist therefore God created us
2) God exists therefore... err... therefore... mmmm... oops!
3) Let's come up with fancy words like "volitional" and "non-contingent" to cover up the flaw in our argument

If there was a creator god, that existed before matter and space, and thus in "no-time", why does the atheistic community think that we would be able to define Him in our existance? That is the most ridiculously profound hyperbolic living example I have ever seen. I can give pictures if neededl