Interesting debate between Deepak Chopra, Michael Shermer, Jean Houston, and Sam Harris. It's in 12 segments of 5 or 6 minutes each.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaceOff/#

I'm watching this, I'm at the 5th or so segment, all I can say right now is Deepak is "with it" and Micheal Shermer is Micheal Shermer.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Haha, I am currently watching it, I am on the 5th segment.

Good stuff!

Btw, the commercials between the segments are annoying :p

This is just an example of closed minded thinking, and belief systems limiting reality. I find this attitude irritating, to say the least, limiting to say the most. The smugness of the comments hurts my feelings.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Thanks for linking to it Insegrievious!

I had some good chuckles, as the two paradigms clashed together. Oh, Deepak made some funny remarks and I noticed the debaters micro-expressions throughout the debate :)

Deepak asked Michael if he just his neurons, he answered "Yes". Deepak then said "Then you are just a zombie!!" :P

I think the debate is excellent material for further discussion (not necessarily here).

Yes, for sure thank you Insegrievious, very much.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Hi, I am new inhere and just came across this topic.

What brought me into this thread is the question "does God have a future?" I haven't seen the debate yet, as proposed by the first post, but I wonder if the question is even appropriate for a debate or a waste of time. Let me put it this way, if the perfect, everlasting, with no beginning and no end, the omniscient and omnipresent superieur being, the Creator of all -including of consciousness- that we call God is what He is, i.e. all what I just mentioned, how can we even ask a question "does He have a future" as if we reduced Him to a human being who by definition has a beginning (birth) and a physical end (death) imposed by the physical laws of time and space non applicable to the One who created them? From a logical point of view, the question has no sense whatsoever and all debate surrounding that question becomes sterile.

Cheers ;-)

Aissa

Hello and welcome :)

"Does God have a future?" is not referring to "God" as an entity, but as an idea and concept within the mind and hearts of people. If no one believes in him in the future, he has no future as an idea and concept.

Thanks for your warm welcome,

I see your point, but then there is a misunderstanding as far as the term God is concerned. The title should be then "Does religion have a future?" and not God.

If we believe in someone who exists, then our non belief will not prevent existence of the being.

If we believe in someone who does not exist, then no matter our belief, that someone will never exist except as a fruit of our imagination.


As a conclusion the real question of the debate then is either "Does God exist?" or "Does religion have a future?", and not "Does God have a future?", because this unlogical question would imply the logical answer that God depends on time, space or people's belief, which would furthermore lead to the concept of God --entity or not-- as a non devine, imperfect, dependent, etc. which in the end leads to my original point how can the concept of God be reduced to a concept of temporary being or entity when the concept of the term God is neverending or everlasting non sumitted to the physical laws that we experience?

I wonder if its sort of like the relationship most people have with Lady Gaga

there is the public conception of Lady Gaga, which is an artificial construct which serves a psychological purpose for those who follow and care about such a personality, and then there is the reality of Lady Gaga....the time she spends in business meetings, grooming, walking her dog, not calling her mother, eating fruit loops, having sex with her accountant, defecating and so on

I suspect the gap between the public idea of Lady Gaga has very little to do with the reality of Lady Gaga - and Lady Gaga could actually not exist..and it might not make a difference

perhaps, what does make a difference is if a particular value set becomes attached to a particular personality cult - sex, drugs and rock and roll vs more transpersonal values

in this way, the actual reality of Lady Gaga is irrelevant, but the values (meme) that are attached to the public idea of Lady Gaga are very important

_________________
Does this PMR make my butt look big?

I think the question is not so much whether God has a future as much as do we. I am therefore I think. Does that make sense?

yours,
Beau
107

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"All the world's a Stage and all the men and women merely players, They have their exits and their entrances and ONE man in his time plays many parts, his acts beings Heaven ages"---Shakespeare

I agree with you when it comes to misconception of some words, nevertheless we should bear in mind that the montheistic concept of God refers to a unique, therefore uncomparable, being. As far as I am concerned, it would be too hasty to compare people's misconception of God with private and public life of a star or any other human being in general.

If God is God, then we cannot confine Him into a confined and limited shell such as a body in ordeer to compare Him with non-godly things or beings.

If God is a god (with a small initial letter), then any concept could be attached to it and remove the concept of what he is --God (with a capital initial letter, i.e. unique therefore uncomparable)

Of course that it makes sense. Our future is much more questionable than God's. As a matter of fact, if we believe in God, it will be logical to assume that we are the created ones (since God is the Creator), therefore our future is questionable.

On the other hand, if we don't believe in God, why would we even bother to ask the question about the future regarding someone or something in whom we don't believe, unless the word God is used as a metaphore of the word cult or religion?

For the second part of your statement "I am therefore I think", I don't know if you meant "I think, therefore I am" or if you reversed it on purpose, we should not lose sight of the fact that existence doesn't mean necessarily consciousness. Indeed, if we create a multirole video game, even though the characters exist within the game, it does not lead us to conclude that they think (as they act only thanks to our imposed will on those characters).

That is a big "if" Aissa.
Love to you and yours,
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

Actually, my "if" was a linguistical one in order to be sure that everybody gets the same concept. Generally speaking, we can't use same terminology and have different concept in our head, because it leads to misunderstanding instead of having a constructive debate. Love to you too

Aissa