Do you believe in God?
Tell me people do you believe in God?
Desertcat, last chance, which overarching story do you live in?
Oh, also
Once you accept that reality is not a story
What is reality in your mind?
lol, we’ve found your god and it is grok.
Essentially it’s saying that soft headed laypersons like yourself view it as a story, while it’s just a model.
lol, we've found your god and it is grok.
Essentially it's saying that soft headed laypersons like yourself view it as a story, while it's just a model.
Here is a response to your last answer:
“Essentially it's saying that soft headed laypersons like yourself view it as a story, while it's just a model.”
Is that what you mean — that it’s exclusively just a model and not a story?
Grok:
No, that's not what I mean. Darwinism is both a scientific model *and* a story, depending on context and use. The model is the rigorous, evidence-based framework scientists use to explain and predict evolutionary processes. The story is how those ideas are framed, communicated, and internalized—especially outside scientific circles. It’s not about "soft-headed laypersons" versus scientists; it’s about how humans, including scientists, often rely on narrative to make sense of complex ideas. Even a biologist might describe evolution in story-like terms (e.g., "the battle for survival") when teaching or writing for a broader audience. The model and story coexist—neither is less real or valid. The response misreads my point as splitting audiences into "smart" and "soft," when I’m saying Darwinism functions dually: as a testable mechanism and a meaningful narrative.
The response is from a person who thinks he lives outside of any story. What’s your response to that?
Grok:
If someone claims they live outside of any story, they’re likely overlooking the subtle narratives that shape their worldview. Even the belief that one is free from stories is itself a story—a narrative of independence, rationality, or detachment. Humans are meaning-making creatures; our brains organize experiences into patterns, whether we label them stories or not. This person might see Darwinism as "just a model" to distance themselves from what they perceive as fluffy or subjective, but that stance reflects a personal narrative of valuing objectivity over interpretation.
To engage them, I’d ask: How do you describe your life’s purpose or your place in the world? Their answer, however factual or minimalist, will likely reveal a thread of narrative—maybe one of skepticism or self-reliance. Living without *any* story would mean perceiving reality as disconnected fragments, which is incompatible with human cognition. They might reject grand myths or cultural tales, but they’re still weaving a personal story, even if it’s one of rejecting stories. Darwinism, for them, might be a model, but their insistence on it being *only* that is a narrative choice, not a neutral fact.
My story is I want to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible. To do this I try to not to believe anything that does not have reasonable supporting evidence or a rational logical argument.
Do you object to my claim that the Darwinian story is the fundamental nature story of this world?
What is the story of nature if not Darwinism?
Grok:
I don’t object to your claim that the Darwinian story is the fundamental nature story of this world, but I’d qualify it. Darwinism—evolution by natural selection—is arguably the most robust, evidence-based narrative we have for explaining the mechanics of life on Earth. It accounts for the diversity, adaptation, and interconnectedness of species through observable processes like genetic variation, competition, and environmental pressures. For describing the how of nature’s workings, it’s unmatched in scientific rigor and explanatory power. Fossils, DNA, and ecological patterns all align with it. So, in a scientific sense, it’s a strong candidate for the fundamental story of nature’s processes.
lol, we've found your god and it is grok.Essentially it's saying that soft headed laypersons like yourself view it as a story, while it's just a model.
Here is a response to your last answer:“Essentially it's saying that soft headed laypersons like yourself view it as a story, while it's just a model.”Is that what you mean — that it’s exclusively just a model and not a story?Gro
Grok isn’t an expert. Like all AI it has numerous problems. First is it’s based on pattern matching algorithm, so any errors in input lead to errors in output. This is known as GIGO, or Garbage In, Garbage Out. Essentially if you feed an AI algorithm a bunch of things people write about a topic without the knowing what is true and what is false, neither will the AI.
Secondly, even in situations where the developer can accurately tag the true and false inputs, AI can still produce entirely false and made up results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination_(artificial_intelligence)
Lastly, it’s an appeal to authority argument. You don’t have any logical argument to conflate models and stories so you cast about for an “expert” who says something vaguely similar to what you want, without factual support for the expert opinion.
My story is I want to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible. To do this I try to not to believe anything that does not have reasonable supporting evidence or a rational logical argument.
This is too shallow to be overarching.
I can give you an endless set of facts about the furniture in my room. Do you want me to do that? Probably not right?
You need to engage in more rigorous self contemplation..
Do you object to my claim that the Darwinian story is the fundamental nature story of this world? What is the story of nature if not Darwinism?Grok:
Yep, natural selection provides the best explanation for the diversity of life, but not its origin or anything else about universe or its origin.
Nature isn’t just life. The natural world encompasses everything in the universe, alive or not. And the vast majority of the universe’s objects are not alive. So physics is the most useful description of the natural world.
My story is I want to believe as many true things as possible and as few false things as possible. To do this I try to not to believe anything that does not have reasonable supporting evidence or a rational logical argument.
This is too shallow to be overarching. I can give you an endless set of facts about the furniture in my room. Do you want me to do that? Probably not right?
Just because I’m not interested in your furniture doesn’t mean I’m interested in your poorly defined claims of woo.
Just because I'm not interested in your furniture doesn't mean I'm interested in your poorly defined claims of woo.
The point is “you” are more than your rational intellect mechanistically collecting and organizing facts.
Still, obviously you are free to live your life that way despite how I view you.
There is a mentality/mindset that is completely invested in seeing things from a religious perspective. They won't give it up. They start with that. So every metaphysical framework begins subconsciously with whichever religion has captured them and their thinking, and is smuggled in, even pre-smuggled into their worldview.
And so you see all kinds of formulations -- from Thomas Aquinas to C.S. Lewis -- attempting to conflate their presupposed starting point into reality.
For instance, yes, people do wrong. But the whole story that therefore, ipso facto, there is some kind of supernatural remedy/"salvation" for this is spurious. Sometimes religion is so ubiquitous in a culture that they conflate the very idea of reality with the doctrines of that religion. So like, just obviously, since people do immoral things, there is a salvation required. To the believer in this, to deny that we need salvation is to deny that we do immoral things. They come to be immersed in the idea that that we do immoral things is TANTAMOUNT to salvation being a thing.
It isn't. Supernatural salvation is nothing but a mythological story about right and wrong. Yes we do immoral things, and yes it is a complete leap of myth to go from that to supernatural salvation doctrines. You get it? That we do immoral things is completely independent of whether or not supernatural salvation is a thing anywhere but in religion stories. It isn't denying that we do immoral things to not believe the supernatural salvation idea.
Just because I'm not interested in your furniture doesn't mean I'm interested in your poorly defined claims of woo.
The point is “you” are more than your rational intellect mechanistically collecting and organizing facts.
Still, obviously you are free to live your life that way despite how I view you.
You have no reasonable evidence that anything other than the mechanistic world exists.
You really, really want to believe you can have eternal life and/or avoid hell, but again can present no reasonable evidence or argument for their existence.
I would like to believe if they actually exist, but instead of presenting evidence you divert to irrelevancies like evolution, natural selection and stories, none of which have anything to do with whether a god exists.
You have no reasonable evidence that anything other than the mechanistic world exists. You really, really want to believe you can have eternal life and/or avoid hell, but again can present no reasonable evidence or argument for their existence. I would like to believe if they actually exist, but instead of presenting evidence you divert to irrelevancies like evolution, natural
Life is not about answering some imagined quiz correctly. Truth is dynamic and participatory.
You will never know truth and you will never know life as a slave to your rational intellect like you currently are.
I’ve been on the growth path my entire adult life. Where you are is explored territory for me. Where I’m at, you have no categories for.
That doesn’t stop you from believing you know me by trying to fit me into your crude ‘Christian’ category, but you’re not actually interacting with me. It’s the same for your fella compadre.
There is a mentality/mindset that is completely invested in seeing things from a religious perspective. They won't give it up. They start with that. So every metaphysical framework begins subconsciously with whichever religion has captured them and their thinking, and is smuggled in, even pre-smuggled into their worldview. And so you see all kinds of formulations -- from Thomas
And therefore the knee jerk reaction by theists of a certain persuasion when running into push back about the whole salvation idea, that knee jerk "You mean you don't think people are immoral?" ... is them being lost in the weeds. Human wrongdoing and even evil does not imply supernatural salvation. One is a fact and one is a myth about that fact, formulated by superstitious magic-believing peoples.
Consider the common practice of people changing religions to that of their marriage partner, so that they get on the same page one way or the other. This of course often involves a total about face in terms of worldview, morality, history, belief, origins of the universe.
To use that kind of flip-flop crap as a foundation for the metaphysics of the universe is an effin' joke. They're clubs. The religions are clubs.
Truth is what comports with reality. It has nothing to do with participation. I think you are confusing perception of reality with reality.
You will never know truth and you will never know life as a slave to your rational intellect like you currently are. .
So Descartes was declaring his slavery when he said “I think therefore I am”?
I’ve been on the growth path my entire adult life. Where you are is explored territory for me. Where I’m at, you have no categories for. .
How do you know you are on a growth path or that categories exist if rational thought doesn’t exist? What criteria could you ever use to determine what is growth and whether something is higher or lower on the path?
That doesn’t stop you from believing you know me by trying to fit me into your crude ‘Christian’ category, but you’re not actually interacting with me. It’s the same for your fella compadre.
I apologize for conflating your beliefs with typical Christian beliefs, but to be fair you refuse to provide much in the way of specifics for them nor any reasonable evidence or argument for them.
I am glad that you don’t believe in heaven or hell, since they are evil concepts I suspect were invented by early Christians to scare people into believing.
Truth is what comports with reality. It has nothing to do with participation. I think you are confusing perception of reality with reality.So Descartes was declaring his slavery when he said "I think therefore I am"How do you know you are on a growth path or that categories exist if rational thought doesn't exist What criteria could you ever use to determine what is growth and
Yes truth is associated with reality. If you reject my claim that truth and reality are dynamic and participatory, then explain what reality is in your mind. Is it the furniture?
If Descartes identified himself with his thoughts, then he was a slave to his thoughts indeed. More accurately, he was a slave to the source of his thoughts.
Is furniture part of reality? How can it be when it’s not dynamic, nor participatory?
If Descartes identified himself with his thoughts, then he was a slave to his thoughts indeed. More accurately, he was a slave to the source of his thoughts.
He was a slave to his own mind?
How does he spin the Crusades that killed millions, and were accompanied by waves of mobs murdering jews in Europe (because the new testament is so antisemitic)?Does he cover the inquisition where thousands of heretics were executed just for the thought crime of not believing in God/Jesus, and hundreds of thousands were tortured and punished for same? And its attack on human pr
Lots of uncited stuff here, only a small portion of which is fair representation of what history or the Bible teaches.
But, for the sake of discussion, let's suppose that EVERYTHING on your list is 100% accurate.
That being the case:
What is morally objectionable about anything on your list?
I mean, killing hundreds of thousands of folks in the Crusades sound like a lot of fun to me.
And do you know how insufferable church services would be if women were allowed to talk?
What's wrong with rape, anyway? Survival of the Fittest, right? Might makes right! Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we will die!
What's morally objectionable to the Golden Rule: "He who has the gold, rules?"
I mean, ultimately we're all just stardust anyway. In the scheme of things, your hopes, dreams, and loved one's have exactly the same value as the vomit that your dog pukes all over the carpet.
There is literally ZERO value in the final analysis of anything going on in this thread, so why don't we all just rape, rob, pillage and plunder just for the fun of it?
Rationality, reason, logic, etc. is far from the whole story of learning, understanding, what one might call accessing truth. But to set oneself against reason and logic is a whole different story than saying there is more. And that's the problem with the whole "you shouldn't be counting on reason" orientation.
In my book there is tons of spirituality and non-linear stuff, it just isn't based on 1st Century blood drinking for eternal life cults. To act like someone who doesn't accept that story is "a slave to reason" is a joke. It PROVES that one is simply indoctrinated, because in saying that they are utterly ignoring the myriad of other spiritualities that are out there. It just thinks: "Well, they aren't in my religion. They obviously have no spirituality and are just all logic machines." Meh.
Humanistic morals are based around empathy for other humans, so it’s easy to see why rape, robbery, pillaging, plundering, and genocide are wrong.
The Bible never says rape is bad, all you need to do is pay the bride price and you get to keep your rape victim as your sex slave. In fact God even used it as a punishment for innocent women.
The Bible says murder is wrong, but God prescribed it numerous times to the point of demanding innocent women, children, and infants be put to the sword.
Secular morality makes it clear that punishing innocent people is wrong, but the Bible God demanded that innocent brides be stoned to death if they failed a flawed virginity test.
Secular morality isn’t perfect, but it’s far superior to divine command theory or an absolute morality that isn’t described in the Bible and that neither you or any Christian can tell us what it is. So go ahead, tell us how we know right from wrong under your gods moral framework.
Humanistic morals are based around empathy for other humans, so it's easy to see why rape, robbery, pillaging, plundering, and genocide are wrong.The Bible never says rape is bad, all you need to do is pay the bride price and you get to keep your rape victim as your sex slave. In fact God even used it as a punishment for innocent women.The Bible says murder is wrong, but God pr
And all Humanistic models that I am aware of commit the Naturalistic Fallacy. How does your version avoid this fallacy?
Is furniture part of reality How can it be when it's not dynamic, nor participatory
He was a slave to his own mind
You didn’t tell me what reality is in your mind. This happens over and over. Someone tells me I’m wrong and don’t understand reality, I ask them what reality is, and they don’t answer.
You didn’t tell me what reality is in your mind. This happens over and over. Someone tells me I’m wrong and don’t understand reality, I ask them what reality is, and they don’t answer.
I have no issue, at all, with someone who says, “I know reality is that which I should be in accordance with, but I’m not sure what it is exactly.”
I can find common ground with this person and have a discussion.
But it’s difficult to have a discussion with someone who doesn’t understand what reality is, while at the same time, is telling me I don’t understand what reality is.
Reread what I wrote, because it’s the opposite of the Naturalistic Fallacy. At no point did I say that something is moral because it occurs naturally.
So stop diverting and tell us what things are moral, what things are immoral and how you know them?
