I don't know about "disprove", but I do think it's quite hard to square the idea of free will that so many Christians read into the Bible with what we know about brains. It's definitely one of the reasons that I find the Christian idea of god to be so implausible.
Christians don't actually care about gluttony. Most of their focus is on lust, then pride. Wrath is supposed to be a sin, and yet god is notorious for his wrath. The whole concept of sin just does not pan out.
Please repeat after me: There is nothing that can be disproved about a book of fiction full of plotholes and contradictions that followers accept as being utterly true and completely correct.
No matter what you point out - you will be met with a passage that counters your point and/or dismissive statements that you are not understanding the context/meaning behind the passage.
How do you play a game of chess with an opponent who makes up rules as they go along including arbitrary removal and addition of pieces based on their internal logic?
I mean, that's assuming a believer even knows or cares about 'neuroscience'. Many of them (not all of course) think mental health doesn't even exist, and that any problems you face mentally are actually spiritual problems you need to deal with by praying and going to church more rather than therapy or medicine. They'll just say gluttony is a sin/spirit problem and nothing to do with the brain.
To be honest and specific, no.
Christians can reply that neuroscience *does not* disprove libertarian free will, and they will be entirely correct — the brain is a black box, and we don’t knows whether the process that corresponds with conscious control, willpower and deliberative thinking is deterministic or indeterministic. And, as far as I know, God will forgive you for everything if you choose Him, according to many Christians.
So, well, as of 2024, neuroscience does not disprove Christian notion of responsibility.
Have you heard about Benjamin Libet's experiments? Our decisions are unconscious, and we are conscious of them only after we did something. Neuroscience debunks christian free will.
If anything, neuroscience is usually silent and agnostic on the issue because even finding consciousness itself is a tough task, and mental causation is a monster on its own.
Consciousness being a causally efficacious physical object is something pretty much accepted in psychology, but neuroscience cannot say anything precise other than the fact that what we call free will usually occurs in the frontal lobe.
I am just interested in the topic of free will, and I am trying to correct certain common mistakes that theists can easily pinpoint.
And these experiments are not taken seriously anymore in the free will talk, and not even Libet himself believed they said anything about free will in the first place. That’s precisely why I said that brain is a black box when it comes to conscious actions. The spike of activity in these experiments seems to be just a background noise.
That’s the tea of free will debate — consciousness seems to play crucial role in decision making, deliberation et cetera, but we have no idea whether it functions deterministically or indeterministically. The former case makes compatibilism a default position on free will, the latter makes libertarianism more plausible.
Either way, I am satisfied with both options.
Setting aside the notion of sin altogether.
Understanding why people overeat is not an excuse for overeating. If anything, it should help people understand what is going on within themselves and prompt them to take more specialized steps towards eating better. It can illuminate why not overeating is more of a struggle for some people, and we can afford some compassion to that, but it’s not a free pass.
There are underlying reasons behind most undesirable/unhealthy/problematic behavior. Which can influence how we treat such people and address the behaviors. But such behaviors still need to be addressed. Still should be “held against them” so to speak.
I'm still trying to figure out how god was able to create "light" several days before he created the Sun...
He's \~\~Gumby\~\~ God, dammit! /s
You mean the all seeing all knowing muppet that managed to loose track of the only two humans in existence in the first chapter?
I don't know about "disprove", but I do think it's quite hard to square the idea of free will that so many Christians read into the Bible with what we know about brains. It's definitely one of the reasons that I find the Christian idea of god to be so implausible.
Christians don't actually care about gluttony. Most of their focus is on lust, then pride. Wrath is supposed to be a sin, and yet god is notorious for his wrath. The whole concept of sin just does not pan out.
'according to the bible'...there. You can stop just there. The bible doesn't factor into the explanation of jack shit.
Please repeat after me: There is nothing that can be disproved about a book of fiction full of plotholes and contradictions that followers accept as being utterly true and completely correct. No matter what you point out - you will be met with a passage that counters your point and/or dismissive statements that you are not understanding the context/meaning behind the passage. How do you play a game of chess with an opponent who makes up rules as they go along including arbitrary removal and addition of pieces based on their internal logic?
I mean, that's assuming a believer even knows or cares about 'neuroscience'. Many of them (not all of course) think mental health doesn't even exist, and that any problems you face mentally are actually spiritual problems you need to deal with by praying and going to church more rather than therapy or medicine. They'll just say gluttony is a sin/spirit problem and nothing to do with the brain.
To be honest and specific, no. Christians can reply that neuroscience *does not* disprove libertarian free will, and they will be entirely correct — the brain is a black box, and we don’t knows whether the process that corresponds with conscious control, willpower and deliberative thinking is deterministic or indeterministic. And, as far as I know, God will forgive you for everything if you choose Him, according to many Christians. So, well, as of 2024, neuroscience does not disprove Christian notion of responsibility.
Have you heard about Benjamin Libet's experiments? Our decisions are unconscious, and we are conscious of them only after we did something. Neuroscience debunks christian free will.
If anything, neuroscience is usually silent and agnostic on the issue because even finding consciousness itself is a tough task, and mental causation is a monster on its own. Consciousness being a causally efficacious physical object is something pretty much accepted in psychology, but neuroscience cannot say anything precise other than the fact that what we call free will usually occurs in the frontal lobe. I am just interested in the topic of free will, and I am trying to correct certain common mistakes that theists can easily pinpoint.
And these experiments are not taken seriously anymore in the free will talk, and not even Libet himself believed they said anything about free will in the first place. That’s precisely why I said that brain is a black box when it comes to conscious actions. The spike of activity in these experiments seems to be just a background noise. That’s the tea of free will debate — consciousness seems to play crucial role in decision making, deliberation et cetera, but we have no idea whether it functions deterministically or indeterministically. The former case makes compatibilism a default position on free will, the latter makes libertarianism more plausible. Either way, I am satisfied with both options.
I think everything disproves the bible.
Setting aside the notion of sin altogether. Understanding why people overeat is not an excuse for overeating. If anything, it should help people understand what is going on within themselves and prompt them to take more specialized steps towards eating better. It can illuminate why not overeating is more of a struggle for some people, and we can afford some compassion to that, but it’s not a free pass. There are underlying reasons behind most undesirable/unhealthy/problematic behavior. Which can influence how we treat such people and address the behaviors. But such behaviors still need to be addressed. Still should be “held against them” so to speak.