[MD] The Quest for Quality

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Ham]
Educated people today are paranoid about belief in God because 
they've been persuaded by intellectuals that theism is an outworn 
relic of the dark ages

[Ham]
I'm happy to add Eccles to the list of scientific "believers".

[Ham on consciousness]
It's a gift from on high. [Arlo adds, Ham made other claims about 
consciousness, for example that it "evolves" over historic time, and 
that it appears at some point in the historical timeline where it did 
not appear before. But when pressed to explain HOW, he could only 
deny what others offer while saying nothing of his own thoughts. I'd 
be happy to see Ham answer those now.]

[Arlo]
No one is "paranoid about theism" (except for maybe them damned 
nihilists that keep popping up and ruining the world), I personally 
would just like to see you reach down and find a pair and just be 
friggin' honest about advancing a theism, rather than couching it in 
words that make it should "metaphysical". You may have dispelled the 
Christian Bible (a far more entertaining read than your own Bible, by 
the way), but there is no doubt that your "ideas" hinge on "Esse-god".

Just say to Margaret, "Yes, Margaret, Essentialism is a theistic 
belief system centered on a Divine Being I call "Essence"." It'd be 
honest. It'd be straightforward. You can claim to veil your language 
for fear of these "educated people" who are "paranoid about belief in 
God", but that's just nonsense.

You offer a theism. Just say it.

 From our last exchange, if you'd have just said...

What changed [in the historic timeline] is... God intervened and 
bestowed consciousness on man.

Consciousness evolves by... having God bestow new and improved models 
of consciousness on successive generations of man. Why he does this, 
we don't know (we must "ask him!").

... you'd have saved yourself a lot of time. Now Margaret asks an 
honest and straightforward question. And you slip back into veiled 
non-answers.

Essentialism is theism. Essence is God. Just friggin' say it.