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> its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences Only for competitive reasons. To get a stable foothold, Christianity had

by Udo 13y ago

> its fierce fight with illusions, hallucinations and misleading spiritual experiences Only for competitive reasons. To get a stable foothold, Christianity had to either do away with the rampant spiritualism of the largely shamanistic religions it replaced, or in some cases had to embrace and extend them. This is and was a purely strategic consideration. > It poses a real problem to (his) atheism, and he, obviously, rejects the substance dualism, which would logically lead to a religious view on us. One of his personal core issues is to "rescue" spiritual experiences and bring them over into a secular world. It is not necessarily a concern of atheism per se. For him, as for most atheists, there is not really a "consciousness problem" comparable to what a religious person might identify. As an atheist myself, there is nothing inherently problematic about consciousness, or intelligence, or feelings. > However, without a conscious soul, meaning itself loses meaning. What's the ontological support for meaning to rise on? I think most atheists, myself included, as well as many religious people would agree with you that the mind gives rise to meaning. However, I have no idea what you mean by ontological support? Are you asserting that without an overriding supernatural meaning-giver the mind cannot form a world view? Or that a mind capable of categorizing the world meaningfully cannot arise without supernatural influence?

cristianpascu 13y ago
Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. By the 5th century, Christianity had a stable foothold. By ontological support I mean a substance. The mind is still an undefined substance. Is it the brain or is the soul? If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation.
- Udo 13y ago
  > Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. I would go even further and assert that delineation efforts continue to this day. But I might be wrong, since I don't really know a lot about Christianity beyond what's in the news. > If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation. I still don't follow what the problem is. I suspect some of these words mean fundamentally different things to each of us, or that there might be a Christian catch phrase in there that I don't know and hence can't respond to. I don't mean this in a derogatory way, I just don't get what the issue is. What problem is not solved?
  - cristianpascu 13y ago
    This article contains some bits on this topic. http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4203/thinking-machine-an-interview-with-daniel-dennett http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4203/thinking-machine-an-... Search for this passage: "The idealists, following philosopher of mind David Chalmers (who also comes in for some rough treatment from Dennett), say there is a “hard problem” with consciousness. While accepting that much about consciousness is amenable to explanation by an evolutionary perspective and neuroscience, experience itself will always somehow evade a materialist explanation."
    - Udo 13y ago
      Leaving aside the issue that this still contains no credible explanation why there is supposed to be a problem, I simply don't agree with this philosopher. There is no "hard problem" with consciousness, and just because not all facts are known (or knowable) doesn't mean the supernatural is required to fill in the blanks. For example, I'm looking at my coffee maker right now, it's in the process of making coffee. As an atheist, my "default naturalistic option" as you put it, would be to say that I fundamentally understand how the coffee maker works and that it's using electricity to heat the water which then courses through its pipes. If I understand correctly, you're saying something analogous to: "wait, there is a hard problem with coffee making. You don't know exactly how the thing is wired, and even if you did you could never know the exact position and trajectory of every single water molecule. Therefore, it's obvious that there is some kind of dualism required for the coffee maker to work: a supernatural effect that makes the whole of it possible." My problem with this perspective is that a diety is supposed to be necessary to drive the thing, whereas I content there is no need (and indeed not a single piece of evidence, not even a hint) for a supernatural entity. In fact, it always utterly astounds me why people keep conjuring up this need. Just because there is some information currently missing about the internals of the coffee maker, and because it's beyond me to know and monitor all of its internal information, doesn't mean the coffee making itself poses a hard problem that can't be explained by materialism.
- akiselev 13y ago
  You're creating a false dichotomy to try to force your beliefs into the argument. The idea of a soul is supernatural so the default naturalist/atheist position is to give it no more thought than unicorns or leprechauns (although this is not universally true; some believe in something analogous to a soul, but with far more complex reasoning than "God did it") in a meaningful debate. Instead the atheist/naturalist world view looks for other natural causes for consciousness and very easily finds them: the depth and breadth of complex phenomena emerging from smaller cells (chemical, biological, and informational) is astounding, so much so that we haven't even begin to scratch the surface of the neuroscience, let alone the complex phenomena that emerge from societies and an interconnected global civilization.

by Udo 13y ago

cristianpascu 13y ago

Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. By the 5th century, Christianity had a stable foothold. By ontological support I mean a substance. The mind is still an undefined substance. Is it the brain or is the soul? If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation.

Udo 13y ago
> Notice that I said the first millenium, not the first century. I would go even further and assert that delineation efforts continue to this day. But I might be wrong, since I don't really know a lot about Christianity beyond what's in the news. > If you state it is the brain, as I take it to be the default naturalistic/atheist option, than the problem is still not solved. So it's still a problem, something that needs explanation. I still don't follow what the problem is. I suspect some of these words mean fundamentally different things to each of us, or that there might be a Christian catch phrase in there that I don't know and hence can't respond to. I don't mean this in a derogatory way, I just don't get what the issue is. What problem is not solved?
- cristianpascu 13y ago
  This article contains some bits on this topic. http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4203/thinking-machine-an-interview-with-daniel-dennett http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/4203/thinking-machine-an-... Search for this passage: "The idealists, following philosopher of mind David Chalmers (who also comes in for some rough treatment from Dennett), say there is a “hard problem” with consciousness. While accepting that much about consciousness is amenable to explanation by an evolutionary perspective and neuroscience, experience itself will always somehow evade a materialist explanation."
  - Udo 13y ago
    Leaving aside the issue that this still contains no credible explanation why there is supposed to be a problem, I simply don't agree with this philosopher. There is no "hard problem" with consciousness, and just because not all facts are known (or knowable) doesn't mean the supernatural is required to fill in the blanks. For example, I'm looking at my coffee maker right now, it's in the process of making coffee. As an atheist, my "default naturalistic option" as you put it, would be to say that I fundamentally understand how the coffee maker works and that it's using electricity to heat the water which then courses through its pipes. If I understand correctly, you're saying something analogous to: "wait, there is a hard problem with coffee making. You don't know exactly how the thing is wired, and even if you did you could never know the exact position and trajectory of every single water molecule. Therefore, it's obvious that there is some kind of dualism required for the coffee maker to work: a supernatural effect that makes the whole of it possible." My problem with this perspective is that a diety is supposed to be necessary to drive the thing, whereas I content there is no need (and indeed not a single piece of evidence, not even a hint) for a supernatural entity. In fact, it always utterly astounds me why people keep conjuring up this need. Just because there is some information currently missing about the internals of the coffee maker, and because it's beyond me to know and monitor all of its internal information, doesn't mean the coffee making itself poses a hard problem that can't be explained by materialism.
akiselev 13y ago
You're creating a false dichotomy to try to force your beliefs into the argument. The idea of a soul is supernatural so the default naturalist/atheist position is to give it no more thought than unicorns or leprechauns (although this is not universally true; some believe in something analogous to a soul, but with far more complex reasoning than "God did it") in a meaningful debate. Instead the atheist/naturalist world view looks for other natural causes for consciousness and very easily finds them: the depth and breadth of complex phenomena emerging from smaller cells (chemical, biological, and informational) is astounding, so much so that we haven't even begin to scratch the surface of the neuroscience, let alone the complex phenomena that emerge from societies and an interconnected global civilization.