- Anything Else -

Deus does not exist

Posted by: Lypiatt on November 17, 1999 at 10:41:53:

In Reply to: A challenge; no-one's cracked it yet... posted by Gideon Hallett on November 15, 1999 at 17:31:16:

Who is to say then that there exists other than the material?

If we for a moment follow in the great christian tradition and call the mind immaterial (or equate it with the soul if you wish) then how do we answer the singular criticism that the state of the mind follows the physical condition of the brain. If we were to damage certain parts of a brain in some manner it leaves it irrevocably altered. Conclusion the mind (or 'soul') as a metaphysical concept is non-existant.

Or even if we were to allow the soul as an immaterial substance, where does it rest? In the pineal gland mayhaps? Or is it rather the ghost in the machjine?

To prefer the simpler (As old William would doubtless suggest), the logical answer, is to prefer a material solution.

That the mind has seemed to be non-physical (phenomenologically speaking) has always been i think the one of the greatest reasons for belief in immazterial metaphysics. Yet this is a belief born of ignorance and superstition, not logic or reasoned methods.

My thesis being that the immaterial is an illusion, it leaves no place for a god that cannot be proved by empirical or logical means.

I mean tell me what reason is there to think that there exists other than the material, something beyond the world of physics?

Cheers




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