Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Secular Outpost: 20+ Questions for Theists #2

John Loftus has posted a link to a  list of questions for theists from another blog. Rather than answer all of them in a single post, I will take each of them one at a time. Today:

Why would God desire to create embodied moral agents, as opposed to disembodied minds (such as souls, spirits, or ghosts)? Why is the human mind dependent on the physical brain?

These questions contradict one another. If mind is dependent on a physical brain than there can be no souls, spirits, or ghosts (there are no ghosts from a Biblical worldview). The second question assumes that the first can't be answered because it assumes that there are no disembodied minds. There is no conclusive proof of that because there is no real way to experiment to find out what happens to a human mind after death. Also from a Biblical worldview, there is no reason to conflate mind and spirit. The Bible discusses mind, spirit, and soul as separate categories. The other thing is that God did create minds, souls, and spirits as well as  "embodied moral agents" so the question doesn't make sense. The question also presupposes the existence of minds, souls, and spirits. These questions are ill posed and pointless to answer. If anyone would care to rephrase it, I'd be happy to further discuss it.


27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.- Hebrews 9:27,28

The Secular Outpost: 20+ Questions for Theists
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 22, 2012 at 3:17 AM

    Good non-answer. Also, are you denying that the mind is affected by changes to the physical brain, chemical, traumatic or otherwise?

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  2. mmcelhaneyJune 22, 2012 at 2:31 PM

    It's a non-question. the Mind being affected by chemical, traumatic, and otherwise affects on the human brain does not mean that the mind does not not transcend the brain.

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  3. AnonymousJune 22, 2012 at 4:49 PM

    OK, so we have evidence that the mind is dependent upon the brain (to whatever degree) and we have no evidence that the mind can be independent of the brain.

    But sure, whatever, you are right, the mind being affected by chemical, traumatic, and other affects does not mean that the mind does not not transcend the brain.

    So at least you've got that. Good for you...

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