Sunday 21 October 2012

Reductionist arguments and superstition

Thanks for answering my questions, they really helped me. I have two quick others if you're willing:

Would you say the secular definition of Christianity as "supernatural" or "superstitious" is inherently correct, outside of ritualistic Christians who just pray the prayers without believing in the metaphysics of it?

Do you think that the arguments put forward by physicalist-reductionists about the mind are held up by science?

Response: Belief in God is necessarily to belief in an entity beyond “nature” so to that extent it is “supernatural” although not “superstitious”. One thing that is completely clear from fundamental physics is that the universe is full of entities that are not those which common sense, or even “modern science” of 50 years ago, would have considered as the whole of “nature”.

If the mind were really only that which physicalist-reductionists say they believe it is hard to see how any arguments put forward by minds could be valid, let alone how emotions could be genuine. From my perspective these arguments are just extreme left-brain thinking which borders on the pathological. Plantinga is surely right to say that belief in God and belief in other minds depend on the same kind of reasoning, and it is no great surprise that many people who deny God also deny the existence of minds

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