Questions

[theVOID]

Wow! There are indeed a lot of great minds on this forum!

I wish I could have responded to my Christian friend like that! Lol.

Anyway, if thought is merely a chemical reaction, how can two people sit and discuss thought? Is their discussion just random? Also, how can someone think about making plans for something a month away, and when the time comes they fulfill those plans. Is that also just random? To a Materialist, nothing can exist outside the material, right? If so, there could be no "mind."

I'm sure we all appreciate that

As for thought. The same way matter waves can be converted into electrical impulses down a telephone line and then back to a matter wave on the other end, my chemical/electrical thoughts can be converted into a matter wave via my voice box or into text via my pen or a keyboard, these mediums can be converted back into chemical/electrical signals by the person receiving them, at which point they are no longer my thoughts, but your thoughts about what you think I thought

It's clearly not random That's self evident.

I guess I am a materialist (but as a conclusion and not a presupposition) but that's completely besides the point. We come up with these models to describe the same things, materialism and dualism both have explanations for the mind, to say that "materialism == no mind" is false.

Essentially, there is no reason why mind cannot be an emergent property of material processes and no evidence of anything else at all that could be responsible for it. We have extremely solid evidence for the link between material and mind, and if anyone disagrees then let me take a chunk our of their Forebrain, we'll soon see how much of a mind you have left...

If morality to an Atheist is simply treating our fellow humans kindly, how do we come to that conclusion? Why should we not steal from the supermarket? It is beneficial to me; I gain something without having to suffer the loss of money. If morality is subjective to the person, why would Hitler killing the Jews be bad? To Nazi Germany it was perfectly fine under their own subjective morality.

Subjective morality == Opinion.

There is no point talking about "subjective morality", anyone who does is just a Nihilist with a crutch.