(June 11, 2018 at 1:22 am)Godscreated Wrote:(June 9, 2018 at 4:08 am)Mathilda Wrote: Read the medical literature. Or the neuroscience literature and look at all the recorded effects of brain lesions. I have. Or have an operation where you are put under with anesthetic. I have. Or go to an old folk's home and speak to someone with Alzheimer's. I have. Or get drunk and take drugs. I have. See how the way you think and feel and the very essence of who you are changes because of how your brain is interfered with. I have.
Now give me equally compelling evidence that your god exists.
Bold is mine and an answer to each inquiry. Those answers show I understand what I'm saying.
So you claim to be familiar with the literature on neuroscience? So you know that lesions in the brain mean that you lose vital neural functions? Things that make you you. That means that the brain is the cause of who we are.
Take Phineas Gage for example whose entire personality changed when he suffered brain damage because an iron rod went through this head.
Quote:It seems that physically, Gage made a good recovery, but his injury may have had a permanent impact on his mental condition. Although accounts from the time are sometimes conflicting and often unreliable, numerous sources report that Gage’s character altered dramatically after his accident. In 1868 Harlow wrote a report on the ‘mental manifestations’ of Gage’s injuries. He described Gage as “fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity… capricious and vacillating” and being “radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was ‘no longer Gage’.”
The damage to Gage’s frontal cortex caused by the iron rod seems to have resulted in a loss of social inhibitions. The role of the frontal cortex in social cognition and decision making is now well-recognised; in the 19th century, however, neurologists were only just beginning to realise these connections. Gage’s injuries provided some of the first evidence that the frontal cortex was involved in personality and behaviour.
This would not be the case if a spirit / soul was what made us who we are. No, we are our brains. Nothing else. And that means that when we physically die our consciousness stops. This is why we're able to be made unconscious through anesthetic or brain damage (What do you think is happening when you get knocked unconscious?).
And if it's only our brain that is the cause of consciousness, it means that we can't be resurrected and judged by your god. The evidence is all around us and is common place knowledge for why your belief is incorrect.
