RE: a question for atheists
August 5, 2012 at 5:23 pm
(This post was last modified: August 5, 2012 at 5:25 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(August 5, 2012 at 4:24 pm)laurent Wrote: Guys if we have no souls we are all fooled to be free and fooled to exist thats a fact.
LOL, "if" he says...lol. Look, whether or not we have souls has exactly what to do with anything at all? "If" we don't, then the only thing that some of us -specifically- are being "fooled" about, is that they have souls, or that there is a thing called a soul. Nothing else changes.
Quote:who are you? your body? your brain? your consciousness? a list of all the events that happened to your body?
Your brain is a part of your body, not some distinct organism apart from it. Try "all of the above".
Quote:there should be a point for being conscious from an evolutionary point of view
There is. Lets simplify this test just a little bit. Lets say that the only thing that one has to do to survive is avoid being eaten. It is very useful (if the "goal" is to avoid being eaten) to be able to avoid whatever it is that's trying to eat you. One way to accomplish this is by being able to "see" the predator. However, merely intercepting light won't help; rocks intercept light all day long and when's the last time you saw them dodge anything? No, you have to be able to both intercept light, "interpret" the light, and react according to that interpretation. The more complex a system becomes the more useful it can be in a give set of circumstances (but, alternatively, the more prone it can be to failure or malfunction given another set of circumstances). The thing that you call "self" very much appears to be an extremely complicated series of interactions between your various bits of biological machinery. In fact, the only thing that "self" doesn't seem to be, is some sort of immaterial, magical, and eternal "soul".
I think you "should" have at least googled this before you assumed that there wasn't a point to consciousness, from an evolutionary standpoint.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
