Answers needed

[SteelCurtain]

Since everyone is being so obliging, I do have another question for you. I recently heard a researcher state that naturalism leads him to understand that consciousness is simply a product of chemical reactions. This is the obvious conclusion of naturalism. If you believe this, how do you know that your logic is true? How can you be so dogmatic about the conclusions you draw? Isn't there a good chance they are false? We have a strong conception of free will, but, according to naturalism, that is simply an illusion. Couldn't our minds be playing other similar tricks?

This is actually a good question.

A couple of assumptions that need correction: 1) I am not dogmatic in my conclusions. Show me one mammal in the Pre-Cambrian fossil layer, and evolution suddenly becomes a shaky explanation. 2) If if applies to me, it applies to you just the same.

If in fact, as all evidence dictates, we are just meat machines and free will is merely an illusion, we have no choice but to go about our lives as if it isn't. Our minds could absolutely be playing tricks on us. But because that is a possibility is absolutely no reason to throw out everything we've discovered. Until there is evidence that this is the case, we'll continue operating as if we can trust our measurements.

There seems to be this tone that you'd rather accept the thing that makes you feel the best rather than that which most accurately reflects reality. That seems to be a fundamental difference between the theist mind and the atheist mind, from what I've experienced. I would much rather discover that which most accurately depicts reality rather than that which would be the nicest.

Accordingly, this is why most protestants will not even learn about evolution. It is the reason that you can literally feel like it is not utterly ridiculous for a grown up person (assumption) in 2015 to even type the words "lack of transitional fossils" without shame. In order for their literalist worldview to exist, it is not possible for fundamentalist Christians to honestly look at the mountains and mountains of independently verified evidence for evolution.