So? You use analogy all the time as it suits you. Pointing to the bits that support your argument, and ignoring all the holes that others then need to point out to you. How is this any different? Because I'm doing it and stand in opposition to you?
I use it properly. You can use analogy as an illustrative device, to illustrate point. However, you are using it wrongly here. We are talking about how matter does not have self-awareness and therefore it cannot originate self-awareness, and you respond by saying hardware does not have software, but your argument fails because software is only an abstraction that we make. Otherwise it is only hardware and nothing else. In comparison, the mind and consciousness is not an abstraction that we make. We experience a natural mind-body dualism. I see the body as something separate from me, in much the same way I see costumes I wear as separate from me. I do not mistake myself to be the costumes, in the same way I do not mistake myself to be the body.
Except that the secular world is where those concepts reside with any real effectiveness - not in any religious/spiritual context, where everything done is partial to dogma.
You did not answer my argument. If there is no objective morality, then the individual himself becomes the police, jury, judge and accused or the arbiter of what is moral and that can change in time. Suppose I say "It is bad to steal" at time t1 and then at time t2 I say "Sometimes it is right to steal" Nobody can say I am right or wrong, because there is no objective moral to measure it against. Therefore, the materialist can make it up as they go.
Hence, my charge of hypocrisy.
Except that a cow grazing in the field has plenty of meaning. You just think you sit above in judgment - this is the exact reason the judicial system in planted in the secular realm, by the way.
Wild animals live better lives than most humans, hands down. They do what they need to, when they need to. Little waste, little to no malicious intent - in fact, the closer you get to "human" levels of intelligence, the more malicious the intent can become. Chimpanzees for instance. Why are you so hard on "animals"? Your judgment of them displays a vast lack of understanding.
Thank you, you are vindicating what I am saying about my charge of nihilism against materialists. As there is no objective purpose, all purposes become equivalent, from the lowest of animals grazing fields or swinging from tree to free to the highest of going to Africa and serving hungry children.
Do you not get that this is exactly the stuff of the "golden rule"? Karma? This idea you have posited, right here, is the crux of it all. You decide what you feel is "okay" and so you execute on that and "share it" with the world. If you have stolen, then through your actions you show the world you feel it is okay for people to steal - so don't be surprised when you get robbed in return! Things are never "morally equivalent" because we have the rest of our species to answer to when we take a step awry.
Then it becomes about survival of the fittest. I will steal only from you if I know I can make sure you can't steal back from me. The problem with your thinking is you are basing morals on possible risks I may face in engaging in acts that infringe on others, but if I can minimise those risks, then I can do those acts. This is what I showed in my old lady dilemma, in this scenario the risk is very low that you will ever get caught or have to any face any action, but the result is you get her millions worth of jewellery. As a materialist can arbiter their own morals they can rationalise everything to their convenience. They could argue "Well, the old bat is going to die soon anyway, and the money will go to somebody else, better me than somebody else"
The same is not true for a religious person. A religious person has God or Karma to answer for. They have necessary reason to act morally but a materialist doesn't.
From this one I can't help but feel you believe that we all should to live according to society's ideals set out for us in things like advertisements, movies, etc. The "ugly" one in your scenario certainly seemed to. I, myself, am by no means "good looking" - but do you think that has ever stopped me, or left me feeling pinned down? Do you think I ever felt "slighted?" It is a hilarious thought... slighted by WHAT??!? The only "objective" beauty exists in humans' instinctual directives to find a viable mate. Otherwise "beauty" is an illusion - completely subjective. Realize this, and you don't have to be "the ugly one". What a shallow thought to have even had. For shame.
You missed the whole point of the scenario which was merely to show that inequality is real in the world i.e., the world is an unfair place. In this scenario the ugly one suffered throughout their life -- they were treated unfairly by parents, bullied at school, failed academically, failed to get friends and lovers, and ultimately was framed and sent to prison for a crime they did not commit. So much of their life passed in just suffering. In situations like these people do either of the following 1)Commit suicide 2)Take to crime and 3)Continue to suffer.
Life is too short for a materialist to waste on helping others, charity, delaying gratification etc
Coming into the world as a fresh, baby human being you aren't doing anything like "entering a dream"- that would involve moving from one conscious state into something else - the problem being that a baby is a blank slate. Next to no knowledge or experience - previously NOT CONSCIOUS.
Actually, it is moving from one conscious state into another. When I enter the waking state I find myself awake in a waking body in a waking world. When I am asleep to the waking world I enter into the dream state where I find myself in a dream body in a dream world. I circulate through these states all the time. When I am waking I am not in dream and when I am in dream I am not in waking. And where do both of these states take place? In consciousness. The states themselves cancel each other but consciousness remains constant.
Your error in understanding is this you have given reality to one only the waking state and every other state of consciousness you have considered unreal. When the truth is, whatever state you are in, depends on your consciousness. The reality you experience will change based exactly on your state of consciousness. Your perception of space, time, objects all changes based on your state of consciousness. You would not be seeing the same reality you see right now if you were in another state.
In entering a dream during sleep your mind still has all of it's knowledge and experience intact. A baby comes with none of those things. If you were merely transitioning "realms" why would you suddenly lack the ability to do things like remember details?
This is actually incorrect we also bring back memories from dream into the waking. Hence, I say "Last time, I dreamt I that my great grandmother came to visit me..." Nor is it true a baby is born with a blank slate, this idea that the mind is
tabula rasula or clean slate is an obsolete one that Kant refuted, to demonstrate we are born with a priori ideas e.g. mathematical ideas.
We simply lose the distinct memories of the first few years of our lives. Why? According to you we should have already developed the ability to understand retention of memory from having existed in previous states. And you can't use the "dream" analogy in the other direction on this one - flip-flopping as it is convenient for you. Saying "well, we can't always remember our dreams." That's not the direction we're going here - you said we enter a different realm or "dream" from a higher state of being when we're born into this physical realm. In other words, we're "going to sleep" in that higher realm when we enter the physical realm. Except that there is no experience or memory to confirm this - and never will be except for what you delude yourself into believing. The vast majority of human beings do not have memories of "past lives" - you can't prove it, it wouldn't hold up in court - because it isn't impartial. It is you and you alone who raises your hand and makes the claim. If all of us had past lives and it was a thing we all experienced, understood and related to, then obviously it would be a different story. Past life memories, in my opinion, are nothing different than any other mental anomaly that has occurred in the gamut of human experience. Also, a baby is first a set of living cells, with no overriding "consciousness." At what moment do you feel that consciousness is "suddenly" (Haha - your word, not mine) injected, and why? Is there a point on the "assembly line" that you feel God steps in, roles up His sleeves and puts the "magic" bits in place?
Actually, a number of children up to the age of 6 years old report memories from previous lives. As somebody quoted earlier, if you ignore all the evidence that does not fit, the rest fits perfectly
Reincarnation studies pioneered by Ian Stenvenson, who was published in several scientific journals, investigates some 2500 cases across the world of children who remember their past lives and not just that but birthmarks and traumas on the body corresponded exactly with the said people the children remembered being e.g. a child born with with a rare birth defect where the fingers on of their hands were all missing, remembered being involved in an accident in a factory and get trapped under a machine losing all their fingers. Stevenson investigated the case, looked through death records for the person who this person claimed to be and found the memories and birthmarks etc corresponded exactly to that person. It is found in studies it is a universal phenomena, and does not depend on belief in reincarnation, in fact in quite a number of his cases it has happened in families that had no belief or negative belief in reincarnation such as Muslims and Christians.
The phenomena is common enough that even my own uncle when he was a child remembered bits of his past life.
Past life memories, OBE's and NDE's are far more common than you think. I have had several OBE(though don't remember any past lives) and one of the guys here Sayak bewilderingly arguing on your side, remembers two of his past lives. I spoke to somebody recently who also remembers their past lives. When a phenomena is cross-cultural, cross-religious and universal it should not be ignored --- but that is what you materialists do -- because like I said you have no consistent standard of truth.
