The Foundation of Religion

[Rick B]

Rick, after reading all of that commentary, I cannot see how you could have found what I wrote in the slightest bit confusing. your quotes simply confirmed my point that religion (in this case, yours) depends on the idea that brain-independent minds exist. The problem with that point of view lies in the observation that virtually all human mental function is tied to the the physical health and activity of a living brain. While it is remotely possible that minds can exist independently of the brains that appear to sustain them, there is no reasonable or credible evidence that they can. One would expect to find some such evidence to support religious belief on that subject, but there is none to be found.

You seemed to have missed my point. Your claim that the "disembodied mind is the foundation of religious belief" is unfounded, unsubstantiated, and completely misses the mark of the clear teaching of the foundational standard of the Christian faith. Please note, the "afterlife"(in the Christian sense) begins with disembodied spirits (incorporeal) awaiting the time in which God will give each one a spiritUAL "body" suited to the eternal state to which it has been assigned. This body is like the one we now have containing a brain and arms and legs etc. The evidence for this is found in the Bible. There is no evidence, of course, for you assertion because your assertion is a straw man.

 

[Copernicus]

You seemed to have missed my point. Your claim that the "disembodied mind is the foundation of religious belief" is unfounded, unsubstantiated, and completely misses the mark of the clear teaching of the foundational standard of the Christian faith. Please note, the "afterlife"(in the Christian sense) begins with disembodied spirits (incorporeal) awaiting the time in which God will give each one a spiritUAL "body" suited to the eternal state to which it has been assigned. This body is like the one we now have containing a brain and arms and legs etc. The evidence for this is found in the Bible. There is no evidence, of course, for you assertion because your assertion is a straw man.

Note the portion of your reply that I bolded. It seems that you admit the need for belief in disembodied spirits, which somehow get transfered into a new body. You cannot simultaneously argue that your belief system rejects belief in such spirits. You certainly do believe that minds can exist independently of brains, even though you may reject a specific claim that we are incorporeal spirits in the afterlife. Again: you seem to have missed the point I was making in the OP.

 

[Copernicus]

Are you sure about that? . .Cart before the horse again.

Smokydot, I could quote everything you say and put this statement after it. That would not be a counterargument to anything you say any more than it is against what I have said.

The revelation came first, which revealed the immaterial spiritual being.
The revelation is the source of the belief in the "brainless mind."
Belief in the "brainless mind" is not the source of the revelation.
Cart before the horse. . .again.
Are you sure about that?

You do not need to assume divine revelation in order to explain why people believe in brain-independent minds. It is a very natural conclusion that follows from the observation that one's own mind controls one's physical body. I've said this repeatedly now, but it doesn't seem to penetrate your mind's defensive shields. You could claim that everything you believe comes from divine revelation, if you wanted. Why single out this particular belief for that justification?

Not talking about doctrine. . .talking about actuality. . .Scriptural revelation is the source of Judaic and Christian belief that God is immaterial spirit.

I would certainly agree that the Bible plays a role in defining one's beliefs about the Judeo-Christian God. That the Bible is grounded in revelation is an assumption made by you that begs the question of whether such a being exists. Surely you are aware of the existence of false religions with false scripture. Do you believe that those religions are also based on divine revelation? The belief in disembodied spirits goes well beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Which shows the point of the OP, that all religions learn it from a natural instinctive basis, is in error.

I don't know what it means to say that religions "learn from" instinctive dualism. Most or all depend on that belief. Any argument that undermines it also tends to undermine religion. That is the point I was trying to make. You can agree with me and still remain a Christian. Just because I reject belief in brain-independent minds does not mean that you have to.

Believers of Judaism and Christianity don't learn it that way.
And I'm addressing the point made there that all religious belief in an immaterial God has its origin in an assumption.

I'm saying that the assumption of mind-body dualism, which does not depend on any religious belief at all, is a foundational belief for religion. Even people who never heard of the Judeo-Christian God tend to be dualists. Belief in immaterial spirit forces is rampant in all cultures. Your unsupported assumption that we only arrive at that belief through exposure to scripture does not explain the dualism inherent in belief systems that have nothing to do with your religion.

I don't need to read a book to respond to points of the OP.

I was merely pointing out that you were criticizing Dawkins for things that he did not say and that were not supported by the OP. If you wish to criticize Dawkins, you need to ground the criticism in something that he has actually said.

GAME OVER. . .

Are you a player or the judge? It appears that you consider yourself both.

 

[Sleekstar]

.....
It is still the case that the vast majority of Christians, as well as of other religious traditions, believe in a spiritual plane of existence. In that spiritual world, incorporeal minds are fully functional and capable of interacting in some way with the physical plane of existence. That mirrors our own experience as minds that manipulate the physical body through force of will. God himself is a mind that is supposed to have existed before physical reality came into being. So I would say that spiritual/physical dualism is still fundamental to most religious belief systems, regardless of the literal meaning of some passages in scripture.
.......
I do not think that even Christianity or Islam can really incorporate the idea of brain-dependent minds into their theology all that easily. For one thing, the resurrected being is an ideal of the physical one that dies. We all know that mental powers deteriorate as the brain ages, and sometimes the effects can be quite dramatic in terms of personality changes and memory loss. Where does all of that lost information get stored? Or are we to believe that Alzheimer victims get restored to the last state of mind that they had when they perished? I hardly think that that interpretation of the afterlife would be acceptable to most people. Autopsies of brains clearly link mental deterioration with specific types of brain deterioration.

Pardon the delay in getting back to you, and pardon the hackjob copy/paste... My only reply is that your points are very well thought out and well taken. But religion has survived all kinds of scientific revelations. For example, even among Christians who accept the Big bang and evolution, you see this idea that the Bible is still true because the portions that conflict with science are written in "figurative language," LOL. The non-physical mind most certainly is a major component of a lot of religions, and a popularly believed notion among the religious. But still, the scenario you're painting -- which I take as being a scenario in which there's irrefutable, undeniable and undenied proof that the mind is totally a function of the physical brain -- is not going to be enough to make people give up a faith that they have a strong desire to hold onto. The Islamic terrorist is not going to say, "Welp, guess I'll go dismantle this bomb I was about to set off." The Catholic Church is not going to just willfully dismantle all of their hierarchy, sell off all of their property, and go get jobs. Somehow, some way, they will all survive. I put forth the idea of Christianity's physical resurrection as a likely safety valve in the case of Christianity. In the scenario you lay out in your OP, that seems like the logical step for them to make.