Don’t take my word for it, John Searle and Edward Feser have already written works that demonstrates all forms of materialism denies the existence of the mind, intentional or not. Let’s face it, it’s the logical end to materialism; a desperate last resort option on hold hoping the present problems can be explained via monism and when reality finally settles in, the opt out awaits. Some, like the Churchlands, have put their money where their mouth is, the rest will follow sooner or later. If the last century has shown us anything concerning philosophy of mind and materialism, it has been a systematic movement towards abandoning the existence of the mind when theory after theory has been defeated and abandoned.
This is pretty evasive. A part of your argument depends on whether materialists should be eliminativists, when challenged to justify that, you just wave in Searle and Feser’s direction and shovel rhetoric. Unless you endorse every single argument in each work those two have published on this subject, you’ll have to specify which argument (of theirs?) that you’re endorsing here. Further, unless you can present that argument here, I don’t think anyone should take this fundamental part of your argument seriously.
An atheist would say the mind is a complete substance void of matter and exists apart from matter? Interesting… All dualists I know of, of this school of thought explains the gap between causal relation of mind and body by presenting a god of the gaps argument. What is the atheist response to this interaction problem?
Sure, check out Thomas Nagel, the infamous atheist anti-reductionist. I haven’t given much thought to that to be honest.
And with materialism there is no pain experienced and any association with concepts of suffering or evil with pain is absurd. With Cartesian dualism, whatever is experienced by the body really doesn’t matter, since the real and thinking person is elsewhere and non-contingent of the body.
I don’t think we should grant this, but supposing you’re right, we’d just end up rejecting materialism and Cartesian dualism. Pain does exist, and it does matter. We’d sooner question the sanity of the one who denies this than consider their argument.
I understand the muddleheaded argument and I’m not impressed by the emotional tears behind it. Since when was the boundaries of strict rational argumentation expanded for a single worthless argument? And whoever says it’s “evidence for atheism” is an idiot, as the argument aims at attributes of God rather than His existence.
Nah, I don’t think you have any idea what you’re playing with
(and anyone who’s familiar with the evidential problem of suffering will agree with me)
As Robin Collins says:
“According to the Expectation Principle, if an event or state of affairs is more to be expected under one hypothesis, h1, than another, h2, it counts as evidence in favor of h1 over h2 – that is, in favor of the hypothesis under which it has the highest expectation. The strength of the evidence is proportional to the relative degree to which it is more to be expected under h1 than h2.” - Craig, William Lane., and James Porter Moreland.
The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. p. 206.
Assume that, P(Theism|k) = 0.5, (to be charitable), and therefore that P(Atheism|k) = 0.5.
Within our background knowledge lies information such as the fact that in order for species’ to survive reproduction must take place, and all of the physiological things that occur during birth. Given that it’s unlikely such information is false, it’s virtually certain that suffering would occur, given our background knowledge.
There’s no reason to suppose anything changes on atheism. i.e., there’s no omni-guy running around that might want to prevent it.
So, P(Suffering|Atheism & k) = 0.95.
But, how likely is it that suffering would occur given theism (not Christian theism, mind)? It’s pretty surprising, as it turns out. Let me illustrate.
How likely is it that Bob would fail to prevent the brutal torture and murder of S? Well, you might say that depends on what Bob is like. Perhaps Bob is a coward, or a sadist. In those cases, it’s pretty likely. But, what if Bob is a morally outstanding individual of excellent mental and physical health? Well, you might say, this would seem to make it likely that Bob would try to prevent such an event if he could. Suppose that as far as you know, Bob could prevent the event without any of the involved sustaining injury. Would it be surprising then if Bob did nothing? Absolutely. Thus, regardless of why suffering occurs or whether it’s compatible with God’s existence, there are instances of suffering that should make our jaws drop if God exists.
Thus, P(Suffering|Theism & k) = 0.1 (again, to be charitable).
Therefore, P(Theism|Suffering & k) = 0.09, and P(Atheism|Suffering & k) = 0.9. That is, atheism is virtually certainly true given suffering.
Now, while you may dispute these calculations (and I’d expect nothing less from a theist), if you’re not familiar with this stuff you’ve got no business calling people idiots, mindless, irrational or anything else because of the stance they’ve taken on this issue.
