Enjoyed this interview. I found Craig's confidence in the mind not being the brain entertaining to listen to ....but Alex was right to question Craig on the way forward .... ignoring skeptics doesn't work IMHO... dialogue makes them confront the evidence to some degree .... whether they accept it or not is another matter, some will, some won't..
I do agree with Criag, the mind is most probably not the brain. Although many in parapsychology still try to shoehorn psi phenomena into a brain function ....it is not the most parsimonious solution IMHO
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Bailey  I do think it is vital not to equate atheism and materialism! I consider myself to be 95% atheist and yet not convinced by materialism at all! The evidence for a larger non-material world in no way implies that everything is run by a God. The very concept of God seems to be uncannily close to the political structure of the Church! |
I completely agree.
I am not religious, yet I believe materialism is false. I do not believe in the western or eastern religion model of God, therefore I am an atheist. I believe mind or at least consciousness survives physical brain death.
To some readers that will sounds a totally mixed up viewpoint... so let me try to explain why I do not believe it is....
Nobel laureate philosopher Henri Bergson in the 1890s proposed the brain was a filter of consciousness (and filter of telepathy too) Bergson suggested if there was a God of evolutionary process, this was not an external God but a God who was created in the very process of evolution.
Whilst religions believe a perfect God designed imperfect lifeforms. Bergson viewed imperfect lifeforms as evolving within a collective network. To use a modern day analogy .... perhaps like an evolving internet of individual computers can appear more powerful than any individual computer, this in no way implies the internet created the computers or exists independent of the computers, as religion persistently assumes.
People instinctively feel they are part of something greater than themselves, perhaps something resembling God exists but I doubt the old western or eastern religious models work... there are alternative such as Bergson's (and other alternatives too).