i) I didn't know atheists wished Hitler and Jeffery Dahmer were still walking around among us.
ii) Perhaps this will help: No one "dies". You're just leaving your earthly stage of life. You will live forever (see Q/A. 19). So, don't worry, no one ceases to exist. Where you exist is another matter altogether.
The cycle of life and death allows for the mutations that bring about evolution. It's like an unending cataract of experiments that are fed into nature that allows useful mutations to arise, and harmful ones to be weeded out.
ReplyDeleteAnd it seems odd that humans have sovereignty over the creation of souls. Is God at our beck and call, that whenever people reproduce, he is obliged to create a new soul and attach it? The fact that arranging matter in the shape of a fertilized egg can result in a conscious being means that the soul arises out of purely material causes which we control and understand. There is no God that "attaches" a soul.
Therefore your consciousness will be annihilated at death since it is like the 'functioning' of a machine. If a computer is thrown over a cliff, the function is annihilated, although the matter composing it is not.
Thnuh said:
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The cycle of life and death allows for the mutations that bring about evolution.
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No it doesn't. It would be nice if Darwinists actually understood Darwinism. Mutations are not caused by "the cycle of life and death."
Thnuh said:
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And it seems odd that humans have sovereignty over the creation of souls.
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It seems odd that you would think anyone has claimed that.
Thnuh said:
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Is God at our beck and call, that whenever people reproduce, he is obliged to create a new soul and attach it?
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You've got it completely backwards (as usual). People can't reproduce unless God has it occur.
Thnuh said:
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The fact that arranging matter in the shape of a fertilized egg can result in a conscious being means that the soul arises out of purely material causes which we control and understand.
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A) An assertion without an argument.
B) More evidence of your cluelessness. I defy you to find anyone who says that we can understand how consciousness arrises from materialism.
C) It's not the arrangement of matter that does this either. You can arrange all the matter you want and it won't matter (no pun intended).
Thnuh said:
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Therefore your consciousness will be annihilated at death since it is like the 'functioning' of a machine.
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Or, in your case, it's "malfunctioning" like HAL 9000.
Again, your conclusion doesn't follow. Even if we grant your hypothesis that consciousness arises from material causes, that does not imply that consciousness is maintained by material causes. In other words, it is certainly a logical possibility that consciousness, after being formed by material causes (again, granting your absurd and unsubstantiated assertions) is no longer dependent upon those material causes to exist. Example: a painting may need an artist to create it, but it doesn't need an artist to continue existing after being created.
So even if your unargued claims had merit, your conclusion wouldn't follow.
Thnuh said:
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If a computer is thrown over a cliff, the function is annihilated, although the matter composing it is not.
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So?
Can't help but rejoice that some of these folks, unlike many a Christian, understand that death is a real and powerful enemy. Unfortunately, unlike Christians, they don't have One that has triumphed over sin, & death, & hell. They should know that not only is God making new ones, but he will restore and make alive those that died in Christ.
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