The story of Doubting Thomas is a familiar one: that it is better to believe without evidence, that faith is a virtue. I recall some more biblical passages that promote this theme. Continue

My response to the faith-based point of view: "If behavior is controlled instead by circuits in the brain that follow the laws of chemistry, choice and value would be myths and the possibility of moral responsibility would evaporate. As the creationist advocate John West put it, "If human beings (and their beliefs) really are the mindless products of their material existence, then everything that gives meaning to human life--religion, morality, beauty--is revealed to be without objective… Continue

The philosophical zombie argument for dualism has a few variations that I found, and, in essence, argues that a human, that is materially or behaviorally indistinguishable from normal, but has no subjective experience, is conceivable and metaphysically possible: continue...

I was thinking about something that happened in my AP US History class, a little more than a year ago. We had been talking about the Scopes trial, and the student teacher took an informal poll of the class, on whether creationism, evolution, or both should be taught in high school biology classes...continue

A couple days ago, for no particular reason, I've started looking at some of the arguments for dualism. I began by trying to find a decent definition of the soul--to figure out what exactly these arguments are supposed to prove. But I haven't gotten very far, what, with another gigantic painting I'm working on, and just being easily distracted, in general. But I've been trying to read the catholic encyclopedia's entry on the soul. It is illuminating, if for nothing else, on the difference… Continue