[Vision2020] The Eternal Soul

[Michael]

Chas,

 

You Wrote:

 

Your last sentences surprise me.  From "But I believe my body resurrects"
onwards.  If you have the religious belief that this is so, then why would
you need any further explanation?  Why would you compartmentalize religious
and philosophical belief?  For me, if the

two aren't 100% reconciled, then one of them is broken.   

 

Me:

I may have misled you here just a bit. I apologize.  I don't think that in
reality I compartmentalize religious and philosophical belief, but I also
don't think it is as easy as 100% reconciliation.  This is because I
understand the 'philosophical' as a more peripheral mode of discourse that
can only get so far, whereas 'religious language,' as some might put it (or
you could just think 'poetic' perhaps), has the ability to go deeper in (or
up, or whatever). Further, just because I believe in the Resurrection
doesn't mean that the problems in the philosophy of Mind can't puzzle me as
much as anyone else.  Ultimately, I'm going to have a different trajectory
in my studies than, say, a committed atheist.  In fact, philosophy of Mind
is currently dominated with a reductionistic leaning: the goal is largely to
give a full 'physicalist' account of the 'mental,' and in fact consciousness
itself (which gets us back to Eguenie Scott's discussion).  And I am
actually inclined to do away with a traditional Cartesian Dualism,
preferring the reality that in many important respects the Mind is the Body.
But this philosophical conclusion just makes the idea of the Resurrection
all the more interesting. Also, if all attempts to fully reduce personhood
and experience to physical explanation miserably fail, and many
non-Christian philosophers conclude that doing so is in fact logically
impossible (e.g. David Chalmers), then the Christian has yet another
interesting argument for theism.  E.g.: Ultimate Reality is not impersonal,
brute stuff giving rise to personhood; rather Ultimate Reality is at bottom
communal, experiential, and personal, creating the impersonal stuff of the
world that we study according to our derived personhood.  (This is the
opposite direction of Daniel Dennet's Evolutionary/philosophical work).  So
I certainly don't "need" further explanation on one level, but on another,
the fact of the Resurrection does not give full explanation to, say, how
psychiatric drugs inter-relate with moral responsibility.      

 

You Wrote:

As for a religious option being a possible avenue for me, I'm sad to say
that the answer is no.  It would be easier if it were possible, but I regard
the religious options as cheating, a sort of special pleading with myself,
and I don't permit myself any exceptions.  I don't know why; it's almost as
if I'm constitutionally incapable.  Note that I'm not making any judgement
of your beliefs, merely stating the limitations of my own case.

 

Actually, on reflection (and re-reading the above paragraph), I overstate my
inability to accept a religious perspective.  Replace "religious" with
"Christ-centric" and it would be more accurate. 

Other religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., might have an answer which is
more amenable to my biases, but I have not discovered this to be true in my
explorations thus far.

 

Me:

This is a fascinating predicament.  Of course, I'm in almost the opposite
predicament.  Could you further explain what you mean by religion being
'cheating' or a 'special pleading' with yourself. I don't understand that.
Also, why is 'Christ-centric' in a different category from the other
religions? I'd really be interested in understanding this better.

 

Thanks for the discussion!

Michael Metzler

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20051014/2d7bb247/attachment.htm