The junk science of the abortion lobby

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 31, 2019

Ethics, Intelligent Design, Neuroscience}

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Pediatric neurosurgeon Michael Egnor : Fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults:

“Much of pro-abortion advocacy is science denial—the deliberate misrepresentation of science to advance an ideological agenda. Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University, wrote a misleading essay on that theme in the New York Times, “Science won’t end this debate” (January 22, 2019).” Michael Egnor, “More.” at Mind Matters

See also: The Governor Of Virginia: Killing Babies Is OK By Me (Barry Arrington)

and

Does brain stimulation research challenge free will? (Michael Egnor)

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Comments

Earth to Brother Brian- ID doesn't have anything to do with religion.ET_{February 2, 2019
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Three movies exposing some of the deception behind abortion
"Gosnell: The Trial of America's Biggest Serial Killer" Trailer, True Story, - The movie was released on Oct. 12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyxl5OlOTQI UnPlanned Trailer - In Theaters March 29 - What I saw changed everything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBLWpKbC3ww Roe v. Wade Teaser - In Theaters sometime in 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUNwyQvRurs
bornagain77_{February 2, 2019
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Video, for reference, on pregnancy week by week: https://uncommondescent.com/laws/reference-pregnancy-week-by-week/kairosfocus_{February 2, 2019
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In 19 Seversky claims that "The theory of evolution can be – and is – formulated without any reference to theology, Christian or otherwise." That is another blatant lie. Darwinism, especially since Darwinists refuse to accept empirical falsification, does not qualify as a science by any reasonable measure of science one may wish to invoke, but is more realistically classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience. In effect, a religion for atheists based on blind faith.
Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rzw0JkuKuQ “There are five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Has anyone observed the phenomenon — in this case, Evolution — as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper’s “falsifiability” tests)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution… well… no… no… no… no… and no.” – Tom Wolfe – The Kingdom of Speech – page 17 Darwinian Evolution Fails the Five Standard Tests of a Scientific Hypothesis - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7f_fyoPybw Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism? Neo-Darwinists claim that evolution is an observed fact on par with the observed fact of gravity. But very contrary to their claims, the plain fact of the matter is that there are ZERO observed instances of neo-Darwinian evolution building up functional complexity: January 2019 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-a-philosophical-defence-of-truth-in-science-possible-any-more/#comment-672223
Seversky further falsely claims that "Individual scientists may have drawn inspiration from their personal religious beliefs but that does not mean that Christianity was either necessary or sufficient for the development of science." And yet the fact remains that it was the Christian worldview alone that gave rise to modern science:
Jerry Coyne on the Scientific Method and Religion - Michael Egnor - June 2011 Excerpt: The scientific method -- the empirical systematic theory-based study of nature -- has nothing to so with some religious inspirations -- Animism, Paganism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, Islam, and, well, atheism. The scientific method has everything to do with Christian (and Jewish) inspiration. Judeo-Christian culture is the only culture that has given rise to organized theoretical science. Many cultures (e.g. China) have produced excellent technology and engineering, but only Christian culture has given rise to a conceptual understanding of nature. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/jerry_coyne_on_the_scientific_047431.html The Christian Origins of Science - Jack Kerwick - Apr 15, 2017 Excerpt: Though it will doubtless come as an enormous shock to such Christophobic atheists as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and their ilk, it is nonetheless true that one especially significant contribution that Christianity made to the world is that of science.,,, Stark is blunt: “Real science arose only once: in Europe”—in Christian Europe. “China, Islam, India, and ancient Greece and Rome each had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology develop into astronomy.”,,, In summation, Stark writes: “The rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.” He concludes: “These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.” https://townhall.com/columnists/jackkerwick/2017/04/15/the-christian-origins-of-science-n2313593 Intelligent Design as a “Science Stopper”? Here’s the Real Story – Michael Flannery – August 20, 2011 Excerpt: If the “ID is a science stopper” argument rests on weak philosophical foundations, its historical underpinnings are even shakier. The leading natural philosophers (what we would call “scientists” today) of the 16th through 18th centuries, the men who established modern science as we know it — Copernicus, Galileo, Vesalius, Harvey, Newton — would have considered the MN dogma absurd and indeed rather peculiar. In fact, James Hannam has recently examined this issue in some detail and found that religion, far from being antagonistic or an impediment to science, was an integral part of its advance in the Western world (see my earlier ENV article on the subject). https://evolutionnews.org/2011/08/id_a_science_stopper_heres_the/ "Did Christianity (and Other Religions) Promote the Rise Of Science?" - Michael Egnor October 24, 2013 Excerpt: Neither the Greeks nor Islam produced modern theoretical science. The Greeks produced sublime philosophy and mathematics, but no theoretical science. They excelled in mathematics but never applied mathematical models to the systematic study of nature. Islam produced no real theoretical science. It invaded the Christian Middle East, Christian North Africa and Christian Spain, and expropriated the culture and work of Christians and Jews and pagans in the conquered lands. Centralized government and fresh availability of booty fostered a modest bit of science produced by the conquered locals -- the vast majority of whom were not Muslim for centuries. It took several centuries before most of the conquered peoples under the Islamic boot converted to Islam -- Islamic rulers coveted the dhimmi taxes and were not quick to force conversion -- and when Islamic lands became wholly Islamic, science became wholly dead. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/did_christianit078281.html The War against the War Between Science and Faith Revisited - July 2010 Excerpt: …as Whitehead pointed out, it is no coincidence that science sprang, not from Ionian metaphysics, not from the Brahmin-Buddhist-Taoist East, not from the Egyptian-Mayan astrological South, but from the heart of the Christian West, that although Galileo fell out with the Church, he would hardly have taken so much trouble studying Jupiter and dropping objects from towers if the reality and value and order of things had not first been conferred by belief in the Incarnation. (Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos),,, Jaki notes that before Christ the Jews never formed a very large community (priv. comm.). In later times, the Jews lacked the Christian notion that Jesus was the monogenes or unigenitus, the only-begotten of God. Pantheists like the Greeks tended to identify the monogenes or unigenitus with the universe itself, or with the heavens. Jaki writes: Herein lies the tremendous difference between Christian monotheism on the one hand and Jewish and Muslim monotheism on the other. This explains also the fact that it is almost natural for a Jewish or Muslim intellectual to become a pa(n)theist. About the former Spinoza and Einstein are well-known examples. As to the Muslims, it should be enough to think of the Averroists. With this in mind one can also hope to understand why the Muslims, who for five hundred years had studied Aristotle’s works and produced many commentaries on them failed to make a breakthrough. The latter came in medieval Christian context and just about within a hundred years from the availability of Aristotle’s works in Latin,, If science suffered only stillbirths in ancient cultures, how did it come to its unique viable birth? The beginning of science as a fully fledged enterprise took place in relation to two important definitions of the Magisterium of the Church. The first was the definition at the Fourth Lateran Council in the year 1215, that the universe was created out of nothing at the beginning of time. The second magisterial statement was at the local level, enunciated by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris who, on March 7, 1277, condemned 219 Aristotelian propositions, so outlawing the deterministic and necessitarian views of creation. These statements of the teaching authority of the Church expressed an atmosphere in which faith in God had penetrated the medieval culture and given rise to philosophical consequences. The cosmos was seen as contingent in its existence and thus dependent on a divine choice which called it into being; the universe is also contingent in its nature and so God was free to create this particular form of world among an infinity of other possibilities. Thus the cosmos cannot be a necessary form of existence; and so it has to be approached by a posteriori investigation. The universe is also rational and so a coherent discourse can be made about it. Indeed the contingency and rationality of the cosmos are like two pillars supporting the Christian vision of the cosmos. http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/the-war-against-the-war-between-science-and-faith-revisited/
bornagain77_{February 2, 2019
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Seversky @ 20, you pretend that you, as a atheistic materialist, have a right to argue for the 'objective' morality of killing unborn babies (as long as you put them to sleep first). This is the same 'objective' morality that we afford to serial killers in putting them to sleep first before we administer a lethal injection. May I also point out that the baby is guilty of no crime save for, in the vast majority of cases, being falsely perceived as being inconvenient for the mother. Yet you yourself admit that your worldview cannot ground morality,,, In fact, it is worse than that for you. Not only can your worldview NOT ground morality but your worldview is completely amoral. That is to say, your worldview denies the reality of objective morality altogether.
"It may be well first to premise that I do not wish to maintain that any strictly social animal, if its intellectual faculties were to become as active and as highly developed as in man, would acquire exactly the same moral sense as ours. In the same manner as various animals have some sense of beauty, though they admire widely-different objects, so they might have a sense of right and wrong, though led by it to follow widely different lines of conduct. If, for instance, to take an extreme case, men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering." -Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, p 67
Again, you, as a Darwinists, have absolutely NOTHING to say about the objective ‘morality’ of killing unborn babies period! For you to even try to rationalize otherwise, (i.e. put the babies to sleep first), is actually proof that you are under a objective moral law.
“Yet our common moral knowledge is as real as arithmetic, and probably just as plain. Paradoxically, maddeningly, we appeal to it even to justify wrongdoing; rationalization is the homage paid by sin to guilty knowledge.” - J. Budziszewski, What We Can't Not Know: A Guide
Moreover, your claim that "Christianity has no adequate explanation of consciousness or morality" is simply an insane lie. Atheistic materialists hold that material is the primary substratum from which everything else comes. Christians hold that the Mind of God is the primary substratum from which everything else comes. Quantum Mechanics has consistently supported the Christian view of reality and falsified the materialist's view of reality.
The Death of Materialism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM0IKLv7KrE
Moreover, objective morality is literally 'built into' Christianity's foundation presupposition of the Mind of God being the source for all of reality. Not to mention Christ dying for the sins of the world. Again, your claim that "Christianity has no adequate explanation of consciousness or morality" is simply a insane lie. Moreover, besides atheistic materialism not being able to account for consciousness, atheistic materialism actually denies the reality of 'personhood' altogether. And as such, the atheist inadvertently gives up his legal status as a 'person', and thus, humorously, in a technical legal sense, since the 'right to life' is legally based on the concept of 'personhood', the atheist has, inadvertently, forsaken any legal claim that he has to a 'right to life'. In other words, in a technical legal sense, it is perfectly legal to kill atheistic materialists since they, by their own admission, are non-persons.
Legally in the United States, the right to life is granted to anyone who is granted the legal status of being a ‘person’., And yet the atheist’s Darwinian worldview is unable to ground the concept of ‘personhood’: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-governor-of-virginia-killing-babies-is-ok-by-him/#comment-672236
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To paraphrase Avicenna, just insert "pain is an illusion" for "the law of noncontradiction" "Anyone who denies the law of noncontradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned."dgosse_{February 1, 2019
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Bornagain77 @ 18
Seversky at 15, if you murder a person in their sleep, instead of when they are awake, is the crime any less a murder since the person was asleep? Of course not.
That was not the point. Egnor is arguing that fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than we do and is offering that as an argument against abortion. But if the fetus is not conscious, although it may display instinctive responses to stimuli that would be painful if it were conscious, it cannot feel pain.
Moreover, as an atheist, besides you not being able to account for morality, you certainly cannot account for consciousness.
I have no problem conceding that there is no adequate materialist account of consciousness. That is why it's a "hard problem". But no one has anything better.
Might I suggest that you stop stealing from Christian presuppositions about the nature of consciousness and morality in order to try to argue for your atheistic position of murdering unborn babies without restriction (as long as they are asleep)?
Christianity has no adequate explanation of consciousness or morality to offer nor does it have copyright on any of its moral principles so there is no question of theft, not even where Christianity appears to have adopted moral or theological concepts from other cultures.
Remember, your worldview is completely amoral and denies the existence of any objective morality whatsoever. Therefore you have absolutely NOTHING to say about the ‘morality’ of killing unborn babies period!
Atheistic materialism does not entail any moral principles since it makes claims about what is and you can't derive an "ought" from an "is". None of that prevents me from forming my own moral principles and judgments on whatever bases I choose. It just prevents me from grounding those views in the nature of the world around us. Your worldview, on the other hand, implies that you are incapable of forming moral beliefs of your own and are entirely reliant on what is provided to you in the Bible. In other words, you only know what is right or wrong if God tells you which is which. This, of course, raises an interesting question: where in the Bible do we find a clear and specific prohibition of abortion such as a commandment? And if there isn't one, on what do Christians base their vehement opposition to abortion?Seversky_{February 1, 2019
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Bornagain77 @ 16
Yet Brother Brian is apparently unaware, or purposely ignorant of the fact, that all of science, especially including Darwinian evolution itself, is totally reliant on presuppositions that can only be grounded within Theistic, even Christian, metaphysics.
The theory of evolution can be - and is - formulated without any reference to theology, Christian or otherwise.
Science is simply impossible without basic Theistic presuppositions,,,
Individual scientists may have drawn inspiration from their personal religious beliefs but that does not mean that Christianity was either necessary or sufficient for the development of science.
Max Planck himself, the main founder of Quantum Theory, stated that science requires faith in God :
Planck was entitled to his faith but his eminence as a physicist does not mean he is any better qualified than you or I to pronounce on questions of theology.
Where Darwinian evolution goes off the rails, theologically speaking, as far as science itself is concerned, is that it uses bad liberal theology to try to establish the legitimacy of its atheistic claims, all the while forgetting that it itself, in order to stay scientific, is absolutely dependent on basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and the ability of our minds to comprehend it.
As I have argued many times before, you can strip out all the theological references from Darwin's writings and his theory would remain intact. We observe the world around us to be ordered. We would not exist if it weren't. Science can - and I would argue did - use that as a starting-point. We can observe, study, describe and try to explain those regularities without any need to invoke the concept of a deity or creator. If you want to claim that the Christian God is the Creator of it all, I cannot disprove it. It is a possibility. But that is all it is, as far as I'm concerned, and it is not necessary for science to proceed.
In establishing the fact that Darwinists use bad liberal theology to try to establish their the legitimacy of the supposed ‘science’, it is interesting to point out that Charles Darwin’s degree was in liberal theology and was not in mathematics. nor any other field that would be considered essential for founding of a brand new branch of science. (In fact, Charles Darwin was said that he found higher level mathematics to be “repugnant”)
Darwin went initially to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine but was drawn more towards geology and natural history. Because he was thought to be neglecting his studies his father moved him to the University of Cambridge to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree with a view to joining the clergy. While at Cambridge he read and was greatly impressed by William Paley's Evidences of Christianity and Natural Theology which you may regard as bad liberal theology but there are others, perhaps even here, who would give you an argument on that. The fact is that while the gentleman naturalists and "liberal ‘unscientific’ Anglican clergy of Darwin’s day" lacked the formal qualifications of a modern scientist, in their driving curiosity, painstaking research and meticulous records many of them epitomized what we now think of as scientists.Seversky_{February 1, 2019
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Seversky at 15, if you murder a person in their sleep, instead of when they are awake, is the crime any less a murder since the person was asleep? Of course not. Moreover, as an atheist, besides you not being able to account for morality, you certainly cannot account for consciousness. Might I suggest that you stop stealing from Christian presuppositions about the nature of consciousness and morality in order to try to argue for your atheistic position of murdering unborn babies without restriction (as long as they are asleep)? Remember, your worldview is completely amoral and denies the existence of any objective morality whatsoever. Therefore you have absolutely NOTHING to say about the 'morality' of killing unborn babies period!
"The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
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Moreover, Charles Darwin's book itself, Origin of Species, instead of being filled with experimentation and mathematics, is replete with bad liberal theology.
Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin's Use of Theology in the Origin of Species - May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation): 1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the 'simplest mode' to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part's function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first 'primordial' life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A 'distant' God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html Charles Darwin's use of theology in the Origin of Species - STEPHEN DILLEY Abstract This essay examines Darwin's positiva (or positive) use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin's theological language about God's accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify (and inform) descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin's mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin's positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin's overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=376799F09F9D3CC8C2E7500BACBFC75F.journals?aid=8499239&fileId=S000708741100032X
To this day, Darwinists are still very much dependent of bad liberal theology, instead of any compelling scientific evidence (much less any compelling mathematics), in order to try to make Darwinian evolution seem 'scientific'.
Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/methodological_1089971.html Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of theology? - Dilley S. - 2013 Abstract This essay analyzes Theodosius Dobzhansky's famous article, "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," in which he presents some of his best arguments for evolution. I contend that all of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon sectarian claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. Moreover, Dobzhansky's theology manifests several tensions, both in the epistemic justification of his theological claims and in their collective coherence. I note that other prominent biologists--such as Mayr, Dawkins, Eldredge, Ayala, de Beer, Futuyma, and Gould--also use theology-laden arguments. I recommend increased analysis of the justification, complexity, and coherence of this theology. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23890740
That Darwinists would still today be so dependent on such a faulty theological foundation based in bad liberal theology, in order to try to give force to their arguments, is, contrary to what Darwinists may believe, actually another compelling argument that drives my point home that basic Theistic presuppositions are necessary for us to even be able to coherently practice science in the first place. Darwinists, with their vital dependence on bad liberal theology in order to try to make their case for Darwinian evolution are, as Cornelius Van Til put it, like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face.
“In other words, the non-Christian needs the truth of the Christian religion in order to attack it. As a child needs to sit on the lap of its father in order to slap the father’s face, so the unbeliever, as a creature, needs God the Creator and providential controller of the universe in order to oppose this God. Without this God, the place on which he stands does not exist. He cannot stand in a vacuum.” Cornelius Van Til, Essays on Christian Education (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1979).
One final note, since Christianity was necessary for the founding of modern science, then it should not be all that surprising to find out that Christianity also brings us what can be termed 'an ultimate closure to science' ,,,, in that Christ's resurrection from the dead provides an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into what is called the quote unquote “Theory of Everything”:
Short take: Copernican Principle, Agent Causality, and Jesus Christ as the “Theory of Everything” - January 2019 Copernican Principle https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bill-nye-should-check-wikipedia/#comment-671672 Agent Causality https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bill-nye-should-check-wikipedia/#comment-671692 Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
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Brother Brian, since he is an atheist, jokes about the strong connection between ID and religious beliefs. Yet Brother Brian is apparently unaware, or purposely ignorant of the fact, that all of science, especially including Darwinian evolution itself, is totally reliant on presuppositions that can only be grounded within Theistic, even Christian, metaphysics.
Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications – Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: It is precisely because modern science has abandoned its foundations in the Biblical worldview (which holds, among other things, that a personal, rational God designed a rational universe to be understood and controlled by rational persons made in His image) and the Biblical ethic (which holds, among other things, that we are obligated to tell the truth even when it inconveniences us) that science is collapsing. As such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed,, science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full Several other resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson. The War against the War Between Science and Faith Revisited - July 2010 Excerpt: The beginning of science as a fully fledged enterprise took place in relation to two important definitions of the Magisterium of the Church. The first was the definition at the Fourth Lateran Council in the year 1215, that the universe was created out of nothing at the beginning of time. The second magisterial statement was at the local level, enunciated by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris who, on March 7, 1277, condemned 219 Aristotelian propositions, so outlawing the deterministic and necessitarian views of creation. These statements of the teaching authority of the Church expressed an atmosphere in which faith in God had penetrated the medieval culture and given rise to philosophical consequences. The cosmos was seen as contingent in its existence and thus dependent on a divine choice which called it into being; the universe is also contingent in its nature and so God was free to create this particular form of world among an infinity of other possibilities. Thus the cosmos cannot be a necessary form of existence; and so it has to be approached by a posteriori investigation. The universe is also rational and so a coherent discourse can be made about it. Indeed the contingency and rationality of the cosmos are like two pillars supporting the Christian vision of the cosmos. http://www.scifiwright.com/2010/08/the-war-against-the-war-between-science-and-faith-revisited/
Science is simply impossible without basic Theistic presuppositions,,,
The Great Debate: Does God Exist? – Justin Holcomb – audio of the 1985 Greg Bahnsen debate available at the bottom of the site Excerpt: When we go to look at the different world views that atheists and theists have, I suggest we can prove the existence of God from the impossibility of the contrary. The transcendental proof for God’s existence is that without Him it is impossible to prove anything. The atheist worldview is irrational and cannot consistently provide the preconditions of intelligible experience, science, logic, or morality. The atheist worldview cannot allow for laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the ability for the mind to understand the world, and moral absolutes. In that sense the atheist worldview cannot account for our debate tonight.,,, http://justinholcomb.com/2012/01/17/the-great-debate-does-god-exist/
Max Planck himself, the main founder of Quantum Theory, stated that science requires faith in God :
“Both religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view”. Max Planck – 1931 – Lutheran/Christian – main originator of Quantum Theory
Where Darwinian evolution goes off the rails, theologically speaking, as far as science itself is concerned, is that it uses bad liberal theology to try to establish the legitimacy of its atheistic claims, all the while forgetting that it itself, in order to stay scientific, is absolutely dependent on basic Theistic presuppositions about the rational intelligibility of the universe and the ability of our minds to comprehend it. In establishing the fact that Darwinists use bad liberal theology to try to establish their the legitimacy of the supposed 'science', it is interesting to point out that Charles Darwin’s degree was in liberal theology and was not in mathematics. nor any other field that would be considered essential for founding of a brand new branch of science. (In fact, Charles Darwin was said that he found higher level mathematics to be "repugnant")
Charles Darwin - The Rest of the Story Excerpt: Charles Darwin received a general degree in Theology from Cambridge, graduating in 1831.,,, he almost became an Anglican Minister and his degree was in Theology. http://creationanswers.net/biographies/CDarwin.htm
In fact, the liberal ‘unscientific’ Anglican clergy of Darwin’s day were very eager to jump on the Darwinian bandwagon from the beginning, whilst the conservative ‘scientific’ clergy reacted against Darwin's theory:
Reactions to Origin of Species “Religious views were mixed, with the Church of England scientific establishment reacting against the book, while liberal Anglicans strongly supported Darwin’s natural selection as an instrument of God’s design.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_On_the_Origin_of_Species
Pastor Joe Boot and Dr. Cornelius Hunter have both done work exposing the faulty liberal theology that underlays Darwinian thought..
The Descent of Darwin (The Faulty Theological Foundation of Darwinism) - Pastor Joe Boot - video - 16:30 minute mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKzUSWU7c2s&feature=player_detailpage#t=996 Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil - 2001 Excerpt: (Cornelius Hunter) shows how Darwin's theological concerns-particularly his inability to reconcile a loving, all-powerful God with the cruelty, waste, and quandaries of nature-led him to develop the theory of evolution. Hunter provides the crucial key to engaging the intelligent design debate in the context of modern theology. He addresses the influences of Milton, rationalism, the enlightenment, and Deism, quoting extensively from Darwin's journals, letters, and scientific writings. https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-God-Evolution-Problem-Evil/dp/1587430118 From Philosopher to Science Writer: The Dissemination of Evolutionary Thought - May 2011 Excerpt: The powerful theory of evolution hangs on this framework of thought that mandates naturalism. The science is weak but the metaphysics are strong. This is the key to understanding evolutionary thought. The weak arguments are scientific and the strong arguments, though filled with empirical observation and scientific jargon, are metaphysical. The stronger the argument, the more theological or philosophical. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2011/05/from-philosopher-to-science-writer.html
bornagain77_{February 1, 2019
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Brother Brian @ 3
Fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults:
For a neurosurgeon, he knows very little about the brain and nervous system. Pain, fundamentally, is an illusion. It is how our brains perceive various types of stimulation. Like our perception of color and music. A fetus before brain development can’t feel “pain”. It can react to stimulation, but that is not the same as pain.
One further point is that pain is a conscious experience, If we are unconscious we do not feel pain, hence anesthesia. Unless Egnor is claiming that fetuses are fully conscious throughout their development then they do not feel pain.Seversky_{February 1, 2019
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EricMH
@ET, very perceptive. There is a strong connection between the ID position and the pro-life position.
Yes, it is called religion. :)Brother Brian_{February 1, 2019
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@ET, very perceptive. There is a strong connection between the ID position and the pro-life position.EricMH_{February 1, 2019
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The problem is with the people running the show. They think life, our existence, is basically just an accident anyway. There isn't any meaning to it beyond what you can make of it. Our brain runs the show. And that brain arose via mindless processes- minds from the mindless. They do not understand the value of life nor the miracle of conception. For use who are pro-life, it all comes down to ensoulment. Well, not all because we do understand the miracle of conception.ET_{February 1, 2019
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Seversky:
But if we grant the fetus the same right to life to which the child is entitled after birth then abortion would become both immoral and illegal.
What if this "we" you speak of isn't in any position to grant anything?ET_{February 1, 2019
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@brotherBrian@2 There was a faith healer from Keel Who said – although pain isn’t real When I sit on a pin And it goes all the way in I dislike what I imagine I feelBelfast_{February 1, 2019
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Of course, Darwinian materialists are at a complete loss to explain why any of this should be so, whereas on the other hand, on Christian presuppositions this ‘more real than real’ finding is to be expected.
A Doctor's Near Death Experience Inspires a New Life - video Quote: "It's not like a dream. It's like the world we are living in is a dream and it's kind of like waking up from that." Dr. Magrisso http://www.nbcchicago.com/on-air/as-seen-on/A-Doctor--186331791.html Medical Miracles – Dr. Mary Neal’s Near Death Experience – video (More real than real quote at 37:49 minute mark) https://youtu.be/WCNjmWP2JjU?t=2269 "More real than anything I've experienced since. When I came back of course I had 34 operations, and was in the hospital for 13 months. That was real but heaven is more real than that. The emotions and the feelings. The reality of being with people who had preceded me in death." - Don Piper - "90 Minutes in Heaven," 10 Years Later - video (2:54 minute mark) https://youtu.be/3LyZoNlKnMM?t=173
Moreover on top of all that, whereas atheists have no evidence for all the various parallel universe and/or multiverse scenarios that they have put forth (to try to 'explain away' fine tuning, quantum wave collapse, and such as that), in fact, there is fairly strong evidence that can be mustered against their claims for parallel universes and/or multiverses,,
Multiverse Mania vs Reality - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQJV4fH6kMo
And whereas, atheists have no compelling evidence for all the various extra dimensions, parallel universe and/or multiverse scenarios that they have put forth, Christians, on the other hand, can appeal directly to the higher dimensional mathematics behind Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity and General Relativity to support their belief that God upholds this universe in its continual existence, as well as to support their belief in a higher heavenly dimension and in a hellish dimension.
Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QDy1Soolo
All in all, Brother Brian’s materialistic claim that all of our perceptions are illusory since he believes, via his materialistic presuppositions, that our perceptions are wholly dependent on 'how our brain interprets electrical signals', is found to be, besides self-refuting nonsense, directly contradicted by numerous lines of empirical evidence from our strongest theories in science. If Brother Brain were truly concerned about ‘scientifically’ following the evidence wherever it leads, (instead of just trying to defend his atheistic worldview no matter what the evidence says to the contrary), then Brother Brain should drop his materialistic Darwinian worldview altogether and become a Christian. He should even become a true ‘brother in Christ’. i.e. a true “Brother” Brian! Verses:
Matthew 12:48-50 He replied to him,“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said,“Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” John 3:12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?
bornagain77_{February 1, 2019
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As the preceding article stated, "The phenomenon is anomalous, some scientists argue, because we can't explain it using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense.” And indeed, advances in quantum biology have now falsified the entire reductive materialistic foundation upon which Darwinian evolution is built:
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology - video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Y
An even more direct falsification of Brian's claim that our perceptions are wholly dependent on 'how our brain interprets electrical signals' is this. Evidence suggesting that quantum mechanisms are at play on the macro level of the human body is revealed in the following article where it is revealed that a ‘subject perceives a sensory stimulus on the skin at the moment the skin is touched, before the stimulus reaches the brain and before full deliberative consciousness occurs.’
Do Perceptions Happen in Your Brain? - Michael Egnor - December 1, 2015 Excerpt: The sensory experiments of Benjamin Libet, a neuroscientist at U.C. San Francisco in the mid 20th century, demonstrated that a subject perceives a sensory stimulus on the skin at the moment the skin is touched, before the stimulus reaches the brain and before full deliberative consciousness occurs. Libet was flabbergasted by this result,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/do_perceptions101261.html
Moreover, Dr. Michael Egnor’s (Theistic) contention (via Aristotle) that “Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance.”,,,
Perception and the Cartesian Theater – Michael Egnor – December 8, 2015 Excerpt: Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance. The notion that a perception of the moon occurs at the moon is “bizarre” (Torley’s word) only if one presumes that perception is constrained by distance and local conditions — perhaps perception would get tired if it had to go to the moon or it wouldn’t be able to go because it’s too cold there. Yet surely the view that the perception of a rose held up to my eye was located at the rose wouldn’t be deemed nearly as bizarre. At what distance does perception of an object at the object become inconceivable? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/12/perception_and101471.html
,,,, Dr. Michael Egnor’s (Theistic) contention (via Aristotle) that “Perception at a distance is no more inconceivable than action at a distance.”, is now verified in the following "quantum entanglement in time' experiment which directly implied that that “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”
You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time - Feb. 2018 Excerpt: Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality refers to the entanglement of properties across space. But what if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?,,, The data revealed the existence of quantum correlations between ‘temporally nonlocal’ photons 1 and 4. That is, entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted. What on Earth can this mean? Prima facie, it seems as troubling as saying that the polarity of starlight in the far-distant past – say, greater than twice Earth’s lifetime – nevertheless influenced the polarity of starlight falling through your amateur telescope this winter. Even more bizarrely: maybe it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old. https://aeon.co/ideas/you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time
As the following article stated, "Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,,"
Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time – 2016 Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. Excerpt: Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,, “If you have space-time, you have a well-defined causal order,” said Caslav Brukner, a physicist at the University of Vienna who studies quantum information. But “if you don’t have a well-defined causal order,” he said — as is the case in experiments he has proposed — then “you don’t have space-time.”,,, Quantum correlations come first, space-time later. Exactly how does space-time emerge out of the quantum world? Bruner said he is still unsure. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/
Moreover, Brian's materialistic assumption that "everything we perceive is an illusion" and that what we perceive is wholly dependent on 'how our brain interprets electrical signals' is also falsified by Near Death Experiences. First off, we have far more evidence supporting the reality of Near Death Experiences than we have evidence supporting the claims of Darwinists:
Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html
And in further falsification of Brian's claim that all our perceptions of reality are illusory, Mickey Robinson stated this about his Near Death Experience,..
“I was in the spiritual dimension. And this spiritual dimension, this spiritual world, that's the real world. And this spiritual man that I was seeing and perceiving, that was the real me. And I instantly knew it. The colors are brighter. The thoughts are more intense. The feelings have greater depth. They're more real. In the spirit world instantly I knew that this is the real world.,,," - The Near Death Experience of Mickey Robinson – video (testimony starts at 27:45 minute mark) https://youtu.be/voak1RM-pXo?t=1655
Mickey Robinson is hardly alone in his claim that the spiritual world is ‘more real’ than this temporal material world. In the following study, materialistic researchers who had a bias against Near Death Experiences being real, set out to prove that they were ‘false memories’ by setting up a clever questionnaire that could differentiate which memories a person had were real and which memories a person had were merely imaginary. They did not expect the results they got: to quote the headline 'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real”
'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real,' researcher says - Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: "If you use this questionnaire ... if the memory is real, it's richer, and if the memory is recent, it's richer," he said. The coma scientists weren't expecting what the tests revealed. "To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors," Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. "The difference was so vast," he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich "as though it was yesterday," Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/
bornagain77_{February 1, 2019
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In response to,
" if pain is an illusion, please list everything that is not".
Brother Brian states that,
"Given that we experience everything through how our brain interprets electrical signals, it could be said that everything we perceive is an illusion."
Believe it or not, Brother Brian is finally being somewhat consistent within his Darwinian reasoning. The one thing he left out is that consciousness itself, i.e. our ability to perceive, is also considered an illusion on the Darwinian worldview. And as Rowan Williams asked Richard Dawkins in regards to Dawkins' materialistic claim that “consciousness is an illusion”, ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”
At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s
And indeed it has now been proven that, as Brother Brian pointed out, if Darwinian evolution were actually true, then "everything we perceive is an illusion."
The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality - April 2016 The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman uses evolutionary game theory to show that our perceptions of an independent reality must be illusions. Excerpt: “The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions — mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction. The mathematical physicist Chetan Prakash proved a theorem that I devised that says: According to evolution by natural selection, an organism that sees reality as it is will never be more fit than an organism of equal complexity that sees none of reality but is just tuned to fitness. Never.” https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/
Ignoring the self-refuting fact that consciousness itself is held to be illusory in the Darwinian worldview, the problem for Brother Brian and other Darwinists in holding that all our perceptions of reality are illusory is that it undermines the scientific method itself. That is to say, reliable observation is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method.
Steps of the Scientific Method Observation/Research Hypothesis Prediction Experimentation Conclusion http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/scientific_method.html
Thus, since Darwinian evolution denies 'reliable observation', which is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method itself, then Darwinian evolution can never be based upon the scientific method and is therefore falsified once again in its claim to be a scientific theory. Moreover, completely contrary to what Hoffman found for Darwinian theory, it turns out that accurate perception, i.e. conscious observation, far from being unreliable and illusory, is experimentally found to be far more integral to reality, i.e. far more reliable of reality, than the mathematics of population genetics predicted. In the following experiment, it was found that reality doesn’t exist without an observer.
New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It – June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html
Apparently science itself could care less if Darwinian atheists are forced to believe, because of the mathematics of population genetics, that their observations of reality are illusory! Moreover, Brian's materialistic claim that the perceptions of our 'illusory' mind are wholly dependent on 'how our brain interprets electrical signals' is found to be severely wanting. First, the human mind is able to perceive 'abstract' immaterial objects, such as mathematical objects, that lie beyond space and time.
Naturalism and Self-Refutation – Michael Egnor – January 31, 2018 Excerpt: Mathematics is certainly something we do. Is mathematics “included in the space-time continuum [with] basic elements … described by physics”? It seems a stretch. What is the physics behind the Pythagorean theorem? After all, no actual triangle is perfect, and thus no actual triangle in nature has sides such that the Pythagorean theorem holds. There is no real triangle in which the sum of the squares of the sides exactly equals the square of the hypotenuse. That holds true for all of geometry. Geometry is about concepts, not about anything in the natural world or about anything that can be described by physics. What is the “physics” of the fact that the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the square of the radius? And of course what is natural and physical about imaginary numbers, infinite series, irrational numbers, and the mathematics of more than three spatial dimensions? Mathematics is entirely about concepts, which have no precise instantiation in nature,, https://evolutionnews.org/2018/01/naturalism-and-self-refutation/
In fact, there is entire world of abstract immaterial objects that humans perceive that can have no material instantiation in space and time, and therefore cannot possibly be wholly dependent on 'how our brain interprets electrical signals'
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals - Michael Egnor - November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different -- ontologically different -- from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is a radical difference -- an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2100661.html The Representation Problem and the Immateriality of the Mind - Michael Egnor - February 5, 2018 Excerpt: The human mind is a composite of material particular thought and immaterial abstract thought. Interestingly, modern neuroscience supports this view. Perception of particulars maps with precision to brain anatomy, but abstract thought is not mapped in the same way. Material powers of the brain are ordinarily necessary for exercise of abstract thought (e.g., you have to be awake to think about justice), but matter is not sufficient for abstract thought. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/02/the-representation-problem-and-the-immateriality-of-the-mind/
In support of the claim that our ‘abstract perceptions’ cannot have a material instantiation, the following studies show that our ‘abstract’ moral intuition transcends space and time:
Quantum Consciousness – Time Flies Backwards? – Stuart Hameroff MD Excerpt: Dean Radin and Dick Bierman have performed a number of experiments of emotional response in human subjects. The subjects view a computer screen on which appear (at randomly varying intervals) a series of images, some of which are emotionally neutral, and some of which are highly emotional (violent, sexual….). In Radin and Bierman’s early studies, skin conductance of a finger was used to measure physiological response They found that subjects responded strongly to emotional images compared to neutral images, and that the emotional response occurred between a fraction of a second to several seconds BEFORE the image appeared! Recently Professor Bierman (University of Amsterdam) repeated these experiments with subjects in an fMRI brain imager and found emotional responses in brain activity up to 4 seconds before the stimuli. Moreover he looked at raw data from other laboratories and found similar emotional responses before stimuli appeared. http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/views/TimeFlies.html Can Your Body Sense Future Events Without Any External Clue? (meta-analysis of 26 reports published between 1978 and 2010) - (Oct. 22, 2012) Excerpt: "But our analysis suggests that if you were tuned into your body, you might be able to detect these anticipatory changes between two and 10 seconds beforehand,,, This phenomenon is sometimes called "presentiment," as in "sensing the future," but Mossbridge said she and other researchers are not sure whether people are really sensing the future. "I like to call the phenomenon 'anomalous anticipatory activity,'" she said. "The phenomenon is anomalous, some scientists argue, because we can't explain it using present-day understanding about how biology works; though explanations related to recent quantum biological findings could potentially make sense. It's anticipatory because it seems to predict future physiological changes in response to an important event without any known clues, and it's an activity because it consists of changes in the cardiopulmonary, skin and nervous systems." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121022145342.htm
bornagain77_{February 1, 2019
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BB@5 "Given that we experience everything through how our brains perceive electrical signals, it could be said that everything we perceive is an illusion." Quite correct; we never experience "reality as it is", but at least 2 stages removed from reality: (1) the limitations of our sensory receptors and (2) the brain's interpretation of those electrical inputs received. Yet so many of us on both sides of this debate (and others) are so SURE about the nature of the reality that we are greatly distanced from. Another point related to those electrical signals and their interpretation: If I lie awake at night wondering "what's it all about?" or "is there really a God?", what is generating those thoughts? According to neuroscience, thoughts are caused by electrical signals. After all, as BB has stated, everything we experience (including our innermost thoughts) is nothing but the brain's interpretation of electrical signals. But if this is so, *what causes the electrical signals that cause our thoughts?* For me this seems to defeat materialism, unless our thoughts are entirely caused by a chain of particle interactions dating back to the Big Bang, which would mean we are meat robots with no freewill. Any thoughts on this? (Pun not intended!)Charles Birch_{February 1, 2019
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if pain is an illusion, please list everything that is not.
Given that we experience everything through how our brain interprets electrical signals, it could be said that everything we perceive is an illusion.Brother Brian_{January 31, 2019
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BB - if pain is an illusion, please list everything that is not.Heartlander_{January 31, 2019
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Fetuses not only experience pain but experience it more intensely than do adults:
For a neurosurgeon, he knows very little about the brain and nervous system. Pain, fundamentally, is an illusion. It is how our brains perceive various types of stimulation. Like our perception of color and music. A fetus before brain development can’t feel “pain”. It can react to stimulation, but that is not the same as pain.Brother Brian_{January 31, 2019
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The unborn child is considered a person by law: Women have been arrested for killing their unborn child during an attempted suicide – also harming or killing their unborn child by using illegal drugs during pregnancy. Many states that have the death penalty prohibit the pregnant mother from being put to death until the child is born. People have been convicted of double homicide for killing women who are a few weeks pregnant. There are laws against violence to pregnant women and their unborn children. Unborn children can be beneficiaries of trusts and estate settlements. In all these cases, the unborn child is considered a person, abortion is the exception.Heartlander_{January 31, 2019
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Abortion is not a question of science but of morality. Whether or not a fetus can feel pain is irrelevant. If that were the only obstacle then it could be overcome quite simply by the administration of painkillers. But if we grant the fetus the same right to life to which the child is entitled after birth then abortion would become both immoral and illegal.Seversky_{January 31, 2019
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