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Still time to register for Christian Scientific Society conference

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The Christian Scientific Society: The Truth, Wherever It Leads

Details for the Annual Meeting, April 17-18 in Pittsburgh here:

J.P. Moreland, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

“The irrelevance of neuroscience for formulating and addressing the fundamental problems in philosophy/theology of mind.”

In the first part of my talk, I will lay out the autonomy and authority theses in philosophy and identify the central questions in the four key areas of the mind/body problem. In the second section, I will show why neuroscience cannot even formulate, much less address these central questions. I will also clarify what it means to say that two or more theories are empirically equivalent and go on to argue that when it comes to the neuroscience of mirror neurons, (1) strict physicalism (2) mere property dualism and (3) substance dualism are empirically equivalent treatments of the scientific data. And an appeal to theoretical simplicity does not favor strict physicalism.In the third section, I will show that a simple soul is, but a complex brain is not the sort of thing that can acomodate 3 things we know about ourselves: (1) we are possibly such that we can exist in a disembodied state after death and NDEs have made this beyond reasonable doubt; (2) we possess a fundamentally unified consciousness; (3) we are continuants even though our bodies and brains undergo severe part replacement. I will conclude by point out that while philosophy/theology does not need neuroscience to address its central issues the converse is not true. Neuroscience needs philosophy to do its work.

Michael Egnor, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery and Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Stony Brook University

“Misconceptions in modern neuroscience”

During the past century neuroscientists have have gained much understanding of molecular and cellular neurobiology. Yet a genuine scientific understanding of the biological basis for consciousness remains elusive. A primary reason for this is the materialist metaphysical predicate in which neuroscientific research is conducted. An understanding of this conceptual error, and replacement of materialist metaphysics with a hylemorphic metaphysical perspective, will deepen scientific insight into the mind and its biological substrate. More.

4 Replies to “Still time to register for Christian Scientific Society conference”

  1. 1
    bornagain77 says:
    April 6, 2015 at 4:51 pm

    OT: Dr. Giem has a new lecture up from the book ‘Biological Information’:

    Biological Information – The Membrane Code 4-4-2015 by Paul Giem
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YgXbHvYuBM&index=21&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUUhiC9VwPnhl-ymuObyTWJ

  2. 2
    phoenix says:
    April 6, 2015 at 8:37 pm

    The Christian Scientific Society: The Truth, Wherever It Leads

    Nice motto. Too bad they immediately spoil it with this:

    We also want to be a definitely Christian society. We welcome all types of Christians from different traditions, but our society is anchored in a very high view of the Bible. This view is sometimes called the “inerrancy” view: that the Bible, when properly understood in context, is the true Word of God and without error. (For in-depth discussion of the notion of inerrancy, see this link.) One can nuance one’s understanding of the Bible in many ways, and getting the proper meaning of the original words is a science in itself, but we believe it is essential that we agree that our discussion is founded on the teachings of all of the Bible. We also affirm that the historical confessions of the Apostles’ Creed and Nicene Creed are true summaries of the teaching of the Bible.

    The Truth, Wherever It Leads… except There. Don’t Go There!

  3. 3
    bornagain77 says:
    April 7, 2015 at 5:00 am

    phoenix you ridicule people who hold a ‘very high view of the Bible’ by saying:

    “The Truth, Wherever It Leads… except There. Don’t Go There!”

    That is an interesting comment for a materialist/atheist to make since atheistic materialism cannot account for ‘truth’ in the first place:

    “If you have no God, then you have no design plan for the universe. You have no prexisting structure to the universe.,, As the ancient Greeks held, like Democritus and others, the universe is flux. It’s just matter in motion. Now on that basis all you are confronted with is innumerable brute facts that are unrelated pieces of data. They have no meaningful connection to each other because there is no overall structure. There’s no design plan. It’s like my kids do ‘join the dots’ puzzles. It’s just dots, but when you join the dots there is a structure, and a picture emerges. Well, the atheists is without that (final picture). There is no preestablished pattern (to connect the facts given atheism).”
    Pastor Joe Boot – Defending the Christian Faith – 13:20 minute mark – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqE5_ZOAnKo

    In fact, the belief that there is an single overarching ‘truth’ to be found is a teleological, i.e. Theistic, presupposition. It is not an atheistic/materialistic presupposition:

    “So you think of physics in search of a “Grand Unified Theory of Everything”, Why should we even think there is such a thing? Why should we think there is some ultimate level of resolution? Right? It is part, it is a consequence of believing in some kind of design. Right? And there is some sense in which that however mulrifarious and diverse the phenomena of nature are, they are ultimately unified by the minimal set of laws and principles possible. In so far as science continues to operate with that assumption, there is a presupposition of design that is motivating the scientific process. Because it would be perfectly easy,, to stop the pursuit of science at much lower levels. You know understand a certain range of phenomena in a way that is appropiate to deal with that phenomena and just stop there and not go any deeper or any farther.”,,, You see, there is sense in which there is design at the ultimate level, the ultimate teleology you might say, which provides the ultimate closure,,”
    Professor Steve Fuller – discusses intelligent design in Cambridge- 17:34 minute mark – Video
    http://www.uncommondescent.com.....nd-others/

    Atheistic Materialism simply dissolves into absurdity whenever it tries to account for why anything exists, since atheistic materialism insists that, at bottom, everything exists for no reason at all. Much less does atheistic materialism presuppose an ‘ultimate closure’ to science:

    Jerry Coyne Challenges Francis Collins on Metaphysics – Michael Egnor – April 5, 2015
    Excerpt: ,,,If anything, let alone the whole universe, can exist without reason, then why invoke scientific explanations for anything? For example, if polar bears can exist without reason, why invoke evolution from whales? Polar bears just exist, like the whole universe just exists. No reason, evolutionary or otherwise. If the whole panoply of nature exists without reason, why invoke a scientific explanation for any part of it? Surely Occam’s Razor favors “just happened” over “happened because random heritable mutation and natural selection…”
    Atheists who deny the PSR (principle of sufficient reason) deny science. And atheists who embrace PSR embrace transcendent causation of the universe via Aquinas’ First Way.
    Atheists like Coyne, of course, take recourse in the excluded middle. The most common gambit to get around this problem — Jerry Coyne’s gambit here — is to ignore the contradiction, and hope no one notices.
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....94991.html

    Moreover, whereas atheism cannot even account for why we do science in the first place, much less bring ‘ultimate closure’ to science, Christianity can provide both a reason why we do science and also brings an ultimate closure to science:

    The War against the War Between Science and Faith Revisited – July 2010
    Excerpt: ,,, 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/201.....revisited/

    The Center Of The Universe Is Life (i.e. Jesus Christ) – General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy and The Shroud Of Turin – video
    http://vimeo.com/34084462

    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.

  4. 4
    Robert Byers says:
    April 7, 2015 at 11:11 pm

    If these cats don’t include the SOUL as a option for all thinking and so the physical mind as not very important then they are not addressing Christian beliefs.
    The bible is clear on these points.
    Further the mind could only be a machine and so it could only be the memory. The only thing in man, affecting his thinking, that can be affected by the material world.
    Good luck to them and bring intellectual change. Christians have the lef up on the others.

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