Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: lexcorp
I expected that response. But I encourage you to take a skeptical view of skepticism.

The materialist worldview is internally contradictory.

For example, if my thought that "materialism is false," and your thought that "materialism is true" are both the result of sheer, random, chance, then there exists no objective criterion for judging the validity of our statements. Both contradictory statements would be necessarily "valid." But this contradicts the Law of Non-contradiction.

Similarly, if your mind is simply a "machine," then there exists no means for determining whether your "machine" is functioning properly.

Finally, the self eludes explanation in strictly material terms. Is the self a "scanning mechanism" in the brain? If so, then there would be as many "selves" as discrete acts of scanning. And the "self" dissolves.

No, thought is essentially and ultimately a spiritual, non-material process. Only a non-material "vantage point" allows the self to see the world objectively. And only a non-material property of the self makes the possibility of thought itself logically coherent.

Another intuitive argument against materialistic reductionism is the existence of:

humor
love
beauty
goodness
oneness
music

which, if their existence is granted, cannot be explained materially.

Once the existence of the non-material is granted, the existence of the occult cannot be rejected a priori.

88 posted on 11/30/2001 1:34:34 PM PST by Aquinasfan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson