Anon, admittedly I don’t know much about Buddhism but I am led to understand that there is some kind of ‘energy’ or ‘life essence’ that is of a supernatural or at least extra-physical nature. If that’s not right and buddhists are materialists, then my claim is void. If it is right, then how does that life essence come into a life form that was by all accounts artificially created?
Ochaye, yes of course, as with all religions and religious people, the only possibility is to keep going outside our current knowledge boundary to ‘prove’ that god exists. If not rain, then earthquakes, if not earthquakes, then the earth, if not, then the sun, if not, then life, if not, then matter itself. Of course, the problem with this logic is that it’s a dead end since you can keep going back forever. Let me apply it to your god. God doesn’t know that he himself was created, since he can only go back so far to his own beginning, just as we don’t know what happened before the big bang. Before that, there was a different god who made your god but his knowledge is greater than your god still because he naturally has knowledge over his creation, as well as his own environment. Since he gave your god free will, he won’t tell him that he exists lest he interfere with his free will. Even worse, there was a god who made that god…and that god…and that god…and… But no, let’s keep it at one god to simplify.
Yes felix, the only question I have however is that why not abandon all the waste of religion (e.g. jihad, witch burnings) and simply get to the core which is basically a universal morality. We’ve seen the failure of religion in countries like Sweden and Norway and there’s not been the breakdown of society foretold by the religious, so why waste energy on different interpretations and sects?
Stumps, this isn’t about sentience. It’s about the impact this has on god creating life, and man making artificial cells, on god causing earthquakes, and man causing them himself when he drills, god causing draughts, man building damns to irrigate, of god sending pests, and man making pesticides. What is the boundary of god then? I expect all these events to lead to the death of, if not the creator god, the interfering god. Then, you talk about the ‘stable condition of the soul’. What does that mean? If you’re using consciousness and soul interchangeably, then that can’t be correct. First of all there’s no rational basis for that, why is the soul your consciousness? How do you know other things which might not have souls by standards of x religion aren’t conscious? Second, children aren’t self conscious up to 3 years old, similar to many animals. Does that mean children and babies don’t have souls? Given that we have Newton’s laws, the laws of thermodynamics, the various ‘supernatural energy’ frauds who are discovered upon further examination, Dolly the sheep, artificial life, knowledge of what a placebo is and why prayer might help, the history of religion and why it’s a poor system for the reason that it is so rife for abuse and open to extreme interpretations of what may have originally been an attempt at social harmony, and the poor confidence level that an average person would normally have in hearsay about miracles and world-defying events millennia ago, I would think this might dent the religious person’s confidence in religion. Clearly, I would be wrong.