This week we conclude part four of our series looking at how the best explanation of our consciousness is an intelligent Creator.
References:
Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, 2004 – Interview with J.P Moreland
Michael Egnor and Denyse O’Leary, The Immortal Mind, 2025, **Ref1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1YWy5SQPhg
“Suppose everybody who lacked a certain part of the brain was disabled in a very specific way. The brain would be like a machine. Take out a part and it just doesn’t work or work right. Then the idea that the mind is merely the physical functions of the brain – the materialist view – would be hard to argue with. But that’s not at all what we see.” **Ref1
“Of course, if a brain is seriously damaged, intellect and will can be impaired. But that is because the brain damage impairs memory or perception areas that are needed for the mind to understand what has happened or is happening.” **Ref1
“Here’s the conundrum that these cases pose: On the one hand, a neurosurgeon must be very careful about removing brain tissue that is doing something important. On the other hand, people with very dramatic natural brain losses or absences can have normally functioning minds. If the mind were merely the activities of the brain, that would not be happening.” **Ref1
“If the mind is completely a product of the material functions of the brain, then:
1. There will be no mental phenomena without brain functions.
2. As brain function is altered, the mind will be altered.
3. If the brain is damaged, then mental function will be damaged.
4. Brain development will correlate with mental development.
5. We will be able to correlate brain activity with mental activity – no matter how we choose to look at it.” **Ref1
“As Steve Taylor has pointed out in Psychology Today, “NDE’s have never been satisfactorily explained in neurobiological terms…All of these theories have been found to be problematic.” One weakness of such explanations is that they try to account specifically for selected aspects of the near-death experiences. But they fail to account for the complete experience. The ways they account for the narrow aspect of the NDEs that they focus on invariably conflict with all the other evidence. That is why no skeptical explanation provides a credible account of NDEs.” **Ref1
“That includes a subjective sense of being dead, a feeling of peace, painlessness, pleasantness, and so on, a sense of bodily separation, perhaps a sense of entering a dark region or tunnel, encountering a presence or hearing a voice. That may include taking stock of one’s life (a life review), seeing a bright and often beautiful light or being enveloped in it, seeing beautiful colors, entering the light, and encountering visible spirits. Near-death experiencers frequently report mental conversations with a Being in the light or with deceased persons, especially relatives. Those who report undergoing a life review may also report a sense of forgiveness as well as profound understanding in a world of beauty beyond nature.” **Ref1
“As Steve Taylor has pointed out in Psychology Today, “NDE’s have never been satisfactorily explained in neurobiological terms…All of these theories have been found to be problematic.” One weakness of such explanations is that they try to account specifically for selected aspects of the near-death experiences. But they fail to account for the complete experience. The ways they account for the narrow aspect of the NDEs that they focus on invariably conflict with all the other evidence. That is why no skeptical explanation provides a credible account of NDEs.” **Ref1
