>>If I am understanding you as you seek to be understood, you are claiming that I am wrong in saying that living things are part of the furniture of the physical world, and you are further claiming to know that there is a big difference between life and the physical world. How do you know that? What is the source of that ‘knowledge’? Is it scientific knowledge? Apparently not.<<
I say that my belief is no more “unscientific” than your belief that science will eventually understand life and death. My “supporting evidence” is simply that humans have always tried to answer the question of what life is, and the only progress they have made is to acquire the skills needed to tinker with the physical sciences.
If I understand what your belief is, you see no difference between living and nonliving things, you and I are merely physical objects in your religion of materialism. If that is the case, I think we may have reached a “parting of the minds,” rather than a meeting, here.
But then if living things are “furniture” then, for example, a murderer is guilty of no worse than property damage.
Dostoevski said, “Without God, everything is permitted”. And that would include the most despicable forms of abortion, cannibalism, everything. But even an atheist with a conscience could recognize that living beings are different from bricks in a fundamental way.
I say that my belief is no more “unscientific” than your belief that science will eventually understand life and death. My “supporting evidence” is simply that humans have always tried to answer the question of what life is, and the only progress they have made is to acquire the skills needed to tinker with the physical sciences.
I did not say that I believed that science will eventually understand life and death. What I said was that science is a process of seeking to understand things encountered in the physical world, and living things are among those things (my use of the word 'furniture' is metaphorical, of course). Unless you're prepared to deny that living things are encountered in the physical world, I don't see what else there is to say about that. Now, in saying that humans have always tried to answer the question of what life is, you say something which is pretty much true. But to imply next that they've made no progress on the question is mistaken. Indeed, we are even now on the eve of witnessing the announcement that a living thing has been made from scratch in a laboratory; if we didn't understand anything about life, such an announcement would never be forthcoming.
If I understand what your belief is, you see no difference between living and nonliving things, you and I are merely physical objects in your religion of materialism. If that is the case, I think we may have reached a “parting of the minds,” rather than a meeting, here.
Viewed properly, materialism is not a religion...it's a hypothetical foundation from which one investigates the phenomena one encounters. If some phenomenon should appear that obstinately resists any reasonable materialistic interpretation, you can be sure that scientists would be quite intrigued by it and seek to understand it further. On the other hand, to those who already 'know' that materialism is false (how do they know that, by the way?), there's no need for such investigations.
But then if living things are “furniture” then, for example, a murderer is guilty of no worse than property damage.Dostoevski said, “Without God, everything is permitted”. And that would include the most despicable forms of abortion, cannibalism, everything. But even an atheist with a conscience could recognize that living beings are different from bricks in a fundamental way.
Even with the God for whom you appear to advocate, everything is permitted; or was God just looking the other way when, for example, Chairman Mao murdered 70 million of his fellow citizens (and, yes, Mao was an atheist, but what does that matter if God exists? Could not God have done something to prevent such horror?)? And how many infidels would Usama bin Laden slaughter were he able to manage it? All of them, I'd surmise, and all in the name of his lunatic deity.
No, in a world in which the deity holds his tongue, or at best only whispers in the ears of madmen, there's nothing to be gained by erecting barriers here or there to scientific inquiry. Scientific inquiry is a robust thing, and the scientific method is among the greatest inventions of humankind. In the absence of science, our lives would be changed beyond recognition, and for the worse, in my view. A return to the days in which life was nasty, brutish and short is not something to be sought, in spite of what the islamists (and others of their ilk) may maintain.
Since old age has attenuated my attention-span, I'll give you the last word for now.
Best regards to you...