The Origin of Consciousness

Have you ever thought about thought? More specifically, consciousness? According to Darwinian and other materialistic views, atheists and evolutionists have a passel of problems dreaming up plausible ideas on the origin of consciousness. After all, we are nothing but bundles of chemicals following our impulses.

Moments of Thoughtfulness, Charles Sprague Pearce, 1882

For materialists to complain about crimes and other moral outrages that most people find outrageous, they are standing on the Christian worldview instead of being consistent with their own paradigm. Indeed, some of us must be biblical creationists because we are born that way, just like they are materialists. However, it is not possible to be consistent with such a bleak outlook on life. This has tacit admittance when evolutionists attempt to find free will or the soul, which are intangible and related to consciousness. None are housed in the brain, and consciousness itself cannot be explained as something that happens through matter. Consciousness is the work of our Creator, who made us in his image. Those folks reject the Master Engineer and his work.

Here are two articles submitted for your thoughtful consideration. This is the first:

I have been contemplating consciousness for a long time. Back in high school I wrote a research paper for English class on the topic of consciousness. I argued that it could not be reduced to the mere outworking of physical matter in motion. I remember intuitively just understanding this upon reflection, but I was able to find a book at the library written by a philosopher of science, Dr James Fetzer, arguing that minds are not machines, and human consciousness is fundamentally different from how computers make ‘decisions’ and access memory. I understood that this was a vital issue in the debate over worldviews, because if our brains are all we are—if there is no soul—then everything we think and do must be traced back to only physical causes, just as the processes of a computer are.

To read the rest, click on "Consciousness is not an emergent property of matter". Then we'll continue with the next related article. 

If consciousness is not a property of matter, then where did it come from? The hands at the Darwin Ranch (up yonder near Deception Pass), have tried some interesting speculations. As is so often the case with materialists, some of their ideas are passed off as "science", but the empirical science they claim to employ was conspicuously absent.

A recent survey by Newman University, Birmingham, is very revealing. 1 in 5 UK atheists and 1 in 3 Canadian atheists are sympathetic to or even strongly agree with the statement, “Evolutionary processes cannot explain the existence of human consciousness.” They are not alone. In his book, Mind and Cosmos, philosopher Professor Thomas Nagel argues that the Darwinian process could not produce consciousness. (Being an atheist, however, he still clings to the belief that some as yet undiscovered natural process gave rise to it!)

Computers and intelligent machines might be very fast calculators but, ultimately, they only process information and make decisions determined by a program: they follow instructions blindly. In contrast, human beings are conscious, having a mind which is aware of both itself and its environment. We have perceptions, thoughts, feelings and beliefs, and make choices based upon them.

To finish reading, make a conscious choice to click on "The origin of human consciousness". Also, you can click here to see a refutation of Bertrand Russell's materialistic inconsistencies.



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