Thinking to Believe

I would highly recommend that you watch the video clips at http://www.massresistance.org/media/video/brainwashing.html. They are from a documentary showing how elementary and junior high kids can be indoctrinated to believe homosexuality and same-sex marriage are morally acceptable (something the film extols as a virtue). If you think homosexuality is wrong, but that the issue of homosexuality is a private matter that isn’t going to hurt anybody so we should just sit back and do nothing, you need to watch this video. The gay rights movement has gone beyond the “just leave us alone to do what we want to do in the privacy of our own homes” days and into the day of approval advocacy. They are not content to be allowed to live how they want to live–now they want to make sure that you approve of their lifestyle as well. It’s too difficult to change adults’ minds, so they are targeting the young.

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Naturalists struggle to fit consciousness into their worldview because it seems obvious that consciousness is not material in nature.  Various attempts have been made by naturalists to account for consciousness.  One of the strangest explanations is offered by philosopher Daniel Dennett.  His solution is to eliminate consciousness so that it does not require an explanation at all.  He does so by claiming that consciousness is not real, but an illusion.

Of the myriad of ways one might go about showing why Dennett’s solution does not work, I think Greg Koukl has offered the most straightforward and clearest critique.  Koukl points out that in order to recognize something as an illusion, two things are required: (1) the presence of a conscious observer who is capable of perception, and (2) the ability to distinguish between what is real and what is illusion.

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