A Theistic God - On Balance - Does NOT Exist

Ahoy & Salutations:Sorry my reply will be so short this round - very busy week with the holiday. I liked some of the ideas you have offered in response.I like that you took an uncommon approach; a monistic ontology - Idealism. I liked that you used Descartes to get your argument off the ground. Where it starts to get a little hazy is when zombies are introduced and Dualism is used but then completely abandoned.I will indulge and entertain some of these ideas with you.Con's Argument from Idealism, Questions & Berkeley1. The Mind Exists - Yes, we agree.But the Mind cannot be shown to exist independently of a body (the brain).Pop-culture: These kinds of ideas are popular in culture currently for these reasons. There is some interesting work going on in sci-fi literature on this topic. Matter of fact, the new John Depp flick, Transcendence, is about downloading and uploading someone's consciousness into machines (in this case, the computers and the Internet replace the body & the brain) [1]. Fictional work like the Matrix, the Cell, etc., are exciting in the same ways as they explore the same areas of philosophical interest.2. The Mind is not Physical. Posteriori - we have convergence of both scientific inquiry and w/ subjective experience: objective neuroimaging while confirming someone is having a subjective experience (CAT & EEG scans while experience is happening, etc.).The current area of study and philosophical importance is in trying to isolate Consciousness itself. The body of work that is building suggests that consciousness is not as special as we might have thought [7]."..correlation doesn’t equal identity.."But, again, in cases of head trauma - when damage occurs to the brain - consciousness is altered [2][3] - destroy the brain and consciousness disappears with death [4]. Consciousness itself might be a simple by-product of an organ - just like my liver produces digestive enzymes - my brain produces consciousness. This seems more likely to be the case rather than a clump of wonder stuff God is responsible for.Brain (Death):"Death is defined as the cessation of all vital functions of the body including the heartbeat, brain activity (including the brain stem), and breathing; irreversible brain damage as manifested by absolute unresponsiveness to all stimuli, absence of all spontaneous muscle activity, including respiration, shivering, etc., and an isoelectric electroencephalogram for 30 minutes, all in the absence of hypothermia or intoxication by central nervous system depressants. Called also irreversible coma and cerebral [death]" [5][6].To drive this point home - straight forward rhetorical question(s) like: Does a dead body experience? Is a dead body aware?(In the case of a death, we lose both objective data (neuroimaging as an example) and confirmation of subjective experience).Do other animals have minds?Can animals be observed using a mind?(animals have brains and can be observed problem solving).This is suggestive - as a more complex brain might have a more complex mind.Zombies:I like zombies too. However, in your zombie example you are illustrating a body without a mind. Its easy to conceive of a body without a mind. But to discuss this fairly - you must try to conceive of a mind without a body! A mind without a body is quite a bit different than a body without a mind.Five Questions To Still Answer From Round 2:1) Is Casper able to conveniently decide when to be physical and material - becoming able to interact in a natural-physical world (throwing a ball up in the air and catching it) but can then also conveniently decide to be supernaturally diaphanous when he wants to float through physical walls?Your Answer: "Casper can catch the ball because the ball is made up of the same things Casper is. There is no dualism between the two."The ball is physical and made from real world material. If Casper is made up of the exact same physical material as the ball then he would not be able to float through walls as the ball cannot float through a wall.Your response doesn't exactly answer the anomalous question. The paradox remains.2) [Without access] How would we be able to recognize something that is truly supernatural?3) How can we distinguish the difference between something that is truly supernatural from something that doesn't exist at all?4) "Why doesn't God heal amputees?"Your Answer: "..doesn’t mean God must interact with humanity all the time or in any specific example every time. God may not interact in any major scale for some reason, such as wanting us to take care of ourselves and not rely on him which would prevent technological advancements in medicine." Sure.. but we have no such documented cases on record at all. Not one case of an amputated limb being miraculously regenerated. Yet we have claims of God interceding to heal sicknesses of all other kinds. The question, "Why won't God heal amputees?" probes aspects ambiguity and coincidence.It seems like an easy out to simply decide - "God just chooses not to."5) Is God just like Casper the Friendly Ghost - able to conveniently decide when to be physical and material but then also decide to be supernatural when he wants to intercede and yet still elude the physical world?Your Answer: "Because the physical isn’t ontologically there." hmmmmm...In God's mind or not, it seems like there exists an external reality independently of ideas or subjectivity (science is helping us understand this). Even Berkeley admitted this was an obvious and likely solution.So what would be the difference between saying we are in the mind of God from saying we were conceived in the minds of a race of super intelligent multi-dimensional beings from outside our universe - or a highly complex simulation? In other words, we can posit anything we want just as equally as positing our reality [is] God.Cited Source References:[1] http://www.youtube.com...[2] http://www-users.med.cornell.edu...[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...[5] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com...[6] http://euthanasia.procon.org...[7] http://www.youtube.com...