| | John,
I think Brady's point is that you can't get to consciousness from a material basis in reality. Consciousness had to be there to begin with. He would deny that without God, human consciousness could arise evolutionarily from matter. It's just too different from matter to come about as the result of a certain configuration or integration of material elements. He doesn't agree with the idea of "emergent" properties. So, he would say that atheists are committed to materialism by virtue of their atheism, even if they claim not to be materialists. And as materialists, they cannot, therefore, justify the existence of knowledge, which is self-defeating, because atheists are claiming to have knowledge -- kind of like the contradiction of determinism that Objectivists endorse. At least, that's what I've been able to glean from our discussions. He can correct me if I am wrong. Of course, even if one grants that consciousness had to be there from the beginning, it doesn't follow that it has godlike properties. But he would presumably say that the world as it exists today had to be designed, because it's just too improbable that something this sophisticated could have arisen by chance.
- Bill
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