Science & Materialism Vs. A Religion About Jesus & The Weakness of Both, Part 7

We resume our study of Urantia Paper 195 - After Pentecost, which is a succinct summation of the spread of Christianity as a religion about Jesus and some of the difficulties that Christianity has overcome since Jesus walked on earth. Also recounted is its amazing resilience and strength.

Before our hiatus, 3 weeks ago, week we read Section Section 6. Materialism. What an amazing blessing to have the help of scholars like Chuck Thurston and Charles Olivea with this amazing and important paper. We've invited them back this week and also look forward to the participation of our regular callers like Marvin Gawryn as well as the lively chats that occur on our chat board with great friends and faithful listeners.

We now look at materialism's weakness and its relationship to totalitarianism. "Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than attempting the overthrow of religious faith — human belief in spiritual realities and divine values."   And it states, "True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion." ..."But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and religious experiences."

Consider, "The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is:  If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of such a material universe."

The creation by humankind of increasingly better emulating artificial intelligence has give rise to concepts of machine consciousness. Can machines become conscious?  Brains are, aren't they?  Tune in!