At 9:08 AM, May 03, 2006, John W. Loftus said...
“Hey Joe, here's a thought to break your heart again. Christian thinkers throughout the centuries believe that animals do not have souls. Descartes argued that because they don't have souls they can feel no pain. Yep. That's right. They can feel no pain. Sure they'll yelp when kicked and whine when sick, but they're just automata, machines. So people used this as an excuse to experiment on them in gruesome ways, because hey, they have no souls and can feel no pain.”
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/05/remembering-mandy.html
Hey, John, here’s a thought to break your heart again. A secular scientist doesn’t believe that an animal has a soul. It is just a meat machine. So a secular scientist will use this as an excuse to experiment on animals in gruesome ways, because hey, they have no souls and can feel no pain.
“Pain” is just a relict of folk psychology. But as card-carrying materialists like Rorty, Dennett, and the Churchlands have taught us, there is no such thing as pain.
How, exactly, does either modern science, or the disbelief in animal souls, substantiate the idea that they [animals] feel no pain? Nerve endings are nerve endings.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the soul have to do with physical pain?
I'm answering Loftus on his own grounds. You are shifting the ground. Why don't you pose your question to Loftus before you pose it to me. It's his problem, not mine.
ReplyDeleteOh, and while you're at it you should brush up on eliminative materialism. That would answer your own question.
Eliminative materialism is the most consistent version of evolutionary epistemology, which is, in turn, heir to naturalized epistemology.
ReplyDeleteI prefer the appellation "meat puppet", as the upshot of what they're advocating is a deterministic universe.
ReplyDelete