1. You can use the word psychology if you want. It is just a new word compared to spirituality. But in spirituality a distinction is made between spirit and mind. The mind is a construct that is created as we grow. Spirit is what we are. The body is like hardware, mind is like software and the spirit is like the person in front of the computer.
See, that's why I'd use psychology, because it doesn't venture off into unsubstantiated meaningless ideas like 'spirit' - what we are is mammals who've evolved a capacity for abstraction. Mind is not like software, really, because the mind is dependent upon the structure of the hardware of our body - as to the idea that there's some outside driver operating this, you'd need to show the signals coming in and going out, you'd need to show the consistent presence of stimuli that doesn't have a physical, demonstrable source in order to need some external explanator - and you don't have that.
2. See above. Spirit is what we are behind the mind and body. We can call it consciousness. Like the moment we are born....consciousness (or spirit) exists but the mind is still to be created. That happens as we grow and learn.
Why would you need to find some mysticism to justify consciousness - just because we can't completely explain something doesn't mean that you need to resort to magic. Given how nebulous our current conception of 'consciousness' is, trying to ascertain if it's inherent a birth or manifests later seems a stretch. The mind is present from birth, although it's unrefined, and perhaps consciousness is as a result of that, or perhaps consciousness is just one of the tools and patterns that develops as the mind develops.
3. The evidence is the fact that when a person is dead the brain remains behind as just a piece of flesh. The difference between Living and dead body/brain. It is obvious that when we are alive something within is using the brain....and when that departs the brain remains behind as a rotting flesh.
No, what's obvious is that when we're alive there's a continuous, coherent pattern of brain activity, and when we die that stops. We aren't our brains, we're the pattern of brain activity that's happening within it.
4. NDE's are the best evidence we have for life after death. ...and it is quite substantial.....for now.
Yes, they absolutely are. That's how bad the case for life after death is, that the best you have is NDE.
5. Deliberate adaptation has been proven is cases of phenotypic plasticity (polyphenism).
You are going to need to provide a citation for a claim that deliberate adaptation has been confirmed in a natural setting; that would be a literally world-changing scientific revelation, and I've seen nothing to that effect in any reliable publication.
6. Darwin came up with the idea of Natural Selection only after observing Artificial Selection.
Which in no way invalidates the theory.
It is also likely that, being a religious person earlier, he even believed that some superior intelligence directed the selection.
My understanding is that he struggled with the implications of his findings, and even hesitated to publish for some time because of the inevitable conclusion, but his scientific integrity won out and he did publish, and he stood by the findings. Yes, he was religious, but he didn't let that religious belief prevent him following the evidence to the logical conclusion.
7. It is a belief but with sufficient reason. Religious beliefs in specific deities and events can be blind belief but not the belief in a natural intelligence (or consciousness) directing evolution and life in general. There is sufficient reason for that.
If it had sufficient reason, all the people who've read what you think the sufficient reasons are would be convinced, but we aren't. Either they aren't sufficient, they're not reasonable, or both. As to why religious belief (i.e. acceptance of a religious claim in the absence of sufficient evidence to support it, and even in contradiction to the evidence against it in some cases) can be blind, but your preferred unaffiliated belief in some spiritual, supernatural, disembodied intelligence without a body of canon to support it is somehow justified without actually providing that justification remains another claim for you to adequately justify.
You keep making these assertions from your personal position of incredulity - you don't believe it, therefore it must be false. If you want anyone else to think it's false you need something more than just your assertion and the acceptance of your own limitations of imagination and/or understanding. We have evidence of a physical, material existence in which we, as conscious, intelligent, self-aware creature exist. There are things that we don't yet know.
What we have no justification for is presuming that, if we don't currently know something, that it's a result of it being some extra-dimensional, supernatural, magical, spiritual mystery beyond the capacity for humanity to know, and not merely a little bit more complex than we're ready for. It's more likely to be behind the next rock than in Valhalla - we need to look at more rocks, and fewer old books, in order to find new understanding.
O.
