Dear Scott,
1) It is logically inconceivable for me not to believe that there is a
Creator. Belief in a Creator is an example of what is self-evident to me. Of
course, like everything that one considers self-evident, it may not be true.
Everyone makes assumptions, even you. You just have to sit down in a quiet
corner and think about it.
2) Humans are all similar in nature and what is accessible to one is
accessible to others, e.g., consciousness and the ability to construct
abstract concepts. There is no evidence that rocks can conceive of
abstract concepts. I will take bets on that if you want.
3) a) Spend some time musing on the notion that you have no free will. The
mere fact that you can follow my advice or not proves that you have free will.
b) Treat a close friend like you would treat your VCR and let me know the
results of the experiment. There are all sorts of levels of description of
man: physical (mass, temperature, etc.), chemical (the chemicals of your
body are worth $40), psychological, physiological, spiritual, etc. No exact
knowledge of any particular level of description will give you a true
knowledge of man. All levels of descriptions are necessary.
Christians will tell you that your greatest value is that Christ died for you.
Are you an optometrist? You keep raising the question of aids that allow us
to improve human senses of detecting the physical.
What I said is that data which constitute the subject matter of science can
solely be obtained by machines.
Take care,
Moorad