Closed-minded dogmatism versus open-minded rationality

In my view, dualists are certainly right to claim victory over (at least mainstream) materialism and physicalism, as no formulation of matter can include the specific qualities of subjective awareness or consciousness nor allow for its (logically necessary) impact on the physical brain.

In practice, many dualists have a spiritual background, and especially in the West it is almost inevitable that many of us are conventional or liberal Christians. Therefore, it is not surprising that several scholars who defend mind-body dualism stress arguments for Intelligent Design as well. However, Intelligent Design is first of all a rational position about evolution, based on argumentation, not a dogmatic reflex based on a particular religious creed.

Skeptics normally view Intelligent Design as Biblical Creationism in disguise, but this is obviously a gross and ignorant over-simplification, because the philosophical argument for a creator is much older than any Christian dogma. It precedes Christianity by centuries or thousands of years. The bare fact that conservative or liberal Christian theologians claim there are good reasons to believe in a God, cannot justify dismissal of these arguments out of hand, not even in the name of a 'rationalist' naturalism.

I really hope that one day we will be intellectually mature enough to regard issues like the solution of the mind-body problem and the right view on evolution (blind mechanism, intelligent design, etc.) as issues that should be approached rationally, guided by open-minded philosophical, rational analysis and empirical data, rather than based on closed-minded theological and naturalist dogma. We have had quite enough of that already and it does not serve any constructive purpose. We need a spirit of intellectual freedom which does not exclude anything just because some dogma would reject it out of hand.

Rationality and closed-minded dogmatism are simply incompatible.
Many scholars realise this when they are confronted by dogmatic conservative-Christian thought, but it equally holds for naturalist or physicalist dogmatism. Let us grow up and go for real intellectual freedom!

Titus Rivas