Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Faith is a fascinating approach here, though it has some flaws. It works on an emotional level if you believe that there is a god that takes care of you as this quote suggests, but if you look for material evidence that there is such a god, there is none to be found. In the medical sciences this usually goes under the name “placebo effect”.
Material science can't explain how quantities give rise to qualities, or phenomenal consciousness. This is why materialism is bunk - because it doesn't explain much at all. Using it as a litmus test for whether something can or cannot exist is flawed reasoning IME.
All of science depends on materialism. Modern neuroscience strongly suggests that all experience has a material basis. Thus, the hypothesis that whatever “experience” or “qualia” arises from is in fact material seems to be well supported, though not yet conclusive.
No actually, all science does not depend on materialism. Prior to material science being a thing, there were the occult sciences which are still practiced around the world today and most definitely fall under the category of science. One can form a hypothesis, make observations, experiment and base their reasoning upon evidence.
Like you said, it's a hypothesis and you still can't explain the hard problem of consciousness via material science. Just because people think that if they slap enough neurons together they'll achieve consciousness, doesn't mean it's true. It's not well supported because there's no evidence that this is the case, just conjecture.
I agree science doesn't depend on materialism but experimental observation suggests consciousness is a materialistic effect as it's affected by material substances like LSD and ideas of a conscious spirit separate from the body like ghosts don't find much evidence.
We have no idea what brings matter into existence, because material science only takes into consideration what we can measure. We base our understanding of the material world solely on that. We can only measure an infinitesimal amount of the stuff that's out there, and anything we can't measure we come up with blanket terms to describe - like dark energy or dark matter.
What if all matter and our shared reality, is a manifestation of the mind? What if we are all a single mind going through dissociative identity disorder and each of us is like an altar of a person that has multiple personalities? There are all sorts of possible explanations for phenomenal consciousness that material science shrugs off because it limits what is possible to only the matter that we are able to observe and measured, which again is a tiny fraction of all the known matter in the universe.
Edit: All of these downvotes to my original and subsequent reply are quite amusing. HN is honestly a terrible website - people just downvoting anything they don't want to hear. Why even read the website? Just speak your own thoughts into a tape recorder and play them back. Same effect.
The popular narrative must be preserved at all costs. No room for dissenting opinions on this website!
"And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."
Absent any existential debate about religion and faith, this bit of the Sermon on the Mount relies on some pretty profound misunderstandings of biology and ecology.
Life really sucks in the wild. By nature, all species expand into their niche. Literally everything exists, in perpetuity, right at the razor's edge of starvation. If there is abundance, by random chance, then the prolific grandchildren of the lucky critters will find themselves in horrifying competition for the now-limited resources.
Those birds of the air may not sow or reap or store[1], but they're just one bad hunting day away from death. And their prey life on the opposite side of the knife. The flowers of the field seem to be growing without labor because you aren't noticing the 99%+ of them that are going to be eaten or destroyed before procreating, or the 99.999%+ of grass tufts that got eaten before even making a flower.
[1] Actually they totally do. But fine fine, Jesus and Matthew didn't know that.
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
- Matthew 6:25-34