RE: Heaven - A Flaw in Popular Religion
I enjoyed your piece, but as an extreme skeptic and agnostic, I have to pick at your materialist depiction of consciousness:
There are actually several other points that can be made if you concede that to be "you" you must have your brain.
I see no a priori reason to believe this, and to argue against a theist you have to be ready for their argument that consciousness does not originate from the brain. You ask for the theist to explain how a floating spirit receives sensory input when there is no adequate explanation of how a brain produces thought. We have correlation between certain brain states and certain sensory input which we observe, oddly enough, with our senses! This gets circular quickly.
For an example of someone starting with sense input and ending at God and heaven, check out Descartes. I am not saying I buy into the concept of heaven, but the materialist argument is full of opportunities for the well versed apologist.
I agree, and the consciousness discussion has been going on for a very long time, which is why after the bit you quoted I said that it wasn't my main point :) However you are right and this is the kind of discussion I enjoy having, because it is philosophy, not religion, and religion requires an answer from philosophy to get it's validation. I would share my extended views on consciousness but maybe that's for another article :P
Looking forward to the consciousness article! Don't be surprised if I post one myself ;)