Sure, you can just say that consciousness is fundamental. That's exactly the same sort of question-begging as just saying that consciousness arises from souls. Assuming something as fundamental reduces the merit of your theory just as much as failing to explain it (since assuming it as fundamental does, in fact, fail to explain it) so once again there's no explanatory advantage to the non-materialist position here.
(Also, if you take consciousness as fundamental then the intricate relationships between consciousness and matter are highly mysterious. If consciousness arises from what the brain does, it's at least unsurprising in general terms that what you're conscious of relates to what your brain's doing, that interfering with the brain can interfere with your consciousness, etc. If it's some magical independent thing, how does that happen?)
Sure, you can just say that consciousness is fundamental. That's exactly the same sort of question-begging as just saying that consciousness arises from souls.
Is it question begging to say is fundamental?
if you take consciousness as fundamental then the intricate relationships between consciousness and matter are highly mysterious.
Are they?If you take (eg) matter and space as both fundamental, are you then unable to explain the complex relationships between them?
Background
I was raised in the Churches of Christ and my family is all very serious about Christianity. About 3 years ago, I started to ask some hard questions, and the answers from other Christians were very unsatisfying. I used to believe that the Bible was, you know, inspired by a loving God, but its endorsement of genocide, the abuse of slaves, and the mistreatment of women and children really started to bother me.
I set out to study these issues as much as I could. I stayed up past midnight for weeks reading what Christians have to say, and this process triggered a real crisis of faith. What started out as a search for answers on Biblical genocide led me to places like commonsenseatheism.com. I learned that the Bible has serious credibility problems on lots of issues that no one ever told me about. Wow.
My Question
Now I'm pretty sure that the God of the Bible is man-made and Jesus of Nazareth was probably a failed prophet, but I don't have good reasons to reject the supernatural all together. I'm working through the sequences, but this process is slow. I will probably struggle with this question for months, maybe longer.
Excluding the Supernatural was interesting, but it left me wanting a more thorough explanation. Where do you think I should go from here? Should I just continue reading the sequences, and re-read them until the ideas gel? I'm coming from 30 years of Sunday School level thinking. It's not like I grew up with words like "epistemology" and "epiphenomenalism". If there is no supernatural, and I can be confident about that, I will need to re-evaluate a lot of things. My worldview is up for grabs.