Whereas religions may serve a benign purpose by letting many people feel comfortable with the level of morality they themselves can attain, no religion holds its member to the high standards of moral responsibility that the secular world of science and medicine does!

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

Problems in science are sometimes made easier by adding complications.

Religion is defined as social systems whose participants avow a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.

Philosophers' Syndrome: mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity.

It's a no win situation. It's a mug's game. The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude. They play the hurt feelings card at every opportunity.

If the best the roboticists can hope for is the creation of some crude, cheesy, second-rate, artificial consciousness, they still win.