Actually, I was going for a pun-like thing, based on that specific name (as opposed to “puma” or “panther” or “cougar”).
Could it be that “spirit” corresponds to life in the same way that “3” corresponds to three apples or three metres or three months?
mm. missed that.
It’s very easy for believers to understand non-believers. The reverse does not seem possible. That’s like trying to describe colors to someone with no eyes.
The concept of a soul/spirit is/was derived just like so many other inexplicable things we come across in our lifetime.
-Taking an observed/experienced unexplained phenomena
-Describing it by giving it those observed/experienced traits
-Making up an explanation for it with no basis in fact
-Giving it further traits with no basis in fact
-And finally, giving it a label
Or hallucinations to people that don’t have them.
As far as believers easily understanding non-believers? I have been asked why I turned away from God, why I hate God, why I worship Satan etc. Not seeing much understanding there.
I think for the transporter thing, it has to be assumed that continuity of all processes does occur, or else the reassembled person wouldn’t be a functional person. There would be a cessation of process, then a resumption of process, such that the effect is the same as if the hiatus had never occurred.
I don’t want to turn this into yet another transporter zombie thread, but if you believe something essential escapes and goes away when a process is halted, then perfectly resumed, that essential thing that goes away sounds sort of spirit-y
I should have said, believers who are not fundamentalist idiots (of any faith). That would be a subset of believers, useful for attributing every idiotic and cruel thing they do, say, and think to the tens of millions of other believers.
Also, I’ve had hallucinations (on acid and mushrooms). They are nothing like belief, and they were clearly hallucinations while I was having them. People who believe their hallucinations are rightly labeled “schizophrenic”. Different group.
Like No True Scotsman?
Your analogy about colors doesn’t work because the colorblind for the most part don’t believe that color doesn’t exist, just that they can’t see it. It puts “spirits” into the category of “everyone knows definitely exists”, and that doesn’t work.
I have been in both camps, and I can say without reservation that it is not at all difficult for non-believers to understand faith. Absolutely possible, because we all possess the mechanisms that correlate to belief, and, though it might take some effort, it can be understood just as easily as a believer might be able to understand unbelief.
So, unbelievers understand, and that’s why they revile, insult, mock, and despise? Interesting idea, but to me, it really conflicts with my personal definition of ‘understanding’.
I didn’t say colorblind. I said no eyes. People who can’t understand what sight is.
Anyway, colorblind people see colors, just not all of them, so it’s like infrared is for the normal-sighted.
I have seen/heard too many comments from believers who apparently don’t understand non-believers’ points of view to think that this is correct.
Certainly, some non-believers have little to no understanding of believers (or of what they believe and why), and many of these Dunning-Kruegerishly don’t even understand how little they understand. But not all—some understand a lot better than others, in my experience.
Crikey, man, do you just read some of the words in a post and miss the others?
And, quite frankly, if unbelievers “revile, mock, insult and despise” believers (yeah, because every damn agnostic and atheist wants to beat you up, every single one of them), how is that markedly different from the way the faithful treat unbelievers? Seriously.
Doesn’t matter. Your analogy still fails because blind people for the most part aren’t saying that colors don’t exist at all. Your argument seems to be that it is a fact that spirits exist but we unbelievers just can’t see/hear/feel them.
But those aren’t the Real Believers! Amazing how that argument doesn’t work the other way around.
Please clarify.
I see no reason to think I have anything that approximates a “spirit” as commonly described.
My body appears to be purely physical and nothing else. The chemical processes that power it created movement, thought and all qualities that can be considered as “life”. Exactly the same processes that drive the lowliest single-cell bacteria, different only in scale and in the evolutionary quirk that allows us to ponder our own existence.
When those process stop, “I” stop. That’s it. Nothing remains other than slowly cooling chemicals.
I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation why anything more than that can be reasonably posited.
Well, spirit exists. Don’t know about spirits.
I think the whole argument can be summed up as “some people are real dickheads. Others aren’t.”