that is a very scientific way to look at it. while it is of course valid… it is just as easy to look at it from a spiritual standpoint… unfortunatly, i don’t have enough knowledge about religon to answer what happens to the soul when something like alzheimers takes over the mind… maybe the soul isn’t afflicted but it has no way of communicating that since it doesn’t have complete control over the mind anymore… hopefully someone that is reading this has more knowledge than i do and can answer that
The topic of the soul is a matter for debate in and of itself for many religious traditions. Most Christian denominations insist that the souls in heaven will be free from pain, disease, injury etc, while those in hell apparently can feel great pain. This wasn’t my point however. My point was that what effects the brain also effects consciousness. Since it is posited by some that a soul is required or the source for this conciousness, then it is obviously affected by physical things that affect the physical brain. If the soul is somehow unable to communicate with the physical world, then it might as well not exist to begin with as it has absolutely no bearing on our world as we exist.
It is the nature of man to seek out something greater, to look for explanations of the world around him. It is man’s nature to spot patterns in the world and try to make sense of what he does not understand. This is the realm of philosophy, and they are questions many religions try to answer.
If the universe existed, but there were no sentient beings within it would it have a purpose? I think not. People ascribe importance to everything we can sense with our five senses. I don’t believe in intrinsic worth, only worth which we ascribe to other people and things.
so the whole of human acheivement is basically luck… or trial and error… such things as divine intervention are complete hogwash?
i can’t say that it is or it isn’t but i don’t totally discount it like many others… there are some things i could never subscribe to (most of christianity), but i certainly think it is possible for there to be something else out there
I agree there could be something out there. But I also feel completely justified in not believing in any of it until there is evidence to indicate otherwise. I simply see no evidence for a deity of any sort. If there is no evidence of Leprechauns oribiting Jupiter, I feel justified in not believing in such things, and I feel intellectually dishonest to do otherwise. If a deity does exist and either A) set things in motion and left or B) Simply doesn’t care, then there certainly isn’t any reason to worship such a creature.
But getting back to topic, I think that one can believe in a god of some sort and accept the evidence of a big bang, cosmology and biological evolution. But I also think it’s important to note that there is a lot of evidence for the latter, but none for the former.
People are free to believe whatever they like, but they cross a line when they insist that something is based on fact when it is not. That is dishonesty.
That’s the problem with positing the supernatural; you leave yourself free to make up any answer you feel like. Maybe the soul isn’t afflicted. Maybe there are invisible monkeys inside your head that block the brain waves with invisible lead shields. And maybe the monkeys are actually marionettes with invisible dinosaurs pulling the strings. And maybe the dinosaurs are hollow, and have Elvis clones inside them that make them work. And maybe…??? If I make the claim that all these things are immune from our ability to observe them, it renders them impossible to disprove. If I call them “supernatural” and leave their characteristics murky, then every time you come up with a reason why they aren’t there, I can just make up a new “supernatural” explanation as to how they transcend your disproof. And if you ask me how I know they exist, I can simply use the specious argument that “I can’t imagine a universe without Elvis clones living inside invisible dinosaurs”. Your choice is either to assume the simplest explanation, or to assume mental chaos.
ok but neither of you can definitivly answer many questions based in pure science (how did the dinosaurs die) you can postulate lots of theories, some even with circumstantial evidence, but that doesn’t mean it is true… though logically we know that the dinosaurs probably died of a meteor, or maybe some disease, you cannot totally discount that the movie riegn of fire wasn’t right and dragons killed them all… almost nothing in life is certain… and just like your both are saying that you are certain that god is an illogical conclusion, i can say that no god is just as illogical becuase what would be the point of life if there was no afterlife (and therefore, some sort of deity)
In the vague way you have worded it, not only is it possible that there is “something else out there”, I would say it’s probable. We don’t have the answers for everything, so it stands to reason that there are things we don’t know about. (In fact I would say that’s a tautology.) But that is not a reason to just make stuff up. To me, souls are possible in the same way that those Elvis dinosaurs with the monkey marionettes are possible. We can’t discount the unknown. But by the same token, we can’t assume anything about the unknown, either. The only course that makes sense to me is to assume only that for which there is evidence.
I don’t think either of us said that. We said there’s no evidence for it, and also that it’s poorly defined. It’s not illogical per se.
How is having a “point” of life contingent on having an afterlife? If lives require afterlives to have a “point”, would not the afterlife require an after-afterlife to have a “point”? And how is the absence of a “point” illogical, anyway?
A word of note: A theory in science is an explanation of FACTS and how they relate to one another. Theories are not based on circumstantial evidence. Nothing in science is ever ascertained as 100% true. A fact in science is defined as “Something that would be ludicrous to believe is not true.” There are many unaswered questions that science has yet to explain, and some have more probable answers than others. For instance, it’s a FACT that most dinosaurs went extinct at a certain period in our history, most about the same time. The theory comes in when there is an attempt to explain the mechanics of how this occured. A thoery succeeds or fails based on how the evidence fits these facts. There is pretty compelling evidence of extinction level events happening to this planet from space impacts. There is no evidence supporting a theory of dragons destroying all the dinosaurs.
I cannot totally discount that Santa Claus doesn’t deliver presents to millions of children on xmas eve with his magical flying reindeer either, does this mean it’s a possibility? Sure. Is it likely? No. That is why the burden of proof is on the one that makes the claim, in any assertion. If someone wants to convince someone else that dragons caused the extinction of the dinosaurs or that a particular deity exists, or that magnets cure arthritis, they must support their claim with evidence, or again I am justified in my non belief.
I am not saying that god is an illogical conclusion. I said my non belief was justified. In order for me to say that god is an illogical conclusion we would actually have to define this god and his characteristics.
I fail to see how our worth as human beings has anything to do with the existence or non existence of some deity or an afterlife. Is our worth dependent on a superior being and/or some afterlife? Why? If I’m in my next life, is that worth something only if I have yet another life to look forward to? People give worth, they are the ones that deem things important. If someone must have a reason for being, why can’t they make up there own? Why must there even be a reason? I just exist and I consider myself very fortunate to be here, as the odds of me not existing greatly outweigh my chances of existence. Everyting ends eventually, yet people participate in activites, relationships, etc. all the time.
of course what i said was vauge… if i could be specific then we wouldn’t be having this debate… damn near everything that i have said is sort of vague because we are dealing with something that can neither be disproven or proven…
there is no evidence specifically against a god or deity either, so why does that make you right and me wrong? that is part of the problem, and the main reason for this post…
i used to think that the most annoying people around were the ones who were so sure that their religion was correct that they had to try and force it on others… but in a way (in a lot of ways) atheist can sometimes (often times) be just as bad… they always say “well there is no evidence showing god is out there so he must not be”, but there is also no evidence showing that he is NOT out there… which one is more valid?
And no i don’t believe that if there is an after-life (thereby giving this life meaning) you would have to have an unending path of after-lives to make it all worth something… maybe the ultimate goal is to get through this life a more wise being and to use that knowledge in the after life… (and of course there are a thousand things wrong with that like babies who die being no more knowledgable or wise than when they were born, and any of a myriad other arguements you could make) you don’t have any evidence that nothing happens after life than i do that something does happen… there is of course no way to know (unless you don’t discount all of the “near death experiences” so many claim to have had, then there is proof that there is life after death)…
you are using an arguement that is flawed in that you are saying i am probably wrong since i cannot provide evidence to show you the afterlife, but you cannot show me any speck of evidence to show your arguement is more valid than mine…
you say that since noone can provide evidence to the contrary, we should just go with the simplest conclusion, and i say that if there has ever been an exception to that rule (as there is with most) this would be that time. besides i can think of other things that occam’s razor would not have worked on… but i don’t want to bring any of those other things up here, because that tends to send someone off on a tangent, and i would like to stick to the subject. i just think that we can all agree that occams razor does not apply to every situation
Didn’t mean for “vague” to be an insult. Sorry if you took it that way. I’m also sorry if logic annoys you. I don’t know what to say to that. If you reject my explanation of Occam’s Razor and how it applies here, and simply assert that all points of view are equally valid regardless of the relative evidence behind them, then there’s really nothing left to say.
I suspect that you don’t really want to discuss the topic, but merely want to assert what you already believe. I don’t understand how you can accuse anyone of trying to force their beliefs on you; you are the one who opened this thread, ostensibly to discuss the issue. Get back to us when you are serious about wanting a discussion.:rolleyes:
In any discussion of this nature, you will have those that think there IS a god, those that think there is NOT, and those that sit on the fence. No one is trying to force non belief on you. I am merely explaining my point of view. I reinterate that without evidence, I am entirely justified in my non belief. That says nothing about you and what you should believe. However, I point out again that the burden of proof is on the one that makes a claim. This is because it is very difficult to disprove a negative. If belief is justified because something has not been proven untrue in every case, then this can be used to justify belief in absolutely anything. Think about it. By simply saying “Well I can believe in it because you can’t disprove it” you can rationalize anything you want. Deities of any type, flavor and number, fairies, goblins, purple smurfs, whatever. The burden of proof on the one making the claim is more valid because it is specific. You can either make your case or you cannot, while the other can be extended to any belief you like. Not only this, but it is simply not practical. For someone to believe in this manner consistently, they would literally have to believe in any concept ever thought of. If disproof is the only way of verification, one must apply that criteria to everything, not just limit it to deities or whatever the believer thinks of as important.
As you say, there are a thousand things wrong with tis one.
I discussed this in the first paragraph. 
Your making your own correlation here. NDE’s are not proof of life after death. They are only proof that some people experience some kind of phenomena during the stages of death. To prove they somehow relate to an afterlife actually requires much more than that.
Yes, now you’re talking about Occams’ Razor, and I agree with you in that if you wish to discuss this that you should start another thread.
Rationality is indeed limited and limiting. Anything capable of producing a meaningful approximation of truth is necessarily so.
If you find sanity restrictive, I suggest you try madness. It’s much more flexible.
Can I make a simple prediction -
In 30 years time the ‘big bang’ theory will have been discredited and Einsein’s thories will have been proved to be wrong.
Enlighten me.
Maybe he changed the properties of water. Maybe he changed the properties of air. Maybe he changed the properties of light. This is God we’re talking about. And who, at the time, would have noticed?
What does this have to do with anything? It’s uninteresting and irrelevant to the discussion. This is an argument you should use against Bible literalists, not against a couple of agnostics who happen to be more open-minded than you are.
Possible, but not likely. Anyway, what’s your point?
I doubt it. Relativity is pretty solid. It has been proven empirically using atomic clocks. It’s possible it could be superseded in the same way that Newton’s theories were. But Newton wasn’t wrong, just incomplete. Maybe the Big Bang theory could become obsolete, but that would require another explanation for the background radiation.
while thinking of this last night while Megachild 1 and 2 were throwing up on me for the 5th time, i have come up with a couple of ideas…
there are arguements both for and against “God”. the intellectuals have a great point in that it is on the person making the positive claim to prove it rather than on the person with the negative claim as Braces and blowero have pointed out… but on the other hand, there is something to be said for spirituality as a whole and the fact that it has been a part of humanity for all of recorded history… it is hard for some to imagine how we could have so many wonderful thoughts and experiences and feelings and for it to be for nothing at the end. I can understand both sides of the debate, and i think that both are right. i think at this point i am leaning most towards the belief that each persons beliefs are just as valid as the next. of course this still doesn’t really help me with my search, except to help me become more tolerant of others belifs, and hopefully that will lead to more discussions in the future, maybe one of which will be able to convince me otherwise
Swagman,
I was wondering why you thinhk this is so?
Thanks in advance.
What?! You can’t edit your own messages here or did I miss something?
Nope, not on the dope. I think it’s a measure to prevent deception;
IE, someone launches on a huge personal attack against someone in the GD and then deletes it only to claim that they never made the attack.
Ugh, sick kids are NO fun, hope they get better soon.
This is true. But just because a wide range of people have thought as much throughout history doesn’t point to any certain fundamental truth underlying it all, imo. People all over the world used to think the world was flat, and it seemed obvious to most cultures that the earth was the center of the universe, yet they turned out to be wrong. I think religion fulfills other niches in humanity. It allows people to cooperate in some instances, it fulfills social needs, etc. Ritual has been shown to be rather important to primitive man who lived constantly with his group, to remind them of common purpose.
I understand this to a certain extent, but just because something is difficult to understand and complex does not mean we should stop our search for the “why” instead, declaring a supernatural purpose.
Well opinions may hold in equal validity, but facts do not. There is a right and wrong. Some people have trouble telling the difference between fact and opinion. 
Not implying anything against anyone here though.
Being tolerant is good in most circumstances. But keep in mind I’m not trying to convince you. You have to decide for yourself what you want to believe. I’m just trying to make a stand for integrity and knowledge. If I’m wrong about something, I would hope someone corrects me. I think critical thinking and logic is important. If there were more of it, the world would be in a much better position, imho.