Thank you GodlessSKeptic. After 200 years work by the world’s greatest philosopher ans scientists, you personally have proven that the soul does not exist.
You have my awe and admiration.
When the opposition is reduced to personal insults and wild assertions like this, I think we can claim victory, safe in the knowledge that the impartial observers will agree.
Once again, Leroy demands scientific evidence; but as soon as you provide him with any, he will dismiss it and condemn the scientific method. And if science conflicts with any of Leroy’s assertions, he will declare science to be irrelevant. I think Leroy just want science to be his bitch.
Cites for my opinions?Sure I could provide a ton of links to cites where people are saying the saem things I am…scientists, skeptics and other rational thinkers.Somehow I doubt you would be any more impressed considering your misconceptions of what science and critical thinking are about. I am not impressed by the Pam Raynolds experience becuase it was NOT a case of someone demonstrating OBE types knowledge aquisition UNDER PROPER CONTROLS.It is little more than an anecdotal spin job by NDE’ers and I have listened to and thoroughly debunked scores of these over the last 7 or 8 years.
I have also visited countless sites like your own that purport to have the “straight dope” on NDEs and such.Full of nonsensical explanations about the brain as secondary reciever, working in concordance with the soul…blah, blah, blah.It STILL comes down to cartesian dulism and is therefore a bunch of hooey.
1)The “soul” as proposed is an unecessary multiplication of entities and therefore subject to the keen edge of Occam’s Razor.
2)There is no empirical evidence or even rational argument to support these soul-claims.
3)When an extraordinary existential claim is not rationally justified then it’s default status is “False”, until such time as it is substantiated.
4)The claims of NDE’ers and other “soulists” pay no heed to rules of inference.
Also Leroy, we know you have a web site.Please stop spamming us with requests to visit it.Surely you have better things to do than sit around watching the page hits counter and feeling important?
I DO NOT HAVE TO DISPROVE THE SOUL.THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS UPON YOU!
If you cannot warrant the inference adn substantiate the claim then sorry…thanks for playing and we’ll see you next time.
I have made no “wild assertions” and I have not yet even begun to insult you yet.
Also I am not interested in converting the so-called “impartial observers”.Most of them will never be able to think critically about such things and I was never handed the mantle of “teacher of the unteachable”.If that is YOUR goal…to “win” followers and adherants to your fallacious position then so be it.Have fun with your little cult of future self-castrating, Nike-wearing, comet-hitching suicidal soul-mates!
When you make an assertion that something is untrue in GD you have to support that claim. The burden of prof is upon you to support whatever position you wish to espouse. Yoiur positionis that “The …soul/spirit is a fictional construct”. Not that you believe that it is, but that it is oin fact a fictional construct. You have asserted that this is a fact. Now provide the facts and support your assertion.
Let me guess, you’re no going to weasel away from your blanket assertion, just as Blowero has done.
Wanna take bets on how long it will be before GodlessSkeptic says ‘I don’t believe I ever said it was fiction’?
Not for positions claiming the noxexistance of an object/entity whose existance is in dispute. This is because non-existance cannot be proven (unless the object/entity is somehow self-contradictory). To phrase that another way, as far as logic is concerned, non-existance is always assumed to be correct pending evidence to the contrary.
I’m afraid that the burden of proof lies with those who claim that the soul exists to prove their case.
Simply not true.
By this line of reasoning I can claim in a debate that gravity, evolution and George W. bush do not exist, and that will stand until the opposition proves otherwise.
The fact is Joe Random that in a debate both the affirmative and the negative must prove substance to their assertions. I don’t know where you go the idea that anything else was true. I’m sure it may be the case in some debating circles, but it is certainly not a general rule. I would be interested in seeing your source for this assertion.
All else aside it’s so ridiculous that a moments thought would show it to be unworkable. Any affirmation of existence can also be phrased as the denial of the antithesis. I claim that a soulless human does not exist. By your argument the burden of proof now lies with my opponents to prove their case.
You are exactly correct. The the things that you mentioned above can be shown to exist, and they should be assumed non-existant until that point.
What I have said about not needing to prove non-existance is a direct result of logic, and has nothing to do with the fact that the logic is being used in the context of a debate.
I will say it again: It is logically imposible to prove that something does not exist. Logic doesn’t work that way. Non-existance simply cannot be proven. The only exception is when the thing that is being suggested as existing is somehow contradictory, like a triangle with four sides. However, any entity that is not logically contradictory cannot be proven non-existant.
Sorry, but double negation doesn’t count. The inability of logic to prove non-existance is not the inability to prove negatives. It’s a nice trick, but your statement still presupposes the existance of a soul, so it is still stating that something exists.
I should clarify that you are correct in this statement as long as one of the sides does not have the position that some object/entity does not exist. If we were arguing, say, whether the death penalty is moral or not, then yes, both sides would have to prove their positions. If, however, we were debating whether or not the death penalty even exists, then the only side that would have to offer up proof would be the side attempting to show that it does exist.
I also forgot to mention the case where the side arguing for existance has shown proof of existance. To continue debating, the other side must show that their opponent’s proof was invalid, or that their “evidence” was in error. But that’s not really the same thing as showing proof of non-existance, and should not be construed as such.
Objective evidence exists for all 3 of those things. I said this before, but since you obviously didn’t pay attention: Science does not absolutely prove anything. If enough evidence exists, then a thing becomes highly probable. We do not start from the position of assuming all conceivable things exist, and only stop believing them when they are disproven - that would be mental chaos. But then you seem to enjoy mental chaos. You also need to bone up on what has already been posted regarding ordinary and extraordinary claims. A class in logic wouldn’t hurt, either. Of course you will ignore this and continue to spout your ignorance. Have fun with that.:rolleyes:
I said this before, but since you obviously didn’t pay attention: you are making an unwarranted assumption that we are woking with or should be workmng with science. You show an astoundingly niavive attitude in your rigid attachment to science
And still nothing to support your assertions Joe?. I think they are more the way you want things to be than actual facts concerning the rules of debating, arent they?
That’s basically the thing that has puzzled me throughout this debate. It doesn’t make sense to me that people who are obviously intelligent would want to use only one method of understanding the world, and then scoff at things which fall outside of its purview. If you want to play logic games, fine; but asking if something “exists” is not the same question. Knowledge is, at base, belief verified.
In that case, I declare myself to be the winner of this debate. It is a fact merely because I believe it.
And to think we wasted 250 posts…
Are you being obtuse on purpose? I already stated that the “assumed non-existant until proven to exist” is a property of logic, not of debating. Let me say it again, with more tags. It’s a property of LOGIC, and has naught to do with debating. No matter where logic is being used, proving non-existance is impossible. To insist that I prove that souls do not exist simply because the logic is being used in the context of a debate is to misunderstand the nature of logic. Proving that souls don’t exist cannot be done, because non-existance cannot be proven. Thus, you are attempting to force at least a partial victory on your part by insisting that I have lost the debate if I fail to do the impossible.
At this point, I propose that all the properties and functions you assign to souls are actually taken care of by the Invisible Pink Unicorn. If you insist on forcing others to tackle the impossible task of disproving existance, I must insist that you disprove that the Invisible Pink Unicorn exists and controls all things spiritual, including your own conciousness. Before you are able to debate any more about the soul, I ask that you first show that my assertion about the Invisible Pink Unicorn is incorrect, as it would be pointless to debate the existance of souls when it is obvious that it’s all done by the Invisible Pink Unicorn.
You now have three choices:[ol][li]Engage in a fruitless attempt to prove that the Invisible Pink Unicorn does not exist.[/li][li]Admit that logic cannot prove non-existance[/li][li]Insist that the idea of the Invisible Pink Unicorn has no bearing on the debate concerning souls, and ignore my request completely.[/ol]If you do 1, then you will be stuck, and unable to continue with the primary debate. If you do 2, then you will be admitting that the burden of proof does indeed rest with you in regards to the existance of souls. If you do 3, then I will, using the same reasoning, insist that the idea of souls has no bearing on any debate concerning things like the seat of conciousness or spirituality, thus rendering all your arguments up to now pointless based on your own reasoning.[/li]
Which will it be? I’ll give you a hint: Door #2 is the correct door. Not because it’s the one I want you to pick, but because it’s the one that correctly reflects how logic works.
The method we are using is the only one that actually works in regards to establishing properties of the real world. At least, no other method of understand the world has been demonstrated to be very functional or very useful.
In fact, you keep wanting to use other methods, but I still don’t understand what methods you are proposing that we use to understand the world. Bear in mind that if something is subjective (which seems to be the case with all things spiritual), then all it can help you understand is yourself. It has no actual bearing on the real world.
In short, you seem to be wanting to take internal beliefs, ideas, and feelings and somehow project them into the real world such that they become reality, and things just don’t work like that.
Not always. I could attain knowledge of something that I absolutely did not believe in before I acquired the knowledge.
And despite your vehement assertions Joe Random, you have yet to provide any support for them. A property of debating, logic or cabalism, can we see some support for your assertions?
I don’t believe it is true that " No matter where logic is being used, proving non-existance is impossible." because, as I have already pointed out, it is the work of seconds t reverse the argument.
You then assert that this is the one exception. Very cobvenient.
I assert that you are making this up. Now that I’ve called you out, can I see the basis for your claims?
Or do I have to prove that you have no support? Oh hang on I can’t do that can I?
Exactly Joe!
It is amazing that Blake somehow missed the part about the default condition of an extraordinary existential claim is FALSE!
George Bush, New Jersey and the like are NOT extraordinary claims and what’s more we can and have easily shown them to exist.
The soul, gods, sorcery, OBEs and the like ARE extraordinary claims which have no extraordinary evidence to support them.
Let’s say two teams of basketball players show up for a game at the colisseum/civic center/whereever.They are all suited up and ready to go when the refereee walks onto the court with his hands in a position as if he is holding something.As he reaches the center of the court where players are gathered awaiting the jump ball he says “Alright!Let’s play!” and proceeds to move his hand and arm in a motion indicating he is tossing a basketball into the air.
The players scratch their heads in confusion as the referee, acting just as confused that they did not jump for the ball asks “What’s the matter?”.
it soon becomes obvious to the referee that these players are narrow-mindedly only used to playing basketball with an actual, physical BALL and not a “faithball”.He explains to them that using a faithball is just another method of playing basketball.
“How do we know when a shot is made or someone double dribbles?”
“Well…” the referee says “By faith!You see the spirits of former basketball legends with guide the faithful in correctly discerning what is going on in a basketball game when a faithball is used!it is simply another method of playing sports.Real balls work fine for football adn tennis but the faithball works much better for basketball”.
And so on and so on…