I didn’t make that argument, and I don’t think Fear Itself was making it either.
And believing in souls is objectifying them. It reduces flesh and blood people to vehicles for the “actual” person, the soul. If you actually take the idea seriously, then it’s perfectly reasonable to kill people by the thousands or millions for trivial reasons since you aren’t really killing anyone at all.
That’s a historical justification for all sorts of nasty attitudes and behavior, both towards humans and animals. Both that “they” don’t have souls, or have inferior quality souls.
So this is what FearItself wrote:
Unfortunately, some folks who believe they have souls persist in believing everybody does, and kill people who disagree with them. Not fair; not fair at all
If you or FI are not suggesting or nudging around the edges the notion that things would be a lot less bloody around here if only people didn’t have religious beliefs, then what *are you *suggesting if anything?
This:
Do you get it yet? You proposed a ‘let people believe what they want’ scenario, the same way Fairy Ana did earlier, and Fear Itself was saying it’s not that simple.
No I don’t get it at all What’s not that simple?
Is it the position that letting people believe what they want is an ok position to have? Is that what’s not that simple. Actually it is simple, unless you get really irritated about that.
Or are you saying people kill people because they get to believe in what they want to believe? Should we put an end to that and save lifes right now?
Or is it that actually that you can’t get enough of punchign up that old trope about religious beliefs being used as an excuse to condone killing? Yet at the same time ignoring all the other non-religious reasons people use to condone killing, just so you can make your point about how religions lead to bad ends beware?
You’ve stated nothing clearly, just humping around the edges disturbing the shit and meanwhile have added little if anything.
I guess not. The point is that people act on their beliefs, so when you say “leave everybody alone and let them believe what they like, that’s fair” you’re overlooking the fact that sooner or later, the differences in people’s beliefs will lead them to conflicting actions and decisions. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to believe what they want; it means beliefs don’t exist in a vacuum, so saying things like “let everyone believe whatever they want” is simplistic and doesn’t magically solve everybody’s disagreements. I’m not talking about killing people or not letting them believe whatever they believe. I don’t know how I can make this any plainer.
And I can tell this issue is going to get lost, so I will bring if up again: none of this actually answers the question that was being asked of Fairy Ana. Nobody asked her if people should be allowed to believe different things. She was asked why people should believe in things without evidence and if evidence matters.
And so, are you demanding prove of and evidence for souls? How would we conjure that up? It is a belief in an intangible property which cannot be measured, at least not in any way I’m smart enough to figure out nor anyone else on the SDMB. For practical purposes then we will just have to accept it as something you either believe in or you do not believe in. Given that then what is your point with: It’s not that simple? How complicated do you need it to be?
No, I was asking (and Fear Itself asked first) why we should consider believing in something without evidence. I am not demanding proof or evidence for souls. I’m getting the sense you didn’t read this thread before posting in it, because this has already been discussed.
I read through it, but I did come late to the discussion and only responded to one post and then got caught up in that why do people kill each other side trip. I’m so suggestible. apparently.
Here is my take on the question: we shouldn’t believe in something without evidence. But, and here is the big but - the evidence to support a scientific believe is not the same sort of evidence to support a believe in a soul. I’ll anticipate that you will say that the kind of evidence that supports a believe in a soul is not any kind of evidence at all. I don’t think we will ever bridge that gap. Keeping those qualifications in mind, the evidence I need to believe that I have a soul is the evidence of my own experience. I realize that amounts to a hill of beans in this SDMB, but that is the kind of evidence that is personal and subjective and not open to falsification. I.e. not scientific evidence. It is evidence based on feelings and intuition about the deeper nature of reality. Granted filtered through my expectations as it may be, but it is still the experience of a deeper reality that we all join in as participants in this Universe. I call it a soul, someone else will call it a deep and abiding sense of beauty. Whatever it is, it bring grace to my existence. I don’t think we shoud be messing around with the grace of other people.
That’s my default position on most issues.
This largely undoes what you just said, though, because if anything can be evidence, then evidence is just about worthless. That’s why we describe some types of evidence specifically as scientific evidence. Whether we’re discussing scientific evidence or not, what matters is whether the evidence itself is reliable and the interpretation of the evidence is solid.
I think we need to draw a clear line in whether the ‘soul believers’, actually believe in a soul, or if it’s just a roundabout/vague/mystified version of saying that they believe in the ‘self’.
I.e. the concept of identity as constructed by the mind, versus some kind of floaty thing that rises out of your body when you die.
So the killings caused by religion don’t count unless every single killing ever is because of religion? :rolleyes: By that “logic” you can’t blame Nazis for the Holocaust because not every killing in history was because of antisemitism.
No; it’s undetectable because it doesn’t exist, and in fact by all we know can’t exist. If a soul existed it should have detectable effects on the brain and other matter as well; and the effects of brain damage shouldn’t look like what they are, a loss of function. There’s no reason why a soul should be any less detectable than an electrical field or radiation or heat - if that is souls actually existed.
Of course not, since the belief in the soul is a delusion. To support it, you need bad or outright false evidence, not scientific evidence. If you want to support a falsehood, you need more falsehood. Science is a tool for discovering the truth, and is therefore the natural enemy of false beliefs like souls.
If everything I say undoes what I’ve just said then hell bells I can’t say anything meaningfull. I’m not expecting you to agree with me. I answered the question and you have perfunctorily dismissed it. Nothing new there.
As I said in my first post here, there is no evidence for the existence of a soul, at least not evidence of the kind you think is relevant. I therefore conclude you believe you have no soul. I’m totally ok with that.
Cheers.
Do you believe in a soul?
If you do, how does this soul differ from the psychological or philosophical notion of the self? What distinguishes it from the self, or are those kind of notions a misinterpretation of the soul?
Not trying to poke fun, a genuine question so I can better understand your viewpoint.
I’ve once heard this theory as a possibility of the white light scenario. A natural occurring substance in the brain with no real explanation as to what it is used for.
I didn’t dismiss your answer. I was discussing something you said.
I was kicking these ideas around with a pen-pal, and suggested that, for all we know, there might be several souls. Each person might have a “musical soul,” and a “drawing soul” and a “poetic soul” and a “sexual soul” and so on.
My pen-pal scoffed, and said that souls had to be single, indivisible, indestructible, “by definition.”
So…huh? What definition? Why can’t we have several souls, or a soul that is a composite structure, divisible in some fashion? God could punish the bad parts and reward the good parts… Or, perhaps as a person commits really evil acts, part of their soul dies, but other parts remain functioning.
At what point did tradition become definition? Is there any convincing a priori argument, or a path of reasoning that shows that the idea of multiple souls, or a composite soul, leads to a contradiction?
The shaky logic behind the concept leads me to disbelieve in it.
Well, in fiction I’ve seen multiple soils for one person a time, and quite often souls being split, ripped up, eaten, leeched, reshaped, destroyed, manufactured and reassembled. They are most certainly not by definition “single, indivisible, indestructible” any more than the word “god” automatically refers to the Christian god.
The ancient Egyptians believed there was more than one soul.
Besides the better known Ka and Ba there were also Akhu , Sahu (Spiritualised body), Khaibit (Shadow), Sekhem (Strength), and Ren (Name).
Yes. I conclude from personal experience there is a part of who I am that transcends the cummulative experiences and memories of my life, a part that is at the core of who I am, and feels as if it has been there from birth on and will continue on in some way after I am dead. I think what we call it is less important that the experience of it, whatever it is.
I don’t know what the self is. Quite frankly it is my experience that anytime we make a serious attempt to pin that bastard down, the boundaries become fuzzy and it is always possible to come up with examples that contradicts a particular trait we think of as being part of who we are.
What seems to be constant is a general sense of continuousness of shared experience within our body, a sense of having lived all the years and having had experiences from moment to moment which we naturally associate with a physically bounded existence defined by the extend of our bodies.
The soul I think is that part of us which remains constant, regardless of what our particular life experience and trajectory was, or might have been, or could have been.
The soul, or the experience of something deeper within us, provides an opportunity to feel a connection with the Universe that goes beyond our mundane day to day life. It points to a deeper connection with reality which suggest that we are part of the Universe and the Universe is part of us.
The only way to really experience it is to try and feel the wholeness of existence and resist the urge to look at the Universe as merely as collection of interrelated components.
I hope this answers your question.