Immortal Souls / Immortality Debunked

[Bucky Ball]

(06-10-2012 08:28 PM)Misanthropik Wrote:  

(05-10-2012 08:54 PM)BryanS Wrote:  "Define soul", I say to the theist who argues for its existence. Incoherent babbling from the theist ensues. Good times.

I had a Catholic define the soul pretty hilariously....*Ahem* I'm sorry; pretty clearly for me.

They said something to the effect of: "It's an energy force that resides within you. It is exactly the shape of you; it has arms, fingers, toes, everything. And it sits perfectly within your body, which is why when you die, your body looks just like it always has; but the soul has parted and gone somewhere else. Contained within this force is everything that defines you as 'you'. Your feelings, your thoughts, everything. Your body is ultimately just a shell."

I'm not sure one could get much closer to saying "So, for all intents and purposes, it IS your body" without actually saying exactly that.

Hope he never cuts any of his fingers off. His soul has a butt.

[GirlyMan]

(06-10-2012 08:28 PM)Misanthropik Wrote:  I'm not sure one could get much closer to saying "So, for all intents and purposes, it IS your body" without actually saying exactly that.

That's my read as well.

[Misanthropik]

(06-10-2012 08:38 PM)GirlyMan Wrote:  That's my read as well.

It just baffles me that these people feel the need to take a perfectly reasonable argument one irrational step further by assigning something supernatural or divine to it.

"It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it lays eggs like a duck, it is hunted like a duck and you can feed it bread like a duck...but it's really an invisible gopher in a duck's body. And the invisible gopher is shaped like a duck, also. But it's a gopher."

[GirlyMan]

(06-10-2012 08:45 PM)Misanthropik Wrote:  

(06-10-2012 08:38 PM)GirlyMan Wrote:  That's my read as well.

It just baffles me that these people feel the need to take a perfectly reasonable argument one irrational step further by assigning something supernatural or divine to it.

"It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, it lays eggs like a duck, it is hunted like a duck and you can feed it bread like a duck...but it's really an invisible gopher in a duck's body. And the invisible gopher is shaped like a duck, also. But it's a gopher."

Think they've been rigidly wired in such a manner that they not only cannot admit their temporariness and eventual cessation, they can't even consider it. It's anathema to them. And that makes them weak in the head. ... Very well could still be good people, though, KC comes to mind.

[Egor]

(06-10-2012 07:35 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote:  I get that.

But most people call "all that exists" "reality".
Why call it "god" ? Why not just call it "reality" ?

Fine. Call it reality. Let's give it a capital R. Reality.

Quote:"Substance" is imputing a false "layer". It's a "duality" which does not exist. It's a "metaphysical layer", for which there is no evidence. "Substance" comes from classical Philosophy, which did not know how or why the physical world, or consciousness worked. That duality, ("substance" vs "accident"), is false, and unnecessary. There is no "substance" of some-thing, apart from the thing. It's the same thing the Roman Church does with the Eucharist. They assert there is some woo woo "substance", apart from the accident.

I'm too tired to figure out what you mean here. If after three times reading it I don't understand it, I just give up.

(05-10-2012 06:14 PM)Greatest I am Wrote:  If "the substance of all things is consciousness", then it can't be "part of existence". It has to BE existence. It appears to me there is a contradiction there. No ?

No, that's just it. That's what I've come to understand: "All there is is the one consciousness. There is nothing else that is real.

(06-10-2012 08:39 AM)Erxomai Wrote:  So Egor,
No loaded question, just curious:
How does your "god who is all" compare or contrast with the ideas of the New Thought movement and things like The Law of Attraction, Deepak Chopra, The Secret, etc.?

I have no idea. I came to it through my own observations and philosophical musings.

(06-10-2012 05:10 PM)amyb Wrote:  My point is still that you experience them as "undeniable." Since we do not have access to the experience itself, we cannot say for sure. Same goes for someone claiming to have a vision of the Virgin Mary. He may really beleive it and want others to believe, but how can I know he wasn't hallucinating?"

That is true: My episodes have no power to convince you whatsoever. You would have had to experience them. But I know they happened, so for me they are proof. I admit, for you they can never be proof.

[quote]Occam's razor. Because that's what I've observed. When I see an animal die, it decays and I see no evidence it continues to exist. So likewise, I assume the same is true for myself since that's what fits my observations of the world,, and I don't see the need to tack on any arbitrary supernatural stuff (esp. without seeing any evidence for such claims).

Well, you and I would agree. Upon death, we cease to exist and our body decays. The consciousness of God never ceases and has always existed. Our consciousness is really "the" consciousness. It's the only consciousness there is. There is no life after death, per se, there is only God. We die, and he's like: "Well, that life was fun."

[DLJ]

Therefore god = Body of Knowledge
God is a Wiki?

[Magoo]

Well KC what's your counter argument on this?

[Bucky Ball]

(07-10-2012 02:08 AM)Egor Wrote:  Fine. Call it reality. Let's give it a capital R. Reality.

I've always had this feeling, that's what you meant. Reality is fine.
Now, please, tell us what you mean by "consciousness".

"Substance" is imputing a false "layer". It's a "duality" which does not exist. It's a "metaphysical layer", for which there is no evidence. "Substance" comes from classical Philosophy, which did not know how or why the physical world, or consciousness worked. That duality, ("substance" vs "accident"), is false, and unnecessary. There is no "substance" of some-thing, apart from the thing. It's the same thing the Roman Church does with the Eucharist. They assert there is some woo woo "substance", apart from the accident.

(07-10-2012 02:08 AM)Egor Wrote:  I'm too tired to figure out what you mean here. If after three times reading it I don't understand it, I just give up.

That means, for example, the lamp on your desk is just a lamp. Period.
It's not an object which has BOTH the substance of "lamp-ness", AND possesses the external features of a lamp. The duality of substance AND it's (supposed) "external" "accident" or "looks" came form Greek Philosophy. They thought things had "accident", (their external looks), and a "substance" which exhibited it's "accident" or "features". It's "dualism".

[Atothetheist]

Why believe in a proposition that can not be tested, nor proved at the time?

People don't blame people for being stupid, only for being stupid in the face of evidence.

Just like I see no fault with the primitives that thought the world was flat, they only thought that way because they had no means of finding out it was spherical.

Also, I think it is logical to assume that the soul must have some sort of function should be recognizable, yet we can't find a function that can't be explained by naturalistic means yet.

Seriously, why have a soul if it produces no action, or effect on the body?

In the olden times, people though souls were for cognitive thought, and being self-aware. But this is easily explained by the brain. People also thought without a soul, you can't feel emotion, this again, is explained by the brain.

In order to convince me of the soul, you have to first prove to me an action which a soul COULD probably cause, and then prove a soul actually caused it.

This is simply a case of "Show me the proof."

[Free Thought]

(07-10-2012 06:59 AM)Atothetheist Wrote:  Just like I see no fault with the primitives that thought the world was flat, they only thought that way because they had no means of finding out it was spherical.

Wait, just how far back were are these primitives?

I mean the ancient Greeks were pretty much on the money (well, as on the money as they could possibly be at the time), weren't they?