Originally posted by RJHinds
There is no evidence that the Holy Bible is not true or God does not exisit or evolution is true according to your criteria for evidence.

Ok I will bite.

According to you (I know there are conflicting views on this but I am talking to RJHinds here)

Is there according to the bible a kind of spirit and/or soul that animates 'living' matter [specifically
us] and which 'lives on' after death.

And if the bible says such a thing exists does that soul or spirit go on after death to an afterlife of
one kind or another?


I don't need you to quote chapter and verse on this as I am interested on what you think the bible
says and don't need you to show me reams of text to prove it.

Originally posted by vistesd
Your post just stimulated my own thought. 🙂 Aside from empirical demonstrations (which you can bring to bear better than I), I’m wondering if a reductio ad absurdum might be constructed, to show that adoption of a strategy that does not maximize causally determinate good judgments leads to absurd conclusions. But I haven’t had time to think it through.

Well I think that the simplest argument goes like this.

There are effectively an infinite (or at least an astronomically huge) set of possible things you could believe
about the reality we inhabit.

In trying to come up with a set of beliefs that enable you to function optimally in this reality you need to whittle down
those possible beliefs to those that are actually true.

You can either try to do this by...

Making observations of reality and then making logical deductions and inductions that
allow you to determine what things are true or not. (the scientific method)

Or

You can pick beliefs at random or by whether or not they make you feel good (this is the belief on faith method).


Only one of these methods actually cares about the truth of the claim.

Only one of these methods has a track record of actually working.

Only one of these methods can claim a mechanism by which it could work.


In a choice between science and faith there is only one conclusion as to which is best at determining truth.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Ok I will bite.

According to you (I know there are conflicting views on this but I am talking to RJHinds here)

Is there according to the bible a kind of spirit and/or soul that animates 'living' matter [specifically
us] and which 'lives on' after death.

And if the bible says such a thing exists does that soul or spirit go on after death to an n what you think the bible
says and don't need you to show me reams of text to prove it.

Yes, once the spirit gave life to the body, it became a living soul. I believe the soul makes up the mind and experiences of that living body. When the life giving spirit departs the body the the mind of the soul lives on just like in these near death experiences. When the body can no longer remain living, the soul, I believe, usually goes to a place to sleep until it is judged on what it has done while in the body. It is the living experiences that make up the soul of the real person and not the body. The soul can be put in another body and it would still be the same person. It is not the body that makes the person, even though you may have heard "the suit makes the man."

Originally posted by RJHinds
Yes, once the spirit gave life to the body, it became a living soul. I believe the soul makes up the mind and experiences of that living body. When the life giving spirit departs the body the the mind of the soul lives on just like in these near death experiences. When the body can no longer remain living, the soul, I believe, usually goes to a place to s ...[text shortened]... not the body that makes the person. Even though you may have heard "the suit makes the man."

OK.

This is in direct conflict with everything we know and have can observe about how biology works
and how the human brain functions.

Everything we can observe about the human brain and our resultant minds indicates that our minds,
our personality, what makes us who we are, is the result of the physical brain operating under the
standard laws of physics.

There is absolutely no evidence of the existence of souls, and plenty of evidence against souls.


Much of the relevant research comes from looking at people who's brains are damaged or deformed compared
to the average/normal.

So if someone has brain damage to a specific part of the brain (say due to a stroke for example) and that
causes them to alter their behaviour, mood, personality, or say motor control then we can say with confidence that
that part of the brain is involved with that function.

People with damage to certain parts of the brain will loose or have reduced memory function for example.


There is the fact that mood and personality can be altered by direct physical (electrical) stimulation of the brain
and also by various chemicals (drugs).

We have comma patients who have been lying there for years, wake up and have experienced and remember
absolutely nothing for the entire time they were unconscious.


There are people who have had brain injuries that have totally wiped their memories and altered their personalities so
that they were no longer the same person they were before the incident.

We have brain scanning technology that can literately watch you have thoughts and see the physical interactions of
the neurons that make them up.

The makeup and functions of the cells that make your brain and your body are all explicable via chemistry and physics
with no need of, or evidence for, any supernatural force acting on them.


There is absolutely no observation that has been made that even hints at the existence of souls or spirit.

And there is, as I have simply hinted at here, a mountain of evidence that we are the product of our physical brains.


It has been shown beyond all reasonable doubt that this is so.




Thus your bible in claiming (as you say) that we have souls and are animated by spirit is in direct conflict with and contradictory
to all available evidence and the relevant science.


This isn't just a case of saying you are believing things for which you have no evidence.

This is you believing things that are contradicted by all the available evidence.



There are many many examples of this with the bible (and your beliefs) but this one is central.

Because...

If there are no souls or spirit (which all the evidence strongly suggests is the case) then there is no afterlife.

No heaven and no hell.

Which rocks the very foundations and point of your religion.

Originally posted by googlefudge
OK.

This is in direct conflict with everything we know and have can observe about how biology works
and how the human brain functions.

Everything we can observe about the human brain and our resultant minds indicates that our minds,
our personality, what makes us who we are, is the result of the physical brain operating under the
standard law ife.

No heaven and no hell.

Which rocks the very foundations and point of your religion.

The physical brain is like the physical eye or ear and is part of the body. The living soul is the person using the physical body to communicate with the rest of the world. Information is stored in the physical brain for us to recall and use by our physical bodies. When a physical problem occurs with the communication lines of the body it does not matter how much information is stored in the brain on how to do something the body may still not be able to do it. Take Stephen Hawkins for example, he is supposed to be very knowledgeable but still can't wipe his own ass.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Bump for Suzianne

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=146358&page=6

As Suzianne either isn't around or does not want to respond, let's have a look at Premise 1

Premise 1.
It is moral to try to make choices that do the least harm to others and do the most good for others.
So we should strive to make choices and decisions that cause the least harm and most good.

Well, if I were a theist, I might argue that your argument is flawed as it presupposes that 'harm' should only be judged in the context of this observable life. You haven't allowed for the possibility of suffering in the afterlife (and hell is a pretty big concept in a lot of religions). If you do, then the premises might be accepted by theists. But they would argue that minimising suffering will come from correctly observing, and encouraging others to observe, the tenets of their faith.

I think, therefore, you need further premises to prove that harm should only be judged in the content of the current observable world.

However, as I am not a theist, I think I might challenge Premise 1 on another basis.

How do we rationalise Premise 1 with the following scenario (you will have heard many themes and variations on this before).

90 year old man. Has a unique substance in his body that will cure 100 babies, who have only a few days to live, and will die an agonising death, but he must be killed to extract it. The old man is a hermit and has no dependents. No one would even know he had died.

Would you choose to murder the man and save the babies? If not, why? Your choice has greatly increased the overall quantum of suffering.

There are instances where moral choices transcend the questions of minimising harm and maximising good. If this the case, then
Premise 1 is either incorrect, or needs modifying.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
They have an ancient tradition of studying from books.

A tradition that began after the destruction of the Temple AD 70, and so not as ancient as you might think.

Originally posted by googlefudge

Making observations of reality and then making logical deductions and inductions that
allow you to determine what things are true or not. (the scientific method)

Except that this approach has been out of date since Popper. Because: 'there is no such thing as induction' (Popper). And: in practice, observation is always already contaminated with prior theory.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
A tradition that began after the destruction of the Temple AD 70, and so not as ancient as you might think.

Would you elaborate?

My understanding is Jews have been literate since ~1,000 BCE at the latest. Numbers was written in ~500 BCE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo-Hebrew_script

The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is an abjad offshoot of the ancient Semitic alphabet and closely related to the Phoenician alphabet from which it descends. It dates to the 10th century BCE or earlier. It was used as the main vehicle for writing the Hebrew language by the Israelites, who would later split into Jews and Samaritans.