When do we cross the line from 'animal' to 'person?'

[StatCrux]

One might argue that our ability to reason- and fantasize, in the case of religious belief- arises from our animal instincts and behaviors, and are in fact entirely natural processes. I've seen no evidence that they are divine in nature.

How do you know religious belief is fantasy? Are you speaking from personal religious experience and equating it with personal fantasy? I can say that I'm able to differentiate fantasy from religious experience, the two are entirely different in nature. Perhaps you only ever fantasize and therefore have no reference to distinguish the difference, which could account for your conclusion that the two must be the same.

[Esquilax]

How do you know religious belief is fantasy? Are you speaking from personal religious experience and equating it with personal fantasy? I can say that I'm able to differentiate fantasy from religious experience, the two are entirely different in nature. Perhaps you only ever fantasize and therefore have no reference to distinguish the difference, which could account for your conclusion that the two must be the same.

I'm an atheist. Always have been. To me, the gods of every extant religion have not met their burden of proof and thus, functionally, don't exist. Since I can't access religious experiences that other people have, nor have I ever had one of my own, I feel safe in tagging those religious experiences as fantasy. It's not that I'm not open, just that I haven't found anything there.

[StatCrux]

I'm an atheist. Always have been. To me, the gods of every extant religion have not met their burden of proof and thus, functionally, don't exist. Since I can't access religious experiences that other people have, nor have I ever had one of my own, I feel safe in tagging those religious experiences as fantasy. It's not that I'm not open, just that I haven't found anything there.

That's some impressive logic you've used,

1.Many people have religious experiences
2.I've never had one

therefore they must all be fantasy

wow 10/10, the cream of atheistic thinking..

[CapnAwesome]

Then the question becomes 'why do we treat other animals so differently from how we treat people?'

Because they are delicious.

[StatCrux]

Then the question becomes 'why do we treat other animals so differently from how we treat people?'

Because they are delicious.

Maybe humans are delicious too, far healthier than a Mac..

[Tonus]

Maybe humans are delicious too, far healthier than a Mac..

Well, they digest better than plastic and silicon, that's for sure.

[Esquilax]

I'm an atheist. Always have been. To me, the gods of every extant religion have not met their burden of proof and thus, functionally, don't exist. Since I can't access religious experiences that other people have, nor have I ever had one of my own, I feel safe in tagging those religious experiences as fantasy. It's not that I'm not open, just that I haven't found anything there.

That's some impressive logic you've used,

1.Many people have religious experiences
2.I've never had one

therefore they must all be fantasy

wow 10/10, the cream of atheistic thinking..

No, the logic is that I've never had a religious experience, and I'm certainly not justified in believing in any god because someone else claims to have had one, any more than you are justified in believing in alien abductions because someone else claims to have been abducted.

Why on earth would I be that credulous? Can you think of a single other claim you'd feel justified in believing based on the experiences of someone else alone? Why should I believe in your god because you, a guy I've never met, claims to have had a religious experience?

[Little Rik]

So........who give the animals the instinct?
Santa?

So is that how everything gets its attributes, as a gift? How did rocks get their hardness? How did summer days get to be warmer in the northern hemisphere? How did the Walrus get those tusks? I guess they were just regular seals until some genie sent them a gift? What a weird idea.

Life is a long journey from imperfection to perfection.
From matter to vegetable life to animal life to human life to pure spirit.
Nothing come too easy,
To reach the very top everyone will have to struggle and change all the time in order to be in tune with the environment in which we live.
If your son is ready for the year 3 you will put him in year 3 classroom not in the year 2 or 4 classrooms.
At the same time if a creature will be fit to be reborn into a walrus body then it will be put into such a body.
This creature will found herself in such a body not because her father and mother developed a walrus attitute and characteristics and transmit them to her but because her characteristics were in tune with those of the walrus parents.
Creation and evolution go hand in hand.
It is like if you give MECCANO parts to your son and you tell him to put them together.
Creation are the parts (matter, water, light, air, space, mind, spirit) and evolution is the task to put every part together in order to reach the pure spirit and go back to the original source.
The land will not be able to grow any vegetation unless you put the seed in there as well as the walrus parents will not be able to generate an other life unless somebody put somebody else into a proper medium that will be used by the new creature to extract nourishment and grow.

[LastPoet]

(sounds legit)

[Little Rik]

I tried to go well behind this physical reality.

But once you go beyond this physical reality, you enter whichever realm you'd like to enter, with whichever rules you'd like it to have. I get the impression that anytime a theist is confounded by a lack of physical proof, he turns to the 'non-physical' or 'immaterial' to maintain his belief system. But I don't think that they define this in any consistent way. Once you go beyond the observable and provable, you are entering the fanciful. And it turns out to be custom-tailored. Imagine that!

The problem with being too materialistic is that it make you believe that body, mind and spirit are all one thing.
It is like when you travel in your car and you feel uniqueness.
The car respond to you command so that make you believe that you and the car are one and the same.
Atheism has being created in order to counter the religious dogmas, but as Marx created communism to counter capitalism he created an other dogma (false truth).
Atheism is a dogma just because is based on materialism which in no way can go over his border and penetrate the higher stratum of intellect and distinguish between the body and the mind (vehicle and driver).
So in this way i am sure that you will find very hard to understand the meaning of going over the PHYSICAL REALTY.

---

Esquilax.................unless you can actually demonstrate this soul thing, or the method you've described for what god does with it, then all you've done is make an assertion. Anyone can do that, it doesn't make a word of what you've said true.

In previous post i already gave examples how the maggots can not come on rotting flesh unless the flies drop the eggs on it or the land can not grow any vegetation unless the seeds are put in there.
So in the same way a creature can not be born unless someone put it in a particular body.
The body can only give the nourishment to help in the growth and that is all it can do.
If you keep on confusing the body with the essence of the creature then you will never understand how all the system works.
In the previous post i just explain how easy is to make uniqueness in pretending that the driver and the vehicle are one and the same.

And this "beyond physical reality" stuff is just a cheat so you're not held accountable to standards of evidence, and unfortunately for you most of us here simply won't buy it.

I already answer in previous post.

Gotta love that "according to me," part though; I expect it would be much easier on you if you can dictate the terms of the entire argument beforehand, slanting them in your favor, but that's not how this works either.

It is a free discussion that is why anybody can come in and say whatever you want.
It is then up to you to counter the point if you feel you are able to do so or to say something interesting.