Theist zone

[Captain Scarlet]

How dare I insist on actual, quantifiable evidence for a soul. Its so childish of me to question Christian concepts like the soul and ask for stupid things like "proof".

You want tangible evidence for an intangible device?

Do you often ask people for the impossible, and then wonder why they can't give it to you?

Not if it doesn't sit right with you, you shouldn't have. Souls are the subject of metaphysics, by nature they are taken on strong faith if taken at all.

How dare I ask for a list for my reasonable criteria for proving a soul: height, width, length, components, etc. Yeah, I should have never posted that, but I deserve the blame and to be called childish for not posting criteria of what constitutes proof. breathing must be a magical, mystical concept and it can in NO WAY ever be defined or logically proven. ..thus spake the Christians...breathing prove jeebus is lard.

Why does a soul need to be proven by empirical means? It would seem that you've already closed the case on the soul, and are running through the formalities. As defined, a soul is not tangible. This means that tangible measurements (height, width, weight) do not apply to it... and it cannot be proven to exist by finding these things... as doing so would not be finding a soul as it has been defined.

Nope this is not true at all. For those who posit the existence of a 'soul' and indeed an 'immaterial' diety, they cannot retreat behind 'its immaterial therefore there is no empirical evidence'. It is very clear that the soul and indeed even the immaterial diety interact with the natural material world. For example in the case of a 'soul': forming a relationship with our physical bodies and presumabley interacting with our brain to help form our thoughts and actions. In the case of an immaterial diety they regulary (apparently) perform miracles and change physical matter (water>wine). Thus the effects of these immaterial things are dedectable empirically through methodological naturalism, we would be able to see water turn into wine and witness thoughts and actions performed without internal (to the person) or material external stimulii. But guess what they have never been evidenced, and they should have been if they are there becuase the immaterial must interact and initiate that interaction with the material. There is however plenty of (and only to this point) evidence of physical, natural processes at work. So RJ is perfectly entitled to ask for the evidence, otherwise we should assume parsimony and reject the need for the immaterial as an uneccssary complication, leaving only the material world creating its own effects. It is far simpler to believe that some neurons fired in my brain to make me walk across a room (is evidenced), rather than an immaterial soul miraculously interacting with the physcial structures in my brain (is not evidenced) and guiding my neurons into firing to walk across a room.