continuation from theist zone_souls and death

[Captain Scarlet]

I don't recall all of the references to this but we'll just take it from here:
1- There are lots of well documented cases of brain trauma giving rise to dramatic personality, mood, emotional changes. A fact I'm not disputing and have already shown that the material brain does directly affect the mind. I never disputed that, I'm postulating that something else can also inform the mind that is insubstantial. There are also cases that cite people having experiences while in a "brain dead" state which I have cited in the other thread several places and instances. I'm not sure on the numbers but the people who survive brain death is probably a similar ratio to that reported experiences postmortem. When the sample availability is small you can't take a typical scientific sampling. However, I also cited that with about 50 studies (across various religious backgrounds) elements of NDE's were similar enough to at lead to the feasibility of the premise and certainly not delusional by default. Frankly I think it's ignoring evidence to be so dismissive and say they were all a misdiagnosis.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say tack. Are you saying that the small number of such cases are positive evidence for the existence of a soul/s? If so I'm not sure how you get from 'hey I was floating above myself' to 'hey great souls exists'. The simpler explanation is of hallucination induced by a badly damaged material brain. The apparent similarity is also a so what. What would you say to 2 junkies who had a similar LSD trip? Also what about the cases of either no such experience and contrary experiences. These 'gee whizz' cases are not very impressive to me, and sorry if that is dismissive, its not aimed at you, its just not impressive. Now turn to the evidence we have lots of, in statistically signifiacnt quantities, where is the evidence for a soul? You accept brain trauma can effect an individuals personality/emotions/mood (and rightly so), but if you use NDE as evidence for souls, then from the excerpts I've read, these people clearly refer to themselves, meaning that if it is their soul, their soul contains 'them' (inc personality, mood, emotions) and isn't as amorphous as you defined it below. You can't have it both ways.

2- Ok so abstract concepts (like math) can inform and be useful and productive with regard to reality and are "real" and justifiable within their framework. What if your framework were outside of causality and were necessary logically for the abstract to exist?

What if there really were immaterial brain goblins?. You have given me no reasonable argument as to why this should be so

3-Let's just start over and I'll define what I refer to as a soul
soul –supranatural aspect of humans that is imparted by God and informs the consciousness, survives death and is used in the final judgment by God.

Firstly thank you. But it is far too amorphous to work with even as a rough sketch. What does it contain? Memories/personality/emotions; everything that makes a person. If it doesn't how does god judge it?, and why is it important that it survives death?. For example if I kill someone is it my material self or immaterial self that did it? If someones gave me a brain injury that turned me into a psycopath, is that my material self or immaterial self thats been damaged and who does god hold to account (surely not me, its not my fault!). You have already conceded that you do not have a proposal of how the material/immaterial interact, so you have to give a strong definition of a soul or at least what you believe the soul is, else we'll be grasping at straws (immaterial ones)
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