Better reasons to quit Christianity

[spockrates]

Is it possible you are making an inference from ignorance (not calling you ignorant, of course! it's a term given for an informal fallacy). That is, you are saying you can think of no good reason one has a soul that survives death, so that means there must be no good reason there is a soul that survives death. You have not proved there is no good reason; you've only demonstrated that if there is one, you are currently unaware of it.

It's not impossible for me to do that, as I'm imperfect, but not in this case. I am not claiming there is no soul survival, I'm observing that any conceivable made-up scenario about what happens after you die has just as much evidence going for it as that one. It wasn't always so: souls were a reasonable conclusion to reach when all you had to go on was dreams and NDE's. Now we know what's happening when we're dreaming and that our souls wandering off and having adventures is no longer a plausible explanation for them. We know that people who have NDE's don't have any more information available to them than people who don't and their experiences relate to their culture and expectations, which indicates their subjectivity. Souls no longer plausible as an explanation for these, either. Additional evidence beyond what we had in pre-scientific times has left us without the reasons we supposed souls existed in the first place.

And a reason no one is aware is not a reason at all. It doesn't mean souls don't exist if no one is aware of such a reason, but it does mean it's irrational to believe they do, that is, it is irrational to believe something without a reason to think it is true. If you are aware of a reason, please share with the class.

Yes, but is it not also irrational to believe they don't, since there is also no evidence to support the idea that souls don't exist? I mean, if a soul does exist, there is no way to measure it; no way to experience it with the senses. It cannot be seen, heard, felt, smelt, nor touched (though some believers in ghosts might say otherwise). We cannot look at a dead body and say, "I see no soul rising, nor descending from it, so there must not be any." There is no scientific instrument to measure the presence, or absence of a soul, as there is to measure the presence, or absence of air. I'm thinking both beliefs are without reason, and so unreasonable. Perhaps the most reasonable position to take is to say that one does not know?