Split Brain Experiment and the Soul

[The_Flying_Skeptic]

This was originally a post on the 'Atheism vs. Deism' thread but because the discussion is so unrelated to the thread, I decided to put the post in its own thread so that tackattack could respond.

"This is contradicted by biology/neurology that clearly shows our mind being a product of brain activity. The latter will surely cease after death and therefore there's no life after death."
I wasn't aware that this was conclusive, please site your references.

I don't believe there is anyway to prove that there is no afterlife or soul. They are Russel's teapots floating around our universe.

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In an article entitled "Is There a God?" commissioned, but never published, by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Russell wrote: If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_t...ginal_text

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I do believe that a relationship between our 'material' brain and our thought processes has been demonstrated. You ask for references; I raise you the split brain experiments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo

I chose the split brain experiment because not only does it demonstrate the dependency of thought processes on the brain, but it will also have you asking "Now that significant mental processes (which are conscious themselves of outside input) are entirely independent from his 'consciousness' , which part of his consciousness goes to heaven?" At the end of the video, the scientist explains his hypothesis on which part of the brain forms the 'theory' of our environment and memories. As you learn more and more about the relationship between our brain and our experience, slowly the distinction you make between the brain and soul will fade away.