Are you going to hell...

[Aoi Magi]

Ah I knew it, so that old screamer leaving on my left is the devil. I should have known when I saved his cat and he screamed at me instead...

[Neo-Scholastic]

Follow the evidence. The mind/personality/conscience of people is tied exclusively to the brain: when the brain stops functioning, the mind stops too; trauma to the brain can change the mind and personality; drugs can change mind and personality. There is no evidence of a mind/personality at all outside or apart from the brain.

Actually, there is no evidence for a physical link between brain states and mental properties despite strong correlations between the two. Even if you posit a mysterious “emergent property”, nothing prevents it from actualizing non-locally apart from a specific physical structure.

[Jenny A]

Follow the evidence. The mind/personality/conscience of people is tied exclusively to the brain: when the brain stops functioning, the mind stops too; trauma to the brain can change the mind and personality; drugs can change mind and personality. There is no evidence of a mind/personality at all outside or apart from the brain.

Actually, there is no evidence for a physical link between brain states and mental properties despite strong correlations between the two. Even if you posit a mysterious “emergent property”, nothing prevents it from actualizing non-locally apart from a specific physical structure.

I didn't say we knew how the brain works, only that there is as you say a strong correlation between the brain and mental states, not to mention an absolute correlation between a working brain and any mental state at all. There is nothing that makes mental states "actualizing non-locally" i.e. outside the brain remotely likely. It hasn't happened in all of human history.

[Aoi Magi]

Chad, I haven't heard of any person ever demonstrating any mind/personality/conscience without her brains. Instead changes to the brain, like through accidents or injury do directly affect those. Do you have any reason to believe mind/personality/conscience are not tied to the brain?

[Mudhammam]

Hell is where you're allowed to say and do whatever you will minus the rules that the majority of condemned souls agree upon in order to guarantee everyone's mutual benefit and well-being?

Yeah, hopefully I'll go there.

[Minimalist]

Coincidentally....or maybe it is one of them fucking miracles that drippy is always talking about....I ran across this comment in Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus" last night. Sure to piss off fundies.

These latter ideas would have infiltrated Palestinian society in two ways. Some would arrive by simple report: pagans and Jewish pilgrims retelling what they heard and knew and what they thought about it; and likewise bringing books with them, to loan, sell or read aloud; it would also be incredible to think that none of the cities in Palestine had public libraries, which were otherwise a standard feature of major cities of the time, and surely a feature of every city with a large Gentile presence, such as Caesarea or Tyre. But others would arrive through prior syncretism: diaspora Jews combined pagan religious and philosophical ideas with their own Jewish faith (as Philo of Alexandria did-and just as what were then 'mainstream' Palestinian Jews had done before when they adopted notions of hell and resurrection, and the Devil as a supernatural enemy of God, all
from their pagan Zoroastrian overlords centuries before), and then came to Judea and promulgated their new ideas as Jewish ideas rather than pagan.

-pg 165

Better hope Ahura Mazda has a sense of humor, drippy. If not, he'll fry your friggin' ass.

[Natachan]

Neither.

Purgatory.

[Drich]

Coincidentally....or maybe it is one of them fucking miracles that drippy is always talking about....I ran across this comment in Richard Carrier's "On the Historicity of Jesus" last night. Sure to piss off fundies.

These latter ideas would have infiltrated Palestinian society in two ways. Some would arrive by simple report: pagans and Jewish pilgrims retelling what they heard and knew and what they thought about it; and likewise bringing books with them, to loan, sell or read aloud; it would also be incredible to think that none of the cities in Palestine had public libraries, which were otherwise a standard feature of major cities of the time, and surely a feature of every city with a large Gentile presence, such as Caesarea or Tyre. But others would arrive through prior syncretism: diaspora Jews combined pagan religious and philosophical ideas with their own Jewish faith (as Philo of Alexandria did-and just as what were then 'mainstream' Palestinian Jews had done before when they adopted notions of hell and resurrection, and the Devil as a supernatural enemy of God, all
from their pagan Zoroastrian overlords centuries before), and then came to Judea and promulgated their new ideas as Jewish ideas rather than pagan.

-pg 165

Better hope Ahura Mazda has a sense of humor, drippy. If not, he'll fry your friggin' ass.

It's funny minnie while many people claim Zoroastrianism is much older The oldest Historical records (actual documents concerning this religion put it around 3 or 4AD)

How can I make such a blasphmous claim again mr. carrier worldly "wisdom?"

well i take a well respected book on the subject like:
http://www.avesta.org/dhalla/dhalla1.htm
Then on Chapter 1 page one in the references mentioned I look them up:
The oldest is known source for Zoro'ism is: Avestan literature

Then I looked that up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avesta

from which we get:
According to the Dēnkard, a semi-religious work written in the 9th century, the king Volgash (thought to be the Parthian king Vologases I, c. 51–78 AD) attempted to have the sacred texts collected and collated. The results of this undertaking (the so-called "Arsacid archetype"), if it occurred, have not survived.

All texts known today derive from a single master copy, now lost but known as the "Sassanian archetype", most likely a product of the 3rd or 4th century. According to tradition, in the 3rd century, the Sassanian emperor Ardashir I (r. 226-241 AD) commanded his high priest Tonsar (or Tansar) to compile the theological texts. According to the Dēnkard, the Tonsar effort resulted in the reproduction of twenty-one volumes, called nasks, subdivided into 348 chapters, with approximately 3.5 million words in total. One final redaction took place under Shapur II (r. 309-379).

And if you were to bother to read something beside a colored commentary from someone like carrier or dawkins you would have noted a long time ago that this particular religion whores itself out to what ever is popular or well received and is in a constant state of change.

Sorry minnie but I will not be answering to anyone but the God of the bible.

[Anomalocaris]

Follow the evidence. The mind/personality/conscience of people is tied exclusively to the brain: when the brain stops functioning, the mind stops too; trauma to the brain can change the mind and personality; drugs can change mind and personality. There is no evidence of a mind/personality at all outside or apart from the brain.

Actually, there is no evidence for a physical link between brain states and mental properties despite strong correlations between the two. Even if you posit a mysterious “emergent property”, nothing prevents it from actualizing non-locally apart from a specific physical structure.

Strong correlation is evidence, You despicable disingenuously moron. In fact stripped away of philosophical babble there isn't can can't be any form of evidence other observed correlation.

[Minimalist]

Drippy, we have world class scholars on one hand and then we have a dumb-as-a-fucking-rock moron like you on the other. Guess who wins?

http://www.pyracantha.com/Z/zjc3.html

It was during the end of the Exile, among the Jews now living in the Persian Empire, that the first significant contact was made between the Jewish and Iranian cultures. And it is evident in the Bible that Jewish thinking changed after the Exile. The question is then: are these changes the result of the cultural meeting of Jewish and Iranian thinkers, or are these changes due to the shock of Exile? During the Exile, Jews had to change not only how they worshipped, since they no longer had their temple or the animal sacrifices which had been at the center of their faith, but also how they thought about God. The Jewish concept of God as their tribal protector, who would save them from being conquered or exiled, had to undergo revision.

I believe that both factors are present, inspiring the changes in post-exilic Judaism: not only the Jews thinking new thoughts about God and humanity, but also contact with the Zoroastrian religion of the Persian Empire. But then another question arises: how did the ancient Jews learn about Zoroastrianism? It is highly unlikely that Jewish scholars and thinkers ever directly encountered Zoroastrian scriptures such as the Gathas (the founding text of the Zoroastrian faith, attributed to the Prophet Zarathushtra himself) or the Yashts (hymns of praise to various intermediate deities and guardian spirits, adapted from pre- Zarathushtrian mythology). The priestly usage and archaic language of the Avesta scriptures would be a barrier to Jews. But most of Zoroastrianism, known and practiced among the people, existed in oral tradition: through word of mouth, not by the study of written scriptures. This oral tradition included stories about God, the Creation, the ethical and cosmic conflict of Good and Evil, the divine Judgment and the end of the world. The tradition would also include the well-known Zoroastrian symbolism of fire, light and darkness, as well as stories and prayers about the yazatas or intermediate spiritual beings and the Prophet Zarathushtra. These are all elements of what might be called "classic" Zoroastrianism (as it developed from the "primal" Zoroastrianism of the Gathas).

This is how the Jews encountered Zoroastrianism - in private dialogues and political and civic experience, rather than in formal religious studies. And as the Jewish religion was re-made after the catastrophe of the Exile, these Zoroastrian teachings began to filter into the Jewish religious culture.