Theist zone

[Anomalocaris]

Look up there particle/wave split discussion to see where you made your mistake. Also speak with any physicist to understand how gravity is WAY much more than what you say. .

Have we observed interference patterns in Gravity, or paralleled the photo-electric effect in gravity?

Nice setting up gravity as a straw man. I refuse to acknowledge it. .

There is appearently a indivisible elementary particle called humoron, you either possess one quanta of humor or none at all.

[reverendjeremiah]

There is appearently a indivisible elementary particle called humoron, you either possess one quanta of humor or none at all.

Methinks that Chuck is as smart as he is humorous.


I need a goblin smile/icon, so that whenever anyone mentions "souls" I can put those icons in the post doing mischevious little things like

<--- Goblin fooled you into thinking he was a soul! Loki will promote him to Private first class Goblin soon!

[Captain Scarlet]

1- What leads you to assume that there is a storage mechanism external to the brain?
There have been recorded instances of people recalling events that happened while 0 brain activity was going on or at least that the brain was unresponsive to input (light, sound, pain etc.) While some of them may be deducible with a creative imagination and some of them might have even been coached. The likelihood of all of them having no foundation in experience, IMO, is slim.

There are recorded instances of miraculous cures at Peter Popov roadshows, and the healings of South Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. I bet if we did scientific studies these wouldn't amount to much. That isn't a great basis for belief nor a scientific one. Compare this with 50-60 years of research into diseases of the brain, medical studies into the effects of brain injury, pictures gathered through MRI which clearly indicate the physical nature of memory, the ID, what parts of the brain are responsible for what etc

2- What leads you to conclude that this is immaterial?
I know of no physical storage medium (with respect to the human organism) that continues to function outside of biological life. Even qualia, a sense of time, intuition all immaterial and purely conceptual cease on ceasing of brain activity (waking up from a coma with the idea it's 1970, etc.)

Indeed neither do I.

3- How would an immaterial anything interact with a material something?
IDK...

Indeed neither do I...but if it did (and it must if this argument is to go through) then is it immaterial in any sense if it can interact with the material.

4- If it does interact it must be doing so billions of times a second across the earth in humankind, so why can't we detect its presence?
maybe we don't yet have the means to measure it, or maybe it's not possible with material instruments to measure the immaterial, ID

Maybe...or maybe the reason is that the immaterial just does not exist. But I wondn't consider the 2 alternatives as having equal merit nor equal chances of being true.

5- Is it present in other animals as well as humankind? To my understanding it is

Interesting...care to speculate what happens after their deaths to their souls

6- The view that this is a soul and is the one consistent with xtianity is confirmation bias (as you concede)
yes.. but I'm open to possession by aliens, mass mind control, parasite infection, super complicated bacteria manipulation or other concepts

Yes we are all broadly open to ideas, I just don't advertise a willingness to believe in extremely unlikely ones.

7- I cannot see the logic that leads you to that conclusion you have conceded its fallacious (bias on your part)
You can't escape bias. Even if we both saw a soul literally coming out of someone's body we would each interpret it different, bias does not mean false, although it can imply impartial which I fully admit to. I still feel it's logical, not based on evidence though based on faith. If evidence supersedes that then I'll probably accept it. However my faith has show proven results to me that place events in my life clearly on the side of the synchronistic rather than probability and I see no reason not to apply it in this case.

True you cannot escape bias. Which is why we use methodological naturalism to assess the likelihood of something being true. Under this approach substance dualism is extremely unlikely.

[Violet]

Wrong. Gravity exists WAY MORE than just an "idea". Look up the particle/wave split discussion to see where you made your mistake. Also speak with any physicist to understand how gravity is WAY much more than what you say. Nice setting up gravity as a straw man. I refuse to acknowledge it. Let your crows roost on it.

You know: "" usually means that I am being silly.

Really? And here I thought I was directly responding in most of the..oh, I dont know..5 or 6 pages back even up to now. How much more responding do I have to do to qualify as "responding" to you? Not to mention I steered this topic towards souls. I believe my original post was: "no souls, no need for salvation, no need for jesus, no need for afterlives". But by all means, feel free to ignore my comparisons, as I in no way hold them as a qualifier to wether your interest in this matter is sincere.

I certainly didn't see anyone named in your quotes. Further, you maimed quotes by pulling them away from their context, shall we take "-"Even if we both saw a soul literally coming out of someone's body we would each interpret it different" = not a soul, but goblins!" against "You can't escape bias. Even if we both saw a soul literally coming out of someone's body we would each interpret it different, bias does not mean false, although it can imply impartial which I fully admit to.". Maiming quotes by pulling them away from their context isn't a practice I much appreciate.

I do feel free to ignore your comparisons, but I actually read them and felt many of them were bogus comparisons. I agree with the intent behind the first of them (-"I still feel it's logical, not based on evidence though based on faith" = goblins), but the way you said it makes it seem not worth the time of a response. Perhaps if you said "I could say the same about the goblins in my backyard" or something along those lines, then it would be clear what you meant and it would be a decent argument.

It might do one to remember that I have a different definition for evidence than most do, and that my understanding is that everything you believe/know/are aware of is faith-based. So while your argument on this might be a decent argument against others, to me it is garbage.

Really? Then you really didnt get what I was trying to say about the goblins then did you?

*QUICK POLL*
If you understand the point I was trying to make with the Goblins vs. Souls, then please thumb this post up

Are you so quick to dismiss Goblins fooling us into thinking that souls exist? If so then you are WAY MORE closed minded then you claim me to be.

I claim to be open minded on the issue of souls? No. I believe they are not real. I also believe your goblins are not real, and that your sword is not real. I am so quick as to instantly dismiss that Goblins are real, let alone are actually having an effect upon me as defined.

Im not sure if I understand this sentence. Could you clarify?

Sure You do not believe in souls. You do not believe in goblins. Souls are not a thing of the intersubjective realm, as are not goblins. Therefore proof (scientific, intersubjective, empirical, tangible, real) of either of these things is entirely impossible, and therefore you should stop asking for it. Evidence of them can only come from your own subjective view, or from the faith you have in (an)other(s) being right about the reality of souls.

[reverendjeremiah]

You know: "" usually means that I am being silly.

I also remember you saying that you do your jokes by acting serious.

I certainly didn't see anyone named in your quotes. Further, you maimed quotes by pulling them away from their context, shall we take "-"Even if we both saw a soul literally coming out of someone's body we would each interpret it different" = not a soul, but goblins!" against "You can't escape bias. Even if we both saw a soul literally coming out of someone's body we would each interpret it different, bias does not mean false, although it can imply impartial which I fully admit to.". Maiming quotes by pulling them away from their context isn't a practice I much appreciate.

We are talking about fictional crap right? Souls...goblins...all the same to me. How serious do you expect me to get when discussing the finer points of Dr.Dooms mystical powers without eventually breaking down and having fun with the conversation?

Shall we have a serious discussion on all of the Bible verses that discuss unicorns, Satyrs and dragons next?

Do Satyrs have souls?

It might do one to remember that I have a different definition for evidence than most do, and that my understanding is that everything you believe/know/are aware of is faith-based. So while your argument on this might be a decent argument against others, to me it is garbage.[/quote
I would say you cut me right down to my very sou with that commentl..if I knew what a soul REALLY was..that is.
[quote]I claim to be open minded on the issue of souls? No. I believe they are not real. I also believe your goblins are not real, and that your sword is not real. I am so quick as to instantly dismiss that Goblins are real, let alone are actually having an effect upon me as defined.

hock: But I put so much effort into them..and my sword was so cool sounding.

Sure You do not believe in souls. You do not believe in goblins. Souls are not a thing of the intersubjective realm, as are not goblins. Therefore proof (scientific, intersubjective, empirical, tangible, real) of either of these things is entirely impossible, and therefore you should stop asking for it. Evidence of them can only come from your own subjective view, or from the faith you have in (an)other(s) being right about the reality of souls.

YAAAAAYYYYY!!!! Then my sword and Goblins do exist!! On the non-intersubjective realm that is. How dare you question the reality of my sword and my Goblins!

<--- Goblin made you put "reality" and "soul" in the same sentence..HAHA..fooled you again!

[Violet]

I also remember you saying that you do your jokes by acting serious.

Funny guy ^_^ Hehe ^_^

We are talking about fictional crap right? Souls...goblins...all the same to me. How serious do you expect me to get when discussing the finer points of Dr.Dooms mystical powers without eventually breaking down and having fun with the conversation?

Shall we have a serious discussion on all of the Bible verses that discuss unicorns, Satyrs and dragons next?

Do Satyrs have souls?

I consider them to be fictional, and think i understand where you are coming from here. Tacky and Watson are being serious on there end, so being frivolous on your end seems more like baiting them than anything. I mean... if a couple of people were having a serious discussion on the nature of rape, and I pop in with the intent of having a good time being silly about rape... then i've been quite rude. Even I won't post something along the lines of "Baby should have been born to suffer through 15 minutes of trying to breath because bed-sheets are more comfortable than the womb" in a thread where people are seriously moved and upset by the event taking place. I know that the two situations are not perfectly equable, but it is the same idea (not being rude by being frivolous and ridiculous when other are being serious).

Oh please, spare me... why do you think i usually avoid both the religion and atheist forums?

And yes, satyrs have souls.

But I put so much effort into them..and my sword was so cool sounding.

Cool sounding? Yes. If I had a sword that could 1-shot regulos, you better bet I would use it. I think you could have stood to put a lot more effort into them, honestly. Not that it is super-important, of course

YAAAAAYYYYY!!!! Then my sword and Goblins do exist!! On the non-intersubjective realm that is. How dare you question the reality of my sword and my Goblins!

<--- Goblin made you put "reality" and "soul" in the same sentence..HAHA..fooled you again!

Yes, everything exists, silly However, 'reality' is a word to describe the intersubjective world we seem to share (the one that includes the cars on the road and the rain and bananas). I find it perfectly reasonable to question the reality of souls, goblins, your sword, and honest members of the VPP.

An alternate definition of reality can be found here: the soul is a reality to those who believe in it. Really, people almost never refer to the objective when they use 'reality', as none of us know what that is (and if we do, we are morons and deserve the mockery)

[reverendjeremiah]

I consider them to be fictional, and think i understand where you are coming from here. Tacky and Watson are being serious on there end, so being frivolous on your end seems more like baiting them than anything. I mean... if a couple of people were having a serious discussion on the nature of rape, and I pop in with the intent of having a good time being silly about rape... then i've been quite rude. Even I won't post something along the lines of "Baby should have been born to suffer through 15 minutes of trying to breath because bed-sheets are more comfortable than the womb" in a thread where people are seriously moved and upset by the event taking place. I know that the two situations are not perfectly equable, but it is the same idea (not being rude by being frivolous and ridiculous when other are being serious).

Well, I was serious until they started repeating themselves and saying things like "souls are different from person to person"..thats when I thought; "You know..thats the same way I feel about unicorns!" Did I bait them after that? FUCK YEAH I DID! I dont think its rude. I consider it adding flare to the forum. Hey, I tried to be serious. As far as your example..GOOD GOD GIRL..my lampooning of a soul doesnt come anywhere close to mocking a dying baby!!! Dare you suggest I, as a 40 year old man, do not realize REAL seriousness when it is in front of me?

Dying baby = dead serious.
Souls = May as well discuss Goblins and magical swords along with it.

And yes, satyrs have souls.[/quote
OMG!!!!!!!1!1!111!ELEVENTYONE! It all makes sense now!

[quote]
Cool sounding? Yes. If I had a sword that could 1-shot regulos, you better bet I would use it. I think you could have stood to put a lot more effort into them, honestly. Not that it is super-important, of course

I apologise if my sword was not up for the occasion. I will try better next time...then again, it is called "death of dreams".

Yes, everything exists, silly However, 'reality' is a word to describe the intersubjective world we seem to share (the one that includes the cars on the road and the rain and bananas). I find it perfectly reasonable to question the reality of souls, goblins, your sword, and honest members of the VPP.

An alternate definition of reality can be found here: the soul is a reality to those who believe in it. Really, people almost never refer to the objective when they use 'reality', as none of us know what that is (and if we do, we are morons and deserve the mockery)

Yes, I am well aware that "reality" includes everything.. including things that we imagine right on the spot. So that means Allah, Zues and Jesus are real at the same time. That means young Earth creationism and modern evolution are both real at the same time...but "really real" is different.

By the way..dont ever question my sword again!

[Violet]

Well, I was serious until they started repeating themselves and saying things like "souls are different from person to person"..thats when I thought; "You know..thats the same way I feel about unicorns!" Did I bait them after that? FUCK YEAH I DID! I dont think its rude. I consider it adding flare to the forum. Hey, I tried to be serious. As far as your example..GOOD GOD GIRL..my lampooning of a soul doesnt come anywhere close to mocking a dying baby!!! Dare you suggest I, as a 40 year old man, do not realize REAL seriousness when it is in front of me?

Dying baby = dead serious.
Souls = May as well discuss Goblins and magical swords along with it.

The seriousness of a dying baby is a far cry from the seriousness of a dying hero. Fetuses don't set my emotions on fire, and neither do babies. Granted: suffering things in front of me is scarcely fun, but it could get a lot more serious than a dying baby. Don't worry: i understand that the gravity of a dying baby is many times greater than not adhering perfectly to social protocol

I was attempting to suggest that the same thing is behind being ridiculous/silly towards anything that others are being quite serious about, and that is either a lack of concern for the cares of those people, or intentional rudeness.

I apologise if my sword was not up for the occasion. I will try better next time...then again, it is called "death of dreams".

Yes, it would be quite ironic to succeed with a sword of that name

Yes, I am well aware that "reality" includes everything.. including things that we imagine right on the spot. So that means Allah, Zues and Jesus are real at the same time. That means young Earth creationism and modern evolution are both real at the same time...but "really real" is different.

By the way..dont ever question my sword again!

Existence and reality are not the same, however. I tend to avoid using 'real' to mean anything other than 'of the intersubjective world', and I noted alternative definitions mostly to not intentionally omit them (although i do not adhere to any that is not 'exists intersubjectively'). As it turns out, Allah, Zeus, and Jesus are intersubjective as characters... but as gods they are 'only subjective' (if a solipsist enters this thread and argues against the existence of the intersubjective, i am going to pull the faith card so fast. I already have it out and ready ). Young Earth Creationism and Evolution are both real. Lies are quite real, as it happens

I question your sword, and the man behind it

Why the hell don't we have any solipsists on this board? I"m going to go ahead and call it for now: everyone here has faith in the intersubjective (aka: reality as most humans seem to understand it).

[tackattack]

---

1- What leads you to assume that there is a storage mechanism external to the brain?
There have been recorded instances of people recalling events that happened while 0 brain activity was going on or at least that the brain was unresponsive to input (light, sound, pain etc.) While some of them may be deducible with a creative imagination and some of them might have even been coached. The likelihood of all of them having no foundation in experience, IMO, is slim.

There are recorded instances of miraculous cures at Peter Popov roadshows, and the healings of South Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. I bet if we did scientific studies these wouldn't amount to much. That isn't a great basis for belief nor a scientific one. Compare this with 50-60 years of research into diseases of the brain, medical studies into the effects of brain injury, pictures gathered through MRI which clearly indicate the physical nature of memory, the ID, what parts of the brain are responsible for what etc

2- What leads you to conclude that this is immaterial?
I know of no physical storage medium (with respect to the human organism) that continues to function outside of biological life. Even qualia, a sense of time, intuition all immaterial and purely conceptual cease on ceasing of brain activity (waking up from a coma with the idea it's 1970, etc.)

Indeed neither do I.

3- How would an immaterial anything interact with a material something?
IDK...

Indeed neither do I...but if it did (and it must if this argument is to go through) then is it immaterial in any sense if it can interact with the material.

4- If it does interact it must be doing so billions of times a second across the earth in humankind, so why can't we detect its presence?
maybe we don't yet have the means to measure it, or maybe it's not possible with material instruments to measure the immaterial, ID

Maybe...or maybe the reason is that the immaterial just does not exist. But I wondn't consider the 2 alternatives as having equal merit nor equal chances of being true.

5- Is it present in other animals as well as humankind? To my understanding it is

Interesting...care to speculate what happens after their deaths to their souls

6- The view that this is a soul and is the one consistent with xtianity is confirmation bias (as you concede)
yes.. but I'm open to possession by aliens, mass mind control, parasite infection, super complicated bacteria manipulation or other concepts

Yes we are all broadly open to ideas, I just don't advertise a willingness to believe in extremely unlikely ones.

7- I cannot see the logic that leads you to that conclusion you have conceded its fallacious (bias on your part)
You can't escape bias. Even if we both saw a soul literally coming out of someone's body we would each interpret it different, bias does not mean false, although it can imply impartial which I fully admit to. I still feel it's logical, not based on evidence though based on faith. If evidence supersedes that then I'll probably accept it. However my faith has show proven results to me that place events in my life clearly on the side of the synchronistic rather than probability and I see no reason not to apply it in this case.

True you cannot escape bias. Which is why we use methodological naturalism to assess the likelihood of something being true. Under this approach substance dualism is extremely unlikely.

---

1-And I admitted that some of them could be completely fictitious. I'm not a physicalist. I do not require emperical proof that gravity works. I don't need the numbers to back up it's functioning. I have experiential evidence that's not completely conclusive but strongly indicative that gravity works as described. If you disagree with what they've stated, test it. Just like finding out how a magician does that wonderful "trick", some people just enjoy the show, some enjoy figuring out how he does it, some just heckle to heckle. In this case I'm content to watch the show until someone else duplicates the trick and explains it.
2- Agreed.
3- I'm positing that it doesn't affect the physical, but the conceptual. If the physical brain inputs to the conceptual perspective, and the immaterial contributes to teh conceptual perspective, then they wouldn't have to directly interact, but could still influence the maerial through the conceptual. I really don't know though.
4-People believed in gravity before they could measure it. It was based on experience and a perception that it was part of reality. If it doesn't adversly impact my view on reality, I really don't see why shutting out the possiblity leads to growth in that area of knowledge. It could very well just not exist though.
5- After thinking about it for a bit, no I don't think they do. While they can have an intellegence, instinct, memory and reasoning processes , I'm not aware of them naming themselves or having that irreducilbe sense of self I'm referring to as a soul. So I'd never really thought about pets and souls before so I jumped in a little quickly on that one, thanks for the opportunity to recant.
6-It was a show of openness not a dispay of craziness, but you got that.
7-Which has strong ties to physicalism. I agree that if somthing supernatural occurs, it is then considered part of the natural world. But wouldn't it then be unnatural if immeasurable but witnessed in nature? If you preclude the supernatural/ or what's unnatural, then how would you observe it to measure it? If it's immeasuable permanently couldn't you just accept the observance without measurment and rationalize an explination?

[Captain Scarlet]

1-Gravity is a poor qanalogy as we all experience it in the same way and it is independently verifiable and objectively true. Souls are not.
2- We do agree.
3- But the conceptual does not exist without the physical. The idea of for example the existence of 'thought of an apple', 'numbers' and 'logic' existing without material minds to instantiate them, or the frameworks in which they operate, is a bizarre concept that would need explanation. These are inventions of humanity and to ask if they exist within their frameworks (eg numbers in a math framework) is a trivial question where the answer is of course yes. But outside of those frameworks (invented by physical human minds) they do NOT exist in any sense. They have no independent instantiation within the universe.
4-People believed in gravity before they could measure it, because everyone experienced it in the same way. Not the case with 'immaterial' experience in all its forms. There are lots of subjective personal experiences, all of which cannot be true, but all of which can be false and subject to confirmation bias and wish thinking.
5- Equally interesting. Why would they not have the same opportunities as the human animal? How do the animals achieve their level of intelligence and personalities without souls?
6-Yes I did get it. But unfortunately souls are in the same category as aliens, crop circles, crystal healing etc for me. Obviously not for thee
7-Consider the water > wine miracle. The qunatity and quality of water, then subsequently wine was measurable from an apparent supernatural miracle. It would also have been possible to devise controls such that all possible natural means of making the miracle 'appear' were eliminated, or if attempted caught in the act. I would contend it is therefore possible to measure the impact of the supernatural, its just never been done; which is one of the reasons why its probably not true.