Are we purely material beings or do we have souls?
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
From theists, who not only say they get their information from the Bible, but also the fact that they are supposed to get their information from the Bible. Is there another source theists are hiding from us?
And yet, you said on post #100:
"It is based on the truth that we are not the physical body, and our natural expression of that truth."
You claim it is the truth, so you must be the authority. What does this have to do with the deal of accepting atheism? Is it that atheists don't have extremely short memories like some theists?
You mean Christians.
There are many theists who are not Christian.
Did you ever consider that?
Theism, in general, is hidden from atheists, naturally. An atheist is a person without, who lacks, who disbelieves, theism.
It is self evident.
It is in our very expression.
There is no way anyone can express themselves, about themselves, without the innate knowledge that they are not their body.
That's absurd, of course I believe and understand theism, I just don't adhere to their supernatural beliefs.
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Jan, the authority on souls and the human body, speaks!
Disbelief in something we have no evidence for is not a crime. In fact disbelief in something we have no evidence for is a quality that raises science above all other disciplines, religions and associated myths.
The way we act, think and express ourselves is a product of our mind and brain. Both every much the same thing.
We don't need to dream up any fanciful soul.
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
Jan can make up unbelievable fantasy and trust the scriptures written by anonymous authors, who did not know where the Sun went at night and believed illness was due to demons processing the body, claim that there is a soul with the same casualness that one may declare the nose on their face, believe the strangest stories upon creation and yet rejects the solid evidence in support of evolution as if it were as nonexistent as his fabled soul.
And gods wishes plans and deeds he knows it all but cant say why or how... and then meeting uncomfortable questions with you are an atheist you could not possibly know...yeh maybe but give us what you got...but he can't offer one single sliver of evidence or even a slightly compelling reason to conclude anything other that his fantasy is no more than unsupported delusion...and worst of all he no doubt pays a good part of his income to be a victim of this con...so he comes here trying to convince others his delusion is real and somehow justifying losing so much money to the cruel con that bleeds him dry and causes him to resort to dishonesty to avoid providing legitimate answers.
But this is what we have come to expect from creationists and IDers...dishonesty and nonsense.
Alex
You are predisposed to not believe. In your present condition, you wouldn’t know if there was evidence. You would be looking for magic tricks, and illogical happenings. That’s not what belief in God entails, nor is it what evidence of God is.
The operative word in that quote was “ourselves”, which led to the understanding that ourselves have minds, and brains, we, ourselves, can act, because of this.
If the mind and brain were the same thing, there would be no need to refer to them with separate names. They are clearly different.
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
Perhaps you could forgive him given that no evidence has ever been presented or even alluded to...simple question...do you have any evidence to support your claim. Put up or shut up.
Alex
Not at all. What evidence have you to support that?
As a non scientist, I accept the evidence of science in and the available evidence, describing the evolution of the universe/space/time, at least back to t+10-43 seconds. None of that entails the existence of any god like creature.
There is no evidence for God. The finality of death, the awe and mystery of the universe around us, the facts of the orginizational and explanatory data of Darwinism and the theory of evolution, has encouraged ancient man to fabricate a reason and gullibility and convention carries that through to today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind
The mind is the set of thinking faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness imagination, perception, thinking, judgement, language and memory, as well as noncognitive aspects such as emotion. Under the scientific physicalist interpretation, the mind is housed at least in part in the brain. The primary competitors to the physicalist interpretations of the mind are idealism, substance dualism, and types of property dualism, and by some lights eliminative materialism and anomalous monism. [3] There is a lengthy tradition in philosophy, religion, psychology, and cognitive science about what constitutes a mind and what are its distinguishing properties.
A phrenologicalmapping[1] of the brain. Phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the Brain
Much more at that link, if you are inclined to learn some science. Clearly, we have no evidence for any beast you would like to call a soul.
We have many things with multiple names. So that logic falls apart.
As to them being clearly different... I guess you've never taken any mind altering drugs.
Don't you mean, as a sane person, I don't adhere to supernatural quackery?
Magical, wishful thinking gobbledygook. That's how you answer questions.
Please do explain this difference, inquiring minds want to know.
Nature/Physics has had 13.83 billion years to evolve the universe we inhabit, and the evolution of life on at least one planet, that is able to think, reason, invent and go a long way to solve that age old question about why and how we are here, without any need for supernatural quackery..
Do you think nature can produce algorithmic processing?
You were asked....
My answer stands.....
Now I suggest you answer the question put to you and why you instead waffle on about an invalid concept re why one thing cannot be referred to by two different names.
Nature/Physics has had 13.83 billion years to evolve the universe we inhabit, and the evolution of life on at least one planet, that is able to think, reason, invent and go a long way to solve that age old question about why and how we are here, without any need for supernatural quackery..
Or since you have decided to progress with your obtuse and dishonest ways, I'll answer it this way also....an algorithm is more a method and a way to achieve goals and solve problems. Nature/the universe/space/time has no goals and no problems, and as such continues to evolve without fear nor favour from any non existent deity or weird fanatical stances taken by you or your imaginary soul.
Or if that is all too much for you to bare, this may help......
http://www.algorithmsinnature.org/
Algorithms in Nature
Computer science and biology have shared a long history together. For many years, computer scientists have designed algorithms to process and analyze biological data (e.g. microarrays), and likewise, biologists have discovered several operating principles that have inspired new optimization methods (e.g. neural networks). Recently, these two directions have been converging based on the view that biological processes are inherently algorithms that nature has designed to solve computational problems.
This website documents new studies that have taken a joint computational-biological approach to study the algorithmic properties of biological processes across all levels of life (molecular, cellular, and organism).
more at link.....
or this.......................
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~02317/
None of which validates any supernatural beast, you may ignorantly refer to as a soul.
It can and it does, the bodies nervous system can decode the messages it receives through a step by step method of rules, yet it doesn't rely on that as it can also decode those messages heuristically, by trial and error.