Does the soul exist?

[Mashuna]

Soul as understood by the majority of professing Christians is an immortal spirit creature that was given a body. Once that body is used up, then what's left behind is that creature.

Other professing Christians, the minority, believe that once the body is used up, the person can come to life again via having his personality and consciousness transferred to a new body. It can either be a spirit one or another material one.


Some have taken issue with this latter view by stating that what is being described isn't a resurrection but a re-creation. However, the professed Christians who prefer this particular understanding have no doubt that the biblical God has the ability to infuse the same consciousness into new bodies and that what is being replicated is indeed the person himself albeit with a new body.


BTW

Personality is data expressed in such a way via behavior as to make a person identifiable. It constitutes feelings, memories, skills, preferences, faults and virtues.

Ok, so you've got soul as something immortal. I'm not sure if it's characterised as something created at conception or having always existed, but I don't think the distinction really matters here. I don't find this type of soul to be a coherent concept, but then you're not arguing for it, so that doesn't matter.

Personality and consciousness are (in my view), emergent properties of the body and brain, and in your interpretation of the bible, this is what is restored in a new body. If you're having a new body created - effectively a clone - then that's you. I'm not sure what this separate thing is that you claim is being transferred.

However, I've just been reading the thread on the hard problem of consciousness, which is influencing my answer here. So feel free to ignore this bit, as I don't want to derail this thread in that direction. My understanding of your view is that the soul is just a synonym for consciousness, and that by God recreating the body of the person, consciousness is likewise recreated. Is that a reasonable summation?

Well, if there is an aversion to debate it isn't based on inability or fear of not being right in my views. It's due to the time-wasting uselessness. When debaters feel they being hemmed into a corner via logic they shift into the "I don't see!" mode and begin claiming obscurity regardless clarity.


Just one ruse among many which is cunningly deployed. As the debate continues, other tactics are used such as strawman, where the debater creates his own arguments, attributes them to his opponent and begins to vehemently attack them. Equivocation, where the same terms are given other meanings and the debater argues against those chosen irrelevant meanings. Two wrongs make a right, where the debater attempts to justify behavior based on previous similar behavior by those conveniently and arbitrarily tagged as representative of the opposing view. Card stacking, where the debater puts on blinders and presents only one side of the story or data while totally ignoring the opposing information from the same source. Snowing, where the debater does what Oliver North did in order to evade dealing with questions. etcetera.


If one plows through all that by ignoring it and continuing to be rational, then one can expect to be a participant in the magnificent finale when the debater commences to heckle jeckle and vent emotional steam via disgorging a seemingly interminable barrage of insults. Which inspires me into using the glorious ignore button in order to reduce the bedlam on my screen.

So if I know the outcome-why would I want to submerge myself in that kind of exercise in futility?

I don't know - presumably you get something out of it, you've been around for a few years.

 

[applecorped]

Yes, it exists.

 

[Radrook]

Ok, so you've got soul as something immortal.

No, I said that's the most widely accepted concept.

I'm not sure if it's characterized as something created at conception or having always existed, but I don't think the distinction really matters here. I don't find this type of soul to be a coherent concept, but then you're not arguing for it, so that doesn't matter.

Correct!

Personality and consciousness are (in my view), emergent properties of the body and brain, and in your interpretation of the bible, this is what is restored in a new body. If you're having a new body created - effectively a clone - then that's you. I'm not sure what this separate thing is that you claim is being transferred.

Data. And that's where the controversy comes in by those who say that storage and recreation of data is not a resurrection at all but a recreation or imitation of what previously existed. It's like the Sci Fi film where a person's consciousness is supposedly downloaded into a computer. Some would argue that the downloading of personality data isn't downloading the person at all but merely the data. The films I've watched concerning this subject always conclude by pronouncing the person dead and the computer downloaded replica as a mere imitation.

Of course these are human efforts which are being portrayed as failures. But we aren't dealing with a mere human downloaded nor a mere computer. So from a Christian who believes that to be the method of resurrection there shouldn't be a problem.

However, I've just been reading the thread on the hard problem of consciousness, which is influencing my answer here. So feel free to ignore this bit, as I don't want to derail this thread in that direction. My understanding of your view is that the soul is just a synonym for consciousness, and that by God recreating the body of the person, consciousness is likewise recreated. Is that a reasonable summation?

Yes, that's a correct description of what the minority of professed Christians believe.

I don't know - presumably you get something out of it, you've been around for a few years.

True. And initially I began on the wrong foot by furiously debating every minute detail with everyone available and on every relevant sub-topic. Something I successfully avoid doing now.

 

[godless dave]

Oh, concerning Christians being lucky, let's not forget their willingness to, you know, insert Pagan traditions for convenience, and to look more attractive, and then later on to keep people from reading too much, because, you know, only those priests have the ability to understand all this philosophical stuff.

And don't forget their willingness to ram a sword, spear, or musketball through people who declined to convert to the new faith.

 

[Radrook]

I wonder what would happen if I called all the citizens who support a human rights violation government true Americans.
I wouldn't be surprised if my general level of intelligence would become suspect. Not at all and for what should be obvious reasons.

 

[Foster Zygote]

True. And initially I began on the wrong foot by furiously debating every minute detail with everyone available and on every relevant sub-topic. Something I successfully avoid doing now.

From the outside it looks a lot like evading uncomfortable questions.

 

[edge]

If you want to believe it's all made up then fine that's your prerogative John freestone.
If you think people are incapable of quoting what was said that's all fine too.
And no you can't use what I write in your sig., I can't help you there to promote your stance.
Use your own imagination and be original.

 

[Perpetual Seeker]

If you want to believe it's all made up then fine that's your prerogative John freestone.

Why shouldn't we believe it's all made up? I can think of exactly 0 reasons you have given of why it should be true. That's all I'm asking. Something that is not from the Bible, because a book that says it is true obviously shouldn't be taken for its word.

If you continue to say that we can believe what we like, etc, and say you are right but won't give any reasons except for quoting random verses from the Bible, well I'll just have to think you have no reason why you believe what you believe; you just really hope it's true.

 

[Foster Zygote]

And no you can't use what I write in your sig., I can't help you there to promote your stance.

Now I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember you using something I wrote (taken out of context) in your own sig in the recent past. I don't seem to recall you asking my permission.

 

[Civilized Worm]

I find the prospect of not existing past the point of death to be scary. Being a believer would seem to give you a sense of hope in times when things are rough. I think faith is a gift. I don't know there is a heavin, but the hope that one exists makes me happy.

Well if you're going to just make stuff up why not just pretend you're never going to die in the first place?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Yes, it exists.[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_239154891ef687c06c.jpg[/qimg]

You beat me to it. I was thinking of doing something more or less in that style.

 

[John Freestone]

If you want to believe it's all made up then fine that's your prerogative John freestone.

Not really a 'prerogative'. That would seem to apply more to your kind: as the dictionary at onelook.com says, "a right reserved exclusively by a particular person or group". I like to think I exercise a general right to argue rationally against unsupported claims. It's generally understood that Jesus didn't write the New Testament himself, so if you say "This pretty much says it all by Jesus himself" and then quote it, you are technically wrong. Someone must have written down what they remember Jesus saying, as best they can, usually some time after his death, which is not "saying it all by Jesus himself".

Now, the teachings of Jesus were, by most accounts, very difficult for most listeners to understand, and even his close disciples are supposed to have struggled, so much so that some of them had big doubts about the genuineness of his claims and one dobbed him in to the authorities. Furthermore, he often used metaphor and allegorical stories, which are intrinsically highly ambiguous and also lend themselves to chinese-whisper style alterations and elaborations on retelling. It is very likely that there are some distortions of what he said, assuming there even was a historical Jesus of Nazareth. Having been written, the NT is highly ambiguous and self-contradictory to readers now, and those who profess that the answer to any particular metaphysical question is just there, clear as day, and written by Jesus or God, are, IMO, simply deluded.

Add to that insights from the Essene Gospel of Peace that Jesus may have spent some of his time taking people into the woods to spend their time naked, fasting, praying, bathing and performing emetic practices and colonic irrigations to rid them of their "sins" (diseases, infestations - perhaps including tape worms, from the descriptions), and the apparent lack of such in the NT (though I'm happy to be educated on the point, since I'm no expert by any means), the value of the NT as history or the sole repository of divine truth on whether we have souls or not (the question under discussion here) is brought into serious doubt.

If you think people are incapable of quoting what was said that's all fine too.

But you yourself said earlier that God came down to earth in a flash of lightning that was probably some kind of spaceship, didn't you?!

And no you can't use what I write in your sig., I can't help you there to promote your stance.

Shucks. Why, what's wrong with my stance that you mustn't let me promote it? It's only based on reason, after all. Am I evil and going to hell because I don't believe your New Testament words of Jesus? Is everyone else, those who were brought up in all the other thousands of religious traditions?

Use your own imagination and be original.

Your argument consists entirely of 2000-year-old, translated quotations!

Now I could be mistaken, but I seem to remember you using something I wrote (taken out of context) in your own sig in the recent past. I don't seem to recall you asking my permission.

I wondered what the protocol was. I'm not sure I wanted to use his text really, it would be disrespectful to more sensible Christians, who I am sure get sick of their fringe fundamentalists of various persuasions. It was just a fun way to point out to this particular one how ridiculous the assertion was - quoting someone who quoted Jesus and saying it was Jesus who said it. [Edit: Actually, did anyone ask Jesus if we could quote him?]

I am angry that a discussion of whether we have a soul or not has been dragged kicking and screaming down a fundamental Christian's alley to be beaten into submission with irrational religious bigotry. I would have liked to have ignored him altogether, but sometimes you just have to take a stand.

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Use your own imagination and be original.

Oooookay… is that like a quote drone advising others not to quote?

 

[Radrook]

From the outside it looks a lot like evading uncomfortable questions.

Not all questions merit a response.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Not all questions merit a response.

Let's say, hypothetically, that someone told a bald faced lie in defense of someone else's lie that he'd presented as support for one of his claims. Let's say that the lie was pathetically clumsy and easily exposed, as well as unnecessary because said person could have simply admitted that what he'd thought to be supporting evidence actually lacked legitimacy. But instead he chose to lie about the reason for the inaccuracies of the presented evidence, even appearing to imply that he was the original source of the information. In such an hypothetical situation, would it be legitimate to question the integrity of said individual? Would a failure on his part to even acknowledge the lie smack of intellectual cowardice?

 

[edge]

I never used anything of yours Foster Zygote, as a signature.

Well that's a nice rant John freestone, but I see Jesus working in my life and that proves by the gospels to me that it is as correct as can be…. and especially about our eternal souls.

To have the written word acknowledged in my life by his works today in my life synchs it for and myself and that’s how that works also for other believers too.

Radrook is right, not all your queries/answers need responses. How ya doing Brother Rad?

And furthermore:
As a skeptic you’ll never know for sure till the end.

If pointing out what is written about our eternal soul in my religion bothers you, then you need look inside yourself and truly know why.

So for me what is written about or quoted from Jesus is proven every day and that makes it true.

 

[-Fran-]

So for me what is written about or quoted from Jesus is proven every day and that makes it true.

Uh... no, it doesn't!

 

[Perpetual Seeker]

Well that's a nice rant John freestone, but I see Jesus working in my life and that proves by the gospels to me that it is as correct as can be…. and especially about our eternal souls.

To have the written word acknowledged in my life by his works today in my life synchs it for and myself and that’s how that works also for other believers too.

Radrook is right, not all your queries/answers need responses. How ya doing Brother Rad?

And furthermore:
As a skeptic you’ll never know for sure till the end.

If pointing out what is written about our eternal soul in my religion bothers you, then you need look inside yourself and truly know why.

So for me what is written about or quoted from Jesus is proven every day and that makes it true.

So let's get this straight. You post in a thread that asks if there is a soul, that you are certain there is. We ask for proof, and you refuse to provide any, instead acting self-righteous in saying you are right, you are positive you are right, and we will find out that you are right, one day?

And you wonder why we're skeptical?

Can we please have some concrete proof, or else an admission that you really have none?

 

[Civilized Worm]

Radrook is right, not all your queries/answers need responses. How ya doing Brother Rad?

And furthermore:
As a skeptic you’ll never know for sure till the end.

If pointing out what is written about our eternal soul in my religion bothers you, then you need look inside yourself and truly know why.

So for me what is written about or quoted from Jesus is proven every day and that makes it true.

Did you miss the part where Radrook pointed out that your religion does NOT feature an eternal soul?

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Let's say, hypothetically, that someone told a bald faced lie in defense of someone else's lie that he'd presented as support for one of his claims. Let's say that the lie was pathetically clumsy and easily exposed, as well as unnecessary because said person could have simply admitted that what he'd thought to be supporting evidence actually lacked legitimacy. But instead he chose to lie about the reason for the inaccuracies of the presented evidence, even appearing to imply that he was the original source of the information. In such an hypothetical situation, would it be legitimate to question the integrity of said individual? Would a failure on his part to even acknowledge the lie smack of intellectual cowardice?

Hey, slow down for a moment, that's too many uncomfortable questions at once!

But evidence? Where was there any evidence presented? Unless you're talking about how some people's idea of evidence is to derail the debate into a red herring about "persecution" or "heckling and jeckling" just to avoid having to defend their psychotic ideas. Also, I agree that if an individual makes an appeal to his own authority on a subject, demanding to be respected as a legitimate source for reference, then it's certainly fair to call that individual's integrity into question.