Only three Theories explain the Relation between our Soul and Matter

[neil]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

WOW
But if you asked 100 people what a soul is, you probably
will get over 400 different answers as reflective on this forum.

NOTE: If you check Collins Dictionary, they claim a soul consists
of such diverse things such as your mind and thoughts. By the way, I checked
and could not find your definition of the soul no where on the Internet: I do not understand.

Or probably not even in the entire one & only spiritual universe either...SMILES.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by BigJohn

And....... some people start taking their medication again and the 'spirits' stop talking to them, right?

Perhaps, but I've no experience with either of such things..
You'll have to ask the others.

Originally Posted by iamthat

OK, let's try to make some sense of it.

Person A says "I believe that yetis exist in the Himalayas."

Person B says "I believe that yetis do not exist in the Himalayas."

From what Altair has said, Person A has a belief but Person B does not have a belief???

The logic of this escapes me (and I am a fairly logical fellow).

Peace

I'm done with this, you simply refuse to acknowledge logical thinking, which is important if the need arises to settle definitions. Then we can settle the issue, not justify statements such as ''I believe (positive) in that I don't believe (negative)'', which is more complicated than an argument should be. Non-belief isn't a belief, which is about a positive.

[r6r6]

BigJohn--WOW But if you asked 100 people what a soul is, you probably will get over 400 different answers as reflective on this forum.

Big John, Old news for me as Ive been stating similar comment here at SF and other forums for 20 years.

I do not understand.

If you cannot grasp soul = biological I'm not sure you looking at same dictionaries I am or that your failing a attempting what appears to me, to be rather simple, rational, logical common sense conclusion.


Lets take a common statement we have heard for many years in news when a plane or train crashes and the commentator says there were so and so number of souls on that plane train etc.

Do you follow any rational logical common considerations just with that example alone, connecting soul >to< biological.

If you still want to go further with the what is the best definition for soul I can do that and I would start with the umpteen many definitions we find in dictionaries.

And we can then see how many of those connect soul to a biological.

Do follow my drift above?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soul = biological. Simple not complex.

Biological/soul

Intention { * ? * } and ego { i } > > arrow-of-time > > is forward and outward

Love ( ( oo ) ) and integrity { /\Y/\ } past < now < future is wholistically inward as one

"Unity is plural and at a minimum two"...Bucky Fuller

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by r6r6r

Lets take a common statement we have heard for many years in news when a plane or train crashes and the commentator says there were so and so number of souls on that plane train etc.[/size][/font]

Do you follow any rational logical common considerations just with that example alone, connecting soul >to< biological.

If you still want to go further with the what is the best definition for soul I can do that and I would start with the umpteen many definitions we find in dictionaries.

And we can then see how many of those connect soul to a biological.

Do follow my drift above?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soul = biological. Simple not complex.

Biological/soul

Intention { * ? * } and ego { i } > > arrow-of-time > > is forward and outward

Love ( ( oo ) ) and integrity { /\Y/\ } past < now < future is wholistically inward as one

"Unity is plural and at a minimum two"...Bucky Fuller

I would like to go further.
If you look at Collins Dictionary, what you mentioned is only one definition of soul. For some reason,
you seem to be ignoring the other definitions that dictionary mentions. Why is that?

[Siemens]

Originally Posted by Altair

But in any practical way, nobody goes around believing that the world is only matter. There's no church, no doctrine, no nothing about it.

You have to differentiate between agnostics and actual atheists. I think it is okay to be agnostics: You say I don’t believe in god or souls but I do not explicitly believe that the likelihood for the existence of god or souls is about zero. The latter is what (non-agnositc) atheists do: They explicitly believe that there is no god or soul. So far so good. I agree that not believing in something shouldn’t be seen as faith, belief, or religion. But...

But the problem with atheists is that they go beyond that what agnostics do. While agnostics just don’t believe, atheists do believe in certain assumptions. You say there is no doctrine but there is one! As I mentioned in my last post: Atheists positively believe without any proof that human consciousness is generated by the brain alone.

“Human consciousness is generated by the brain alone (without a soul)”

is a statement that constitutes a positive believe and therefore it is part of the doctrine. So a doctrine does exist.

Originally Posted by Altair

It's just people who observe existence and come to the conclusion that existence of spirits cannot be proven.

The fact that the existence of spirits cannot be proven doesn’t logically lead to the conclusion:

“Human consciousness is generated by the brain alone (without the soul)”

Darwin’s theory of evolution can't be proven either. Hence, the statement remains a positive belief and part of the doctrine.

Originally Posted by Altair

People only bring subjective experiences to the table, like ''I feel there's a spirit'', ''I'm hearing voices'' and ''meditation yo!'' Nothing wrong with that, and I'm not shy of it either, but lets be real here, none of this will pass the rigorous requirements of science.

Science also doesn’t show that said things are generated by the brain. Even though neuroscientists found correlations of neural activity while people had spiritual experiences, this doesn’t prove that the brain is the (single) cause of these experiences. So the sentence:

“Spiritual experiences that people make are just hallucinations generated by the brain alone”

is a positive belief too. A second part of the Atheist’s doctrine.

Originally Posted by Altair

If [people] do have ''spiritual experiences'' [atheists] remain skeptical about them. This is not the same as religion, where people just make jumps and fill gaps. Atheism is simply not a belief, it's a lack of beliefs.

A critical perspective would be to say:
“I do not believe that alleged spiritual experiences are caused by something supernatural but I also do not rule it out”
-> This is what agnostics do.

To say:
“Spiritual experiences are hallucinations of the brain.”
is uncritical itself because this is a statement that is unproven. And this is what atheists do. So atheists indeed do fill the gaps and indeed make jumps. They make the jump from:
"We do not know if a soul causes consciousness" to "We do know that the brain alone causes consciousness." The latter is neiter proven nor true.


Atheist scepticism isn’t just the rejection of belief. Their scepticism is much more the rejection of one unproven belief (soul causes consciousness) in favour of another unproven belief (brain causes consciousness). Or (soul causes spiritual experiences) -> (brain causes spiritual experiences). Therefore atheist’s scepticism is an as critical thinking disguised form of uncritical thinking.

[Altair]

Some things..

1) ''Darwin's theory can't be proven'' is a nonsense statement. We can observe species adapt and change from DNA and existing species, be it micro-organisms or birds. There are many examples, from flightless birds to city birds who sing louder to evolving viruses. Those with favourable genes survive in a specific context and that's how life continues. Over time we can clearly observe changes, sometimes minor, sometimes radically so. Without evolution everything should actually be incredibly static, in fact life as we know it would no longer exist.

2) Atheists, the ones we are talking about, simply observe this world in a rational way, so any statement that consciousness derives from the brain is an observation, not a belief. A belief would be something additional such as saying.. ''there's an additional layer, the spirit, that 'uses' the brain as the primary organism for consciousness''. This extra layer, of which there is no scientific evidence, is either subjectively experienced or based on belief. In any case, the atheist making a materialist statement is still most parsimonious.

I honestly can't believe I have to continue doing the work for atheists here, since I'm not even one, but seriously guys, get some perspective. Talk with atheists, don't just rely on what spiritual communities, in full spite, say about those nasty atheists. lol.

I personally think agnosticism is a good position. However, when it comes to a magical creator or creationism there's nothing sensible about an agnostic position as nothing in nature suggests creation. We can explain nature without invoking a creator.

[r6r6]

BigJohn--I would like to go further. If you look at Collins Dictionary, what you mentioned is only one definition of soul. For some reason, you seem to be ignoring the other definitions that dictionary mentions. Why is that?[/quote]


1} Let me try this again, fro 20 years or more on various forums and on this one for two or more Ive stated what you have regarding multipe { many differrent } definitions ergo old news. Check my past reply to you ifor confirmation of such,


2} over those 20 years or more, my readings of dictionary definitions is not 'ignorance' or "ignoring" so please adjust your claims of me accordingly,


3} based on my dictionary informed definitions --not recent-- Ive long ago came to my conclusion, that, for whatever reason, you do not understand, even tho your state is "only one of the defintions of sou",


ergo you see a direct dictionary definition ---correlation between-- soul and biologic yet you claim you dont understand.


I think you 'do follow my drift' but apparrently disagree with my conclusion, without having the conscious ability to state your disagreement with my conclusion.


Nor do you offer what your conclusion is for explaining and/ or defining what soul is. Please share when you do and especially so if you have one that is based on;


.....1a} observed evidence, I observe humans, I observe at least one dictionary correlation between soul and biologics, and as already mentioned, often many times over the years Ive heard news commentators refer to those people who died as 'souls',


...1b} any rational, logical common sense and simple explanation.



Please share --if you so choose-- when you can address the issues I mention above, specifically as stated. Thank you.


And my guess is I can find more definitions for soul correlated to biologics other than just the one you found. Maybe I'm incorrect. I dunno. How bad do you want to find out what I may not have any idea what I'm talking about, and that it is you cannot understand how I came to me conclusion.


Please share if you so choose.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Altair

2) Atheists, the ones we are talking about, simply observe this world in a rational way, so any statement that consciousness derives from the brain is an observation, not a belief. A belief would be something additional such as saying.. ''there's an additional layer, the spirit, that 'uses' the brain as the primary organism for consciousness''. This extra layer, of which there is no scientific evidence, is either subjectively experienced or based on belief. In any case, the atheist making a materialist statement is still most parsimonious.

We may observe that there is a relationship between consciousness and the brain. The conclusion that consciousness therefore derives from the brain is an interpretation of this relationship, but such an interpretation is not necessarily correct.

Peace

[Altair]

Originally Posted by iamthat

We may observe that there is a relationship between consciousness and the brain. The conclusion that consciousness therefore derives from the brain is an interpretation of this relationship, but such an interpretation is not necessarily correct.

Peace

On a personal level I absolutely agree, however I also understand why atheists take their position.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Altair

I'm done with this, you simply refuse to acknowledge logical thinking, which is important if the need arises to settle definitions. Then we can settle the issue, not justify statements such as ''I believe (positive) in that I don't believe (negative)'', which is more complicated than an argument should be. Non-belief isn't a belief, which is about a positive.

I am simply asking you to explain the logic of your thinking in simple language which we can all understand.

I am a reasonably intelligent person but I am genuinely puzzled why the belief that something does not exist would not be considered as a belief.

You say that we can only believe in positives, not negatives. Where does this idea come from?

Peace