Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

I think you are over estimating what science can explain.  It is a staggering assumption to think that science can be used to explain everything about our existence.  It is only scratching the surface of reality.

Be careful with all that straw, Alan. Nobody has suggested that science explains everything.

I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self.

This is woo, Alan, pure and simple - I'm not aware of having a 'soul', which is yet another of your undefined and unevidenced conjectures while the 'Devil' is just another of these mythological characters that only the highly credulous would take seriously.

[Shaker]

I think you are over estimating what science can explain.  It is a staggering assumption to think that science can be used to explain everything about our existence.  It is only scratching the surface of reality.

I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self.

That post is the forum equivalent of a multiple car pile-up on the M1.

Fortunately, others have set about clearing up the mess.

[Rhiannon]

The problem with attributing anything that people have in their lives apart from Christianity - science, atheism, other faiths - to the devil is that sooner or later the Christian who believes that has to view those things as evil. And that's very dangerous.

[Outrider]

What is the evidence of an experience of a sense of self outside personal experience of self?

What's the evidence of anything outside of a personal experience? We are dependent upon our sensory input for everything.

O.

[Outrider]

To me it is trivialising the amazing complexity of our human brains to suggest that it all came into existence by the crude process of natural selection acting on random mutations.

What's crude about it? Evolution accounts for everything from viruses and bacteria through the dinosaurs to falcons, frogs, fish and ferrets, from prehensile tongues and tails to nictating eyelids and elecro-static sensory skin cells. Evolution has provided an amazing, incredible wealth of specialisation, generalisation, capacity, capability and diversity: there is nothing 'crude' about evolution.

I did not invent the idea of a soul.  The awareness of souls has been an integral part of all civilisation for the last few thousand years.

Someone invented the idea of a soul - that you didn't make it up doesn't mean that it's not made up.

O.

[Outrider]

I think you are over estimating what science can explain.  It is a staggering assumption to think that science can be used to explain everything about our existence.  It is only scratching the surface of reality.

At the moment, or in principle? I see no reason to presume that anything that we are or could be aware of is in principle beyond science. If we are aware of it, we can detect it, and therefore measure it and investigate it.

If we conjecture that it's there it might be beyond science until we can demonstrate it, but until we can demonstrate it we have no reason to think that there's actually something to investigate.

I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.

I have no 'awareness' of souls. I know many people who feel the same. I know someone who's 'aware' of voices, but we know that those voices aren't real - whilst have a sense of something is a reason to investigate, it's not in itself reason to think something actually exists. We've all seen rainbows, but there are no coloured patches in the sky.

The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self.

Which false assumptions? You've no evidence for souls, and you've no evidence for the Devil that you say is hiding that evidence in defiance of the God for which you have no evidence either... You have an elaborate construction of interdependent concepts, but nothing to support the edifice in reality.

O.

[ippy]

Think about this statement of yours Alan:

"I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self".
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You've got to be living in some kind of dream world, proberbly of your own making, to come out with this kind of nonsense, like I said think about it, how could you or anyone else possibly know any of this, it's bad enough that you think like this, even worse you actually believe this absolute nonsense is true.

Your posts certainly don't show signs of getting any better.

ippy   

[Alan Burns]

I did not invent the idea of a soul.  The awareness of souls has been an integral part of all civilisation for the last few thousand years.

Arguably most of our thinking pre science was wrong.  Nothing surprising about that.

I think you are over estimating what science can explain.  It is a staggering assumption to think that science can be used to explain everything about our existence.  It is only scratching the surface of reality.

I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self.

Any number of unwarranted assumptions in there, Alan. No real evidence for souls, or devils or Gods, just a bunch of mutually supporting fantasies. Some of us prefer something stronger than 'that is what people have always believed'.

So why did lots of humans all over the world suddenly start to believe in something for which there is no physical evidence?  There is overwhelming evidence that all physical beings come to an end when they die, so what prompted the human race to start to believe in a soul which could transcend death?

[Alan Burns]

I see no reason to presume that anything that we are or could be aware of is in principle beyond science. If we are aware of it, we can detect it, and therefore measure it and investigate it.

If we conjecture that it's there it might be beyond science until we can demonstrate it, but until we can demonstrate it we have no reason to think that there's actually something to investigate.

Perhaps science will one day be able to extend its boundaries to investigate our spiritual nature.

[Shaker]

So why did lots of humans all over the world suddenly start to believe in something for which there is no physical evidence?  There is overwhelming evidence that all physical beings come to an end when they die, so what prompted the human race to start to believe in a soul which could transcend death?

It tells ageing, sickness-prone and death-fearing human beings what they want to hear.

Next.

P.S. Not all the human race does believe it.

[BashfulAnthony]

Think about this statement of yours Alan:

"I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self".
=====
You've got to be living in some kind of dream world, proberbly of your own making, to come out with this kind of nonsense, like I said think about it, how could you or anyone else possibly know any of this, it's bad enough that you think like this, even worse you actually believe this absolute nonsense is true.

Your posts certainly don't show signs of getting any better.

ippy

Nor yours of getting any different.   

[Outrider]

So why did lots of humans all over the world suddenly start to believe in something for which there is no physical evidence?  There is overwhelming evidence that all physical beings come to an end when they die, so what prompted the human race to start to believe in a soul which could transcend death?

I've no idea if it happened at one time or spread out over a long period, and I've no idea if it came from a single source or has sprung up independently in multiple cultures. Having said that, what prompts it I suspect is fear. We have self-awareness, and we fear losing that.

O.

[Outrider]

I see no reason to presume that anything that we are or could be aware of is in principle beyond science. If we are aware of it, we can detect it, and therefore measure it and investigate it.

If we conjecture that it's there it might be beyond science until we can demonstrate it, but until we can demonstrate it we have no reason to think that there's actually something to investigate.

Perhaps science will one day be able to extend its boundaries to investigate our spiritual nature.

Perhaps, but not until we've got something demonstrable to give reason to think that it actually means something. I can't say, definitively, that the soul does not exist; all I can say is that there isn't anything in the assorted collection of justifications that gives me sufficient grounds to accept the idea. If that were to change, if the evidence were to come to light, then I'd be happy to review it and update my understanding.

And, whilst I'm there, I appreciate the openness with which you approach these conversations, Alan, and the fact that (like most of the religious posters here at one level or another) you're bringing what you have to say at least in part because you think that it's the right thing to do, to bring the idea of God to the unbelievers.

O.

[Shaker]

I've no idea if it happened at one time or spread out over a long period, and I've no idea if it came from a single source or has sprung up independently in multiple cultures. Having said that, what prompts it I suspect is fear. We have self-awareness, and we fear losing that.

O.

Almost as fear-inducing I strongly suspect is the loss of agency, our ability to impact ourselves upon and alter the stuff of the world, including other human beings.

[Alan Burns]

Think about this statement of yours Alan:

"I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self".
=====
You've got to be living in some kind of dream world, proberbly of your own making, to come out with this kind of nonsense, like I said think about it, how could you or anyone else possibly know any of this, it's bad enough that you think like this, even worse you actually believe this absolute nonsense is true.

Your posts certainly don't show signs of getting any better.

ippy

You seem to be insinuating some form of personal insanity when my post is simply quoting mainstream Christian belief on a Christian thread.

[Rhiannon]

Think about this statement of yours Alan:

"I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self".
=====
You've got to be living in some kind of dream world, proberbly of your own making, to come out with this kind of nonsense, like I said think about it, how could you or anyone else possibly know any of this, it's bad enough that you think like this, even worse you actually believe this absolute nonsense is true.

Your posts certainly don't show signs of getting any better.

ippy

You seem to be insinuating some form of personal insanity when my post is simply quoting mainstream Christian belief on a Christian thread.

Ippy thinks all theists are nutters, Alan. Don't worry about it.

[BashfulAnthony]

Think about this statement of yours Alan:

"I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self".
=====
You've got to be living in some kind of dream world, proberbly of your own making, to come out with this kind of nonsense, like I said think about it, how could you or anyone else possibly know any of this, it's bad enough that you think like this, even worse you actually believe this absolute nonsense is true.

Your posts certainly don't show signs of getting any better.

ippy

You seem to be insinuating some form of personal insanity when my post is simply quoting mainstream Christian belief on a Christian thread.

Don't take any notice of old Ippy:  he's a harmless old soul; just doesn't know what he's talking about!

[Outrider]

Think about this statement of yours Alan:

"I am sure our awareness of souls is a natural God given insight which has been common throughout the history of the human race.  The Devil will use any means to tempt us into believing that God does not exist, and neither does our soul, but we need to look beyond these false assumptions and re discover our true self".
=====
You've got to be living in some kind of dream world, proberbly of your own making, to come out with this kind of nonsense, like I said think about it, how could you or anyone else possibly know any of this, it's bad enough that you think like this, even worse you actually believe this absolute nonsense is true.

Your posts certainly don't show signs of getting any better.

ippy

You seem to be insinuating some form of personal insanity when my post is simply quoting mainstream Christian belief on a Christian thread.

I think he's suggesting a degree of cognitive dissonance is required to operate in a modern world largely dependent upon the products of a systematic and mechanistic way of thinking and yet maintain faith in primitive superstitious constructs like 'gods' and 'devils'.

That's not insanity, by any stretch, cognitive dissonance to a greater or lesser degree is practiced by pretty much all of us - check out some of Keith Maitland's threads on whether we should be as happy as we are for more on that.

O.

[torridon]

Who's trivialising it? This is an amazing thing, that such subtlety and refining, a recursive, self-correcting, self-updating, coherent, complex data form is sustained by brain activity despite the regular and complete replacement of all the physical hardware in which it is active.

That's stupendous, that's not trivialising it. Trivialising it is saying that despite that incredible complexity you understand it well enough to determine there's no way consciousness could be a part of that so you're going to invent 'souls'.

O.

I did not invent the idea of a soul.  The awareness of souls has been an integral part of all civilisation for the last few thousand years.

Arguably most of our thinking pre science was wrong.  Nothing surprising about that.

I think you are over estimating what science can explain.  It is a staggering assumption to think that science can be used to explain everything about our existence.  It is only scratching the surface of reality.

It's probably the case that we can never know everything, there are limits to knowledge no doubt. In terms of human history we have only just begun exploring our world in a systematic and methodical way. Having started out from a position of effectively zero correct knowledge, science has been gradually eliminating incorrect ideas by developing rigorous testing methods so what we are left with is a much smaller set of reasonably accurate models of reality.  It's inevitable that in that process we have to wave goodbye to some cherished ideas that we inherited from earlier times.

[floo]

Who's trivialising it? This is an amazing thing, that such subtlety and refining, a recursive, self-correcting, self-updating, coherent, complex data form is sustained by brain activity despite the regular and complete replacement of all the physical hardware in which it is active.

That's stupendous, that's not trivialising it. Trivialising it is saying that despite that incredible complexity you understand it well enough to determine there's no way consciousness could be a part of that so you're going to invent 'souls'.

O.

I did not invent the idea of a soul.  The awareness of souls has been an integral part of all civilisation for the last few thousand years.

Arguably most of our thinking pre science was wrong.  Nothing surprising about that.

I think you are over estimating what science can explain.  It is a staggering assumption to think that science can be used to explain everything about our existence.  It is only scratching the surface of reality.

It's probably the case that we can never know everything, there are limits to knowledge no doubt. In terms of human history we have only just begun exploring our world in a systematic and methodical way. Having started out from a position of effectively zero correct knowledge, science has been gradually eliminating incorrect ideas by developing rigorous testing methods so what we are left with is a much smaller set of reasonably accurate models of reality.  It's inevitable that in that process we have to wave goodbye to some cherished ideas that we inherited from earlier times.

Humans will continue the learning process for as long as humans exist.

[torridon]

So why did lots of humans all over the world suddenly start to believe in something for which there is no physical evidence?  There is overwhelming evidence that all physical beings come to an end when they die, so what prompted the human race to start to believe in a soul which could transcend death?

There's no evidence for that; not in any history book I have read at least. The geographic diversity and historic development of early belief systems seems to me entirely consistent with what we might have predicted from an elementary understanding of human psychology and ancient history.

[Rhiannon]

Who's trivialising it? This is an amazing thing, that such subtlety and refining, a recursive, self-correcting, self-updating, coherent, complex data form is sustained by brain activity despite the regular and complete replacement of all the physical hardware in which it is active.

That's stupendous, that's not trivialising it. Trivialising it is saying that despite that incredible complexity you understand it well enough to determine there's no way consciousness could be a part of that so you're going to invent 'souls'.

O.

I did not invent the idea of a soul.  The awareness of souls has been an integral part of all civilisation for the last few thousand years.

Arguably most of our thinking pre science was wrong.  Nothing surprising about that.

I think you are over estimating what science can explain.  It is a staggering assumption to think that science can be used to explain everything about our existence.  It is only scratching the surface of reality.

It's probably the case that we can never know everything, there are limits to knowledge no doubt. In terms of human history we have only just begun exploring our world in a systematic and methodical way. Having started out from a position of effectively zero correct knowledge, science has been gradually eliminating incorrect ideas by developing rigorous testing methods so what we are left with is a much smaller set of reasonably accurate models of reality.  It's inevitable that in that process we have to wave goodbye to some cherished ideas that we inherited from earlier times.

Given how everything changes and evolved we can't know everything, surely. But at least we make inroads.

[NicholasMarks]

So why did lots of humans all over the world suddenly start to believe in something for which there is no physical evidence?  There is overwhelming evidence that all physical beings come to an end when they die, so what prompted the human race to start to believe in a soul which could transcend death?

There's no evidence for that; not in any history book I have read at least. The geographic diversity and historic development of early belief systems seems to me entirely consistent with what we might have predicted from an elementary understanding of human psychology and ancient history.

That's ok if we dismiss the simple fact that a people whose guiding principle was truth, truth and more truth, were given the  initial task of writing about this particular truth supported by a number of independent truth seekers and which carried a distinct and wonderful message to the four corners of the Earth, right through the generations since...It has demanded every tyrant gets in on the act or lose their adhesion over their masses and has proven true to every generation and every person who complies with this teaching, accurately.

Jesus has had more followers than Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and the entire team of celebs put together who fashion their adoration on spiritual laws that are destructive rather than uplifting...but hey...torridon knows better. 

[Outrider]

That's ok if we dismiss the simple fact that a people whose guiding principle was truth, truth and more truth, were given the  initial task of writing about this particular truth supported by a number of independent truth seekers and which carried a distinct and wonderful message to the four corners of the Earth, right through the generations since...

That's OK if we pretend that you use words like 'truth' and 'fact' in the same way as the rest of us - you mean 'opinion' and 'assertion' in English.

It has demanded every tyrant gets in on the act or lose their adhesion over their masses and has proven true to every generation and every person who complies with this teaching, accurately.

Which is why there have never been any Christian tyrants... (Seriously, people, where the hell is that face-palm smiley when you need it?)

Jesus has had more followers than Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson and the entire team of celebs put together who fashion their adoration on spiritual laws that are destructive rather than uplifting...but hey...torridon knows better.

And the piece de resistance, a beautifully executed argumentum ad populum to finish. Most people try to camouflage their fallacies, but it's good to see someone so confident/guileless that they just throw themselves into it. Bravo...

So, ten out of ten for style, but minus several million for good thinking, huh?

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What is the evidence of an experience of a sense of self outside personal experience of self?

What's the evidence of anything outside of a personal experience? We are dependent upon our sensory input for everything.

O.

Ah, Outrider comes back with one of his theories of anything.