Do you believe in souls?

Everyone lives according to their beliefs, and every belief is held as "true" or they wouldn't believe it. We need ways to test and weigh those beliefs if we are ever to be free of prejudice and the destructive potential of being "True Believers". How can we determine how much value to place on one belief over another?

We can demand a high-order evidence in support of the belief. Is the belief in accordance with mathematics, physics and the best understanding of contemporary science? Is the assertion reproducible by others? Are there any logical flaws in our reasoning when we consider the truth/falsity of our belief? If our belief is based on what we've been taught, told, or read, how much credence should we put on the source of the belief? Did the source of our belief profit in someway by transmitting the belief to us?

A second way to weigh our beliefs, is to examine their consequences. Do the thoughts, words and actions that spring from the belief tend to cause greater suffering, or less? What have been the historical consequences of a belief? Does the belief tend to promote social stability and security, or does it tend to be destructive of civil accord?

The thoughtful person will hold a belief-set that is generally consistent and that has been tested by personal experience. They will be confident in their belief-set, no matter how many others hold the same set of beliefs. Above all, they will remain open to the possibility that their beliefs may be to some degree wrong, and mistaken. The thoughtful person will be tolerant, and open to compromise on most things.

Interesting discussion. I do not consider my "understanding" of Buddhism to be knowledge in the sense of theoretical understanding. Indeed, it is a "perspective" based on personal experience, the nature of which I cannot fanthom.
Ash says that "ultimately everything is BELIEF" (I don't think he would include his awakening experience as a belief).
Frank says that most of what he sees people saying here is GUESSWORK.
I prefer a term that is not much more than a slant on their usage. I "believe" that almost all of what we do, or even Science does, is INTERPRETATION.
Now interpretations are always OF something, facts or experiences. It seems to me that the scientific method consists mainly of people not just holding beliefs (except for their most basic, and usually tacit, presuppositions) or making guesses. They interpret experiences or data to form hypotheses (or speculations if they are philosophers), and then devise ways to test (to verify or falsify) their hypotheses.
Mystical insights are neither hypotheses (they surely aren't testable or falsifiable), guesses, nor beliefs. As opposed to theoretical knowledge, they are closer to what we mean by carnal knowledge: intimate and first hand realizations of Reality.

I have had people from several different disciplines tell me they have had awakenings (re-births; personal revelations; divine revelations; etc)...and I can tell you that the revelations they have supposedly had are so different one from the other...that all of them SHOULD logically be held in extreme skepticism.

Your supposed Awakening Experience is no different...at least, in my opinion.

I "know" the transcendental Awakning Experience", but at least acknowledge that I may be mistaken. You have certainly argued repeatedly that is only a "guess". Not a guess, but a strong belief that the personal experience was a valid insight into the nature of reality. To me the "knowing" that resulted from the experience was every bit as vivid as my military serial number, my name and the names of my family. It is true I can not share the experience with you in the same way that I can produce documents supposedly giving my serial number, name and etc. After all those can all be as false as any personal experience. It is just a matter of how strong the evidence is for what we believe we know.

twyvel and JLN, Whether you speak of nonduallity or duality, my world is a simple one that doesn't consider the nonexistence of me or you. As far as I'm concerned, my ability to see and register what is happening in my immediate environment happens whether others recognize it or not. As long as my senses work as they have for the past 69 years, my world exists in this world of senses, and I can feel, taste, see, hear, and smell. Whether my senses are the same as yours doesn't really matter - to me.

Where does a "belief" come from if its not forced into existence by an "experience". If that experience is powerful enough it creates its own conclusions, contains its own values, forces its own tidal wave because we cannot conceive of resisting something which renders meaning to our very existence here. A belief can be more fundamental than a fact to one's well-being. And often when we find the shoe fits, we even incorporate facts and external truth into the very fabric of a belief . I should amend this to say "external truth as its understood at the time". Also, what's interesting, is how we often delineate beliefs, painting them with metaphors of reality and also conversely, describing Reality by it's opposite texture. It all comes together but "experience" (and I can't think of another word) is it's point of impact, it's incipience. That which contains the valuable ores for redistribution. It's therefore valid to think of the world as illusion when the mind plays with its realities!

In replying to Goldbars a different sort of knowledge is involved. Personal experience does play apart, after all "I" have spent years studying the subject in academia. However, in these instances my information is derived from others so a different order of "belief" in the accuracy prevails. I still think the "knowing" is backed by a pretty high-order of belief. The texts I'm speaking from are widely regarded as authoritative by graduate faculties in comparative religion and courses in Buddhism. They are there for anyone to read. The fundamental doctrines, especially those dating from (or near) the time of the Historical Buddha are contained in the Pali canon, and it is primarily from those that I've insisted that Buddhism denies the existence of a "soul", and hence the transmigration of souls is an absurdity. Even that statement, as proper as I believe it is from long study, is conditioned by detailing the doctrinal drift evident in some Buddhist sects and schools, along with some discussion of how Buddhism came to split along the lines we see today.

Do you remember my earlier response to this question? I argued that "I" (ego-self) will not be reborn, because it doesn't even exist now. I said that IN A SENSE there may be a form of reincarnation, that the cosmos is continuously giving rise to organic bioforms. They are not "me" (little self) but they are a kind of "me" in the sense of my (and your) true cosmic Self. So, perhaps we can talk about a kind of Cosmic incarnation (but in addition to "flesh/carne", there are many other inorganic and chemical forms, and who knows what else that is continuously brought into existence). In a word, then, there may be INCARNATION, but not RE-INCARNATION in the sense that little me is being reborn. But big me (the Cosmos) is continuously reborn. Oy, you're giving me such a headache!

How can an ego-self that doesn't exist do anything?

If you believe that everything in the world is illusory then you also, perforce, believe that your belief that everything is illusory is also illusory, correct?

Evidence? That is a good question to ask. So far, science is teaching that there is no such thing as religion. The problem is, you cannot prove or disprove the fact that a supreme being exist.

We have matter cannot be created or destroyed, in science. To me, this fall in favor of belief in a higher power. Not much else does.

My teen daughter is completely athiest, as many younger people are. Science is disproving a lot, in theory. Science cannot clear up this issue of where matter came from in the first place.

We are not all that smart!