Do you believe in souls?

yeah but this impermanent consciousness does right and thats what lives on after death and gets reincarnated

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ass souls...I definitely believe in them.....

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Goldbars,

It seems to me that you are still hung-up on the idea of transmigration of souls. That the Self, the ego, is somehow real and distinct to each sentient being. This is multiplicity, and is false. Don't cling to your individuality and self, for it is the ultimate cause of suffering. Turn loose the ties of attachment and desire, and you will be free of a good part of that which we describe as suffering.

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Good.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

thethinkfactory wrote:
Frank:

Ask a believer why thebelieve and they will not give you 'because I just do' (that would be a faith based answer) they give you reasons.

No they don't!

Most of them really do give a variation of "...because I just do!"

You may not operate that way...but don't suppose for a second that you speak for all "believers" -- or even a majority of them.

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I do not understand your claim that all evidence for belief is non-arbitrary.

That makes two of us, because neither do I.

But I suspect that is because I have never made any such claim.

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If I am in pain for hours (like I was two months ago) and I pray to God to make it stop - and suddenly it does - are you saying that this is arbitrary?

I'm saying that I have no idea of why the pain stopped...and I suspect, neither do you.

But you are choosing to suppose it the result of a god of some kind.

That is VERY arbitrary...considering all the other possible reasons.

Quote:
I agree that it is non-verifiable and perhaps not repeatable but arbitrary. It was directly apperant to my senses. Like when I put 50 cents into a machine - push A6 for some Cheesy Poofs and they fall down. I suppose you could argue against cause and effect here and say that the Cheesy Poofs for some other reason fell (perhaps due to error) - but William of Ockham would say otherwise.

I have no idea of what you are talking about here.

Asherman,

Frank, what you did say a few pages back is that there is not any non-arbitrary evidence for - or against souls - so flip a coin.

What I was trying to say with my vending machine example is this. If I use a vending maching - put my money in and get my soda - I have seen non arbitrary evidence that the mechanics of the machine are working as the are supposed to - without seeing the mechanics of the machine. (By the way - sorry that was so jumbled - I could not follow it when I reread it. Wink

)

If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced non-arbitrary evidence for God and prayer.

I think Frank, to hold that this evidence is non-arbitrary - is to hold that cause and effect ARE arbitrary. This makes you very Humian - but also makes science pretty damned impossible.

So if science is impossible - I think that all evidence, to you, is arbitrary. Which, ofcourse, is not the way you live. You are reading this right now and are convinced that because the light to your eyes caused you to see it that is must be there. I say this - if religious experience is arbitrary - like you say it is (as you did when you stated that you don't know what ended my pain - and niether do I) then all experience is arbitrary. Experience is science. Experience is the only way (if there is a way) to truth.

However, I want to grant that I do not know whether God caused my cessation in pain - I believe I have inductive evidence to the fact. Much like I have inductive evidence that the 'law' of gravity will hold for my future actions. Science can never do better than inductive evidence for causes unseen.

For instance, black holes cannot directly be obseved - they must be indirectly observed by viewin thier effects (positive particle emission and the like). That is not a decuctive proof at all - it is, at best, inductive, and it probably more likely to be abductive.

I say that my religious experience is no more invalid than black holes and virtual particles.

I appreciate your comments Frank - I think you are genuine in your challenges and they help me clarify my position (and I believe I would gettison it if I felt your evidence was damning).

Asherman,

Thanks again. Your patience in explaining Buddhism is a comliment to your 'religion' (I scare quote that only because Buddhism is so personal that 'religion' doesn't seem to capture what Buddhists do) .

TTF

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I believe that the soul, spirit and body are three separate entities, soul is based on emotions, thoughts etc, your spirit is your being and well the body is pretty much self explanatory.

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Thethinkfactory

You wrote:

Quote:

Frank, what you did say a few pages back is that there is not any non-arbitrary evidence for - or against souls - so flip a coin.

I have never used the term "non-arbitrary." I did use the term "unambiguous."

You then wrote:

Quote:

What I was trying to say with my vending machine example is this. If I use a vending maching - put my money in and get my soda - I have seen non arbitrary evidence that the mechanics of the machine are working as the are supposed to - without seeing the mechanics of the machine. (By the way - sorry that was so jumbled - I could not follow it when I reread it. )

If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced non-arbitrary evidence for God and prayer.

Not sure of what the "non-arbitrary" means...but if you substitute what I did say "unambiguous"...your statement would read:

If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced unambiguous evidence for God and prayer.

To which I would reply...not in a million years.

You have absolutely no idea if the pain stopped as a result of a god...or of prayer.

(If villagers throw a virgin into a volcano and the crops are plentiful....would you consider that unambiguous evidence of a god and of the power of throwing virgins into volcanoes?)

Quote:

I think Frank, to hold that this evidence is non-arbitrary - is to hold that cause and effect ARE arbitrary. This makes you very Humian - but also makes science pretty damned impossible.

So if science is impossible - I think that all evidence, to you, is arbitrary. Which, ofcourse, is not the way you live. You are reading this right now and are convinced that because the light to your eyes caused you to see it that is must be there. I say this - if religious experience is arbitrary - like you say it is (as you did when you stated that you don't know what ended my pain - and niether do I) then all experience is arbitrary. Experience is science. Experience is the only way (if there is a way) to truth.

Not sure what you are getting at here. If you want to rework the thought using "unambiguous evidence" I'll respond.

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However, I want to grant that I do not know whether God caused my cessation in pain - I believe I have inductive evidence to the fact.

Not sure of what you consider "inductive evidence" but there is absolutely nothing about the incident you mentioned that merits any consideration of it being unambiguous evidence of the power of prayer...or of the existence of a god.

I also think that any attempts...such as you seem to be making....that there is a similarity between the way religion questions reality and the nature of reality....with the way science questions those things...is ludicrous.

I thank you for your courtesy...and will discuss this forever, if necessary.

It is my personal contention that I do not know if there is a god or gods....and I do not know if there are no gods...and I see absolutely NO UNAMBIGUOUS evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with making guesses about the issue....but I do resent the fact that so many people try to disguise the fact that all they are doing with their "I believe this or I believe that" in this area...IS GUESSING.

And as I pointed out in the earlier post...if uninformed guesses based on damn near no evidence (and NO UNAMBIGUOUS EVIDENCE)...is what you are looking for with a question like "Do you believe in souls?"....

...you might just as well ask someone to flip a coin on the issue and report the result.

The coin flip...in most of these instances....is every bit as valid as any beliefs.

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Okay - I was using (for some odd reason) non-arbitrary and unambigious as synonyms - even though they are not (I gave a lecture on arbitrary reasoning and God - and apperantly it was on the brain this morning).

So let me correct myself and requote myself:

If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced unambigious evidence for God and prayer.

I think Frank, to hold that this evidence is unambigious - is to hold that cause and effect ARE ambigious. This makes you very Humian - but also makes science pretty damned impossible.

So if science is impossible - I think that all evidence, to you, is ambigious. Which, ofcourse, is not the way you live. You are reading this right now and are convinced that because the light to your eyes caused you to see it that is must be there. I say this - if religious experience is ambigious - like you say it is (as you did when you stated that you don't know what ended my pain - and niether do I) then all experience is ambigious. Experience is science. Experience is the only way (if there is a way) to truth.

However, I want to grant that I do not know whether God caused my cessation in pain - I believe I have inductive evidence to the fact. Much like I have inductive evidence that the 'law' of gravity will hold for my future actions. Science can never do better than inductive evidence for causes unseen.

For instance, black holes cannot directly be obseved - they must be indirectly observed by viewin thier effects (positive particle emission and the like). That is not a decuctive proof at all - it is, at best, inductive, and it probably more likely to be abductive.

I say that my religious experience is no more invalid than black holes and virtual particles.

Okay - now that that is fixed I can move on:

I was using inductive as moving from a general principle to a finely focused one. The example that Aristotle gives when attempting to define Inductive reasoning is if you are looking in a pool of water and see one carp and see he is black - then another - then another - then 2,000 more that are black - you can induce (with a decently high percentage of truth) that all carps are black.

In this way black holes are induced to 'emit' positive particles. We cannot deduce this because we are not sure that black holes even exist - but we can give - with a acceptable amount of certainty that they do.

I say this - the more that I pray - and my prayers are answered the more inductive evidence I have to make the claim that God exists.

I think what you are trying to say is that none of this can count as evidence - because it is ambigious (hey I got the word right!).

I say that if that is true - much of the evidence you have in your life, if not all, is ambigious - such as believing in wind (you can't see it - you are relying on authority - but you can see you arm hair move) is ambigious and should be thrown out. Even if you were to scientifically 'prove' wind - you could not be sure that what you felt before was wind and must take this as your first peice of evidence.

This leads me to say, as I said above, that when EXPERIENCED, the evidence is unambigious and can count as evidence toward a claim such as 'there is a God'.

TTF

p.s. hope that is clearer and allows a response from you. Wink

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Let's take this one thought at a time.

thethinkfactory wrote:

So let me correct myself and requote myself:

If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced unambigious evidence for God and prayer.

I could not disagree more.

I'll repeat myself.

If a virgin is thrown into a volcano and the crops that year are abundant...is that unambiguous evidence that throwing virgins into volcanos works....and unambiguous evidence that there is a god in the volcano?

In any case, there have been studies conducted purporting to show a relationship between praying and healing.

Aside from the fact that it would have to be a VERY puny god to participate in such parlor tricks...how can one be sure that "positive energy" or "the power of wishing" or anything paranormal were not at work rather than a god?

It cannot be done.

If you want to guess their is a god...even if you want to disguise that guess by calling it a belief instead of a guess...

...do so.

But to pretend that there is actually unambiguous evidence of that existence is absurd.

I can tell you this: I have been debating theists and atheists on this point for many, many years...and both sides use damn near the same "evidence" in substantiation of their claims that a guess in one direction or the other is the result of that evidence.

THAT IS BECAUSE ALL THE EVIDENCE THEISTS AND ATHEISTS USE TO BACK UP THEIR INSISTENCE THAT THEIR TAKE ON REALITY IS THE CORRECT ONE...is ambiguous.

Deal with this, Mr. Factory :wink: ...and then we'll move on to whatever else you have on your plate.

(Don't you have a name we can use?)

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I always have and always will go by the belief that if I take comfort in belief in a God and then at death it was all bullshit, I've lost nothing......if on the other hand I deny God and then learn at the end of things there was one I could be in a world of ****........or not.....

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I would like my ambiguity award held until the time of my death and then sent to my National library.......

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Frank:

My real name is Jason...

I am hung up on one point - because I am hearing what you say when you say that Athiests and Thiests use the same evidence - how is this any different from what scientists do when they construct thier claims.

If there is a study - say a study of cholesterol found in the viens of 4,000 people in different locals with the same diet - and both studies have different findings - this is the same dataset interpreted different ways.

In both cases the evidence is real - and it is unambigious - however it just lead two different sceince groups to make two different claims. This happens all the time. This is the reason the same data will result in Caffeine is bad for you and Caffiene is good for you.

All of this aside - I guess my question to you is - what counts as unambigious data? What are you counting as data that anyone can use for anything?

I think, like Hume, his standards of data are so high that he rules out most of what you and I use to get to 'knowledge' every day.

TTF

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thethinkfactory wrote:

If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced unambigious evidence for God and prayer.

I'm sure what Frank is attempting to explain is that this is a classic example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy (that is what you were getting at, right Frank?). Saying that "Y follows X, therefore Y was caused by X" is an invalid supposition, so that saying "I prayed and I was healed, therefore my prayer caused my healing" is likewise invalid. This isn't a case of induction, it's a case of a flawed deduction from inductive evidence.

In any event, if we used your logic, TTF, we would have to concede that instances where prayers were not answered would be evidence of God's non-existence.

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You know, of course Bi-Polar that this was phrased long ago by the philosopher, Pascal. It's known as Pascal's Wager. He advises us to "bet" the safe bet, namely that to choose to believe in God (and souls, and heaven and hell) so that if the belief proves to be sound we win. On the other hand, he argued, if we choose the atheist way and it proves to be wrong, we suffer for Eternity. Most people around here that I've talked to regarding The Wager state in one way of another that to forgo a lifetime of intellectual freedom and emotional realism in hope of winning a fantastical celestial reward is folly. I agree.

TTF, how do you disambiguate your "evidence"? How can you demonstrate, at least to yourself, that your praying itself--not God's will--did not have the placebo effect of alleviating your pain? This would apply even if you prayed twenty times and the pain left twenty times.

By the way, before talking about our belief or disbelief in souls, we should ask our questioner what he or she means by "soul."

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Originally posted by Frank

Quote:

THAT IS BECAUSE ALL THE EVIDENCE THEISTS AND ATHEISTS USE TO BACK UP THEIR INSISTENCE THAT THEIR TAKE ON REALITY IS THE CORRECT ONE...is ambiguous.

..To YOU.

note: I don't see it possible that atheism can have evidence of non-existence. Theism is another matter.

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Good point JLNobody

Soul = immaterial being = non-being as being but not as observed-being, though synonymous/continuous with it. Souls are contradictions, though only to ego's which don't have souls.

An ego doesn't have a soul. But souls have ego's.. Surprised

. eeech.

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twyvel wrote:

Originally posted by Frank

Quote:
THAT IS BECAUSE ALL THE EVIDENCE THEISTS AND ATHEISTS USE TO BACK UP THEIR INSISTENCE THAT THEIR TAKE ON REALITY IS THE CORRECT ONE...is ambiguous.

..To YOU.

note: I don't see it possible that atheism can have evidence of non-existence. Theism is another matter.

I am willing to listen to each item of unambiguous[/i] evidence either side has to offer.

I say there isn't any...but I am certain open minded enough to listen.

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joefromchicago wrote:

thethinkfactory wrote:
If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced unambigious evidence for God and prayer.

I'm sure what Frank is attempting to explain is that this is a classic example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy (that is what you were getting at, right Frank?).

Oh, absolutely! :wink:

Quote:
Saying that "Y follows X, therefore Y was caused by X" is an invalid supposition, so that saying "I prayed and I was healed, therefore my prayer caused my healing" is likewise invalid. This isn't a case of induction, it's a case of a flawed deduction from inductive evidence.

I couldn't have said it better myself...and you can quote me on that. :wink: :wink:

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thethinkfactory wrote:

Frank:

My real name is Jason...

I am hung up on one point - because I am hearing what you say when you say that Athiests and Thiests use the same evidence - how is this any different from what scientists do when they construct thier claims.

The difference between what scientist do with their handling of evidence and what theists and the religious do with theirs is such a world apart...I won't bother taking time to lay it out. Anyone who does not see it easily without help...probably wouldn't see it with help.

This is not meant as an insult...I have blind spots myself and suspect we all do.

Quote:

All of this aside - I guess my question to you is - what counts as unambigious data? What are you counting as data that anyone can use for anything?

In some instances, Jason, there simply IS NO unambiguous evidence.

What happens to humans after they are dead and buried?

Is there a God or are there gods?

If there is a God...what is that God like; what pleases It, what offends It; what expectations does the God have of humans?

WE SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW. AND THERE IS NO UNAMBIGUOUS EVIDENCE UPON WHICH TO BASE REASONABLE, MEANINGFUL ANSWERS.

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joefromchicago wrote:

thethinkfactory wrote:
If I prayed for a cessation of pain - and recieved it - immediatly - I have experienced unambigious evidence for God and prayer.

I'm sure what Frank is attempting to explain is that this is a classic example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy (that is what you were getting at, right Frank?). Saying that "Y follows X, therefore Y was caused by X" is an invalid supposition, so that saying "I prayed and I was healed, therefore my prayer caused my healing" is likewise invalid. This isn't a case of induction, it's a case of a flawed deduction from inductive evidence.

In any event, if we used your logic, TTF, we would have to concede that instances where prayers were not answered would be evidence of God's non-existence.

I understand what Frank is laying out Joe - here is the Humean conundrum - if you believe that religious EXPERIENCE falls under this deductive fallacy - then all experience falls under this fallacy.

Frank - how about these two instances:

Case #1

I am in a motorcycle accident - I have such severe spiral fractures that a leading orthopedic surgeon (in this case Dr. Scholls) tells me I will never walk again. I am visited in a dream some days later by an angel (very picture book - wings and such) and tells me I will be fine. Within a month I am walking and to this day do very well on my leg.

Case #2

I use my pool cue to hit the cue ball into the eight ball and it moves.

In both cases I cannot observe the causal nexus and have no direct experiential - deductive proof that either the angel healed me or the cue ball CAUSED the eight ball to move.

Human beings cannot observe the causal nexus - is my argument to Joe's and Frank's application of the post hoc ergo propter hoc. Cause and effect is null and void to Hume because he believes all experience falls under the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. (I see a followed by b therefore a caused b).

Also, Joe and Frank I am also not deducing anything here. I am talking about inductive evidence. Frank's claim is that because all religious experience is ambigious no religious experience can be counted as evidence is the claim I am trying to address.

I do not claim that God exists because I feel one thing - I use that as one peice of inductive evidence to be wieghed in with other bits. And yes, Joe, this does mean when prayers are not answered that I put THAT bit in my careful wieghing of my belief in God. I do not go willy nilly into this - this is a life long experiential experiement to give inductive evidence to God's existence. The only leap of faith is when there is not conclusive evidence for or against God's existence that I 'chose' to believe.

Does this make sense?

TTF

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Do you believe in souls?

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