Love, marraige, atheism...

What does the "spiritual world" have to do with marriage?

That's an assumption, a priori, that marriage is a spiritual activity. It isn't. It's a civil institution concerned with rights in property. If the religionists and bible-thumpers want to tart the whore up in fancy dress and put her on the street, that's their choice--it doesn't alter the character of a social institution the purpose of which is to secure rights in property.

Oh, sure Soz, say it in a nice way . . .

Plenty of birds form pair bonds that last for life -- sometimes the surviving partner will not even seek a new mate after the other's death. Sounds an awful lot like marriage to me.

Of course, they don't register for gifts or send out invitations. Anywho, you also spoke of love, remember?

Just a reprise, set. Still haven't gotten an answer.

What's with all of the religionist assertions that this or that human trait (pair-bonding, morality/ethics/law) wouldn't exist without prior religionists, anyway?

It's known as "trying to stake out the moral high ground" . . .

Yes, because the morals that men have established are great...do what feels good whenever you want.

Religious propaganda, TR, and so typical of your unwillingness to think for yourself . . .

Some social frameworks (which include an implied moral framework) went quite the other direction, as a matter of fact. Hedonism is hardly encouraged in the Utopias of Plato and of Marx.

That's their problem.

That it may be -- but the assertion (not yours, by the way) was that without a religious foundation, human frameworks will move into hedonism. I merely offered two examples where this is not the case.

Well what would happen if they did?Do hedonism.

Re: Love, marraige, atheism...

It is, and atheists don't believe we are "just 'flesh' and tissues", any more than we believe music is just 'lucky' sounds. We just believe that when you take all the sounds away, there is no music left anymore -- and that if you take all the flesh away, there is no soul left anymore too. I hope that helps clarify some of your misconceptions about atheists.

Thunder, I know you don't mean to be offensive, what you seem to be struggling with is.. what you think atheists believe.

You seem to have tied the existence of all the good aspects of humanity (such as love, beauty, altruism, honesty, integrity, truth,etc, etc...) with your god. Perhaps someone has told you that without your god these things would not exist.

That isn't really very logical though because if it were true, then it would also be true that nothing would exist, since the same god is held to have created everything.

There are very good practical reasons for all the good in humanity (especially the success of the species) and it's perfectly reasonable that everything would look exactly as it does now if no god existed.....including love.

My wife and I don't even agree on religion, I've loved her for 18 years....and she seems quite fond of me too....especially just before her birthday ...

thunder_runner32





The difference is in the fact that men like Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, were atheists but certainly not philosophical materialists.

No, I had this thought on my own. I understand that we can set up laws and such so that men could live peacefully, but, just open your mind with me for a second...look at what humanistic thinking has done, millions of innocent babies killed, by the hand of doctors who claim their will be no emotional side effects. The humanistic thinking of our society is not a good thing my friend...



There was this other book that offers utopia with that same exact idea, what was it? Oh yeah, the bible.



What is your definition of soul?



Thanks Eorl



I don't think I'm too far off track.

Of Webster's 8 definitions of "soul", the following work for me.


Source

I'd probably say that all of those exist, but not in the sense that religious people believe they do. There is no ghost-like soul, the soul isn't really a 'thing,' it's more a of a concept. Like cartesianism. You couldn't say, "my cartesianism aches" or, "I just ate a whole bag of cartesianisms!" Maybe 'soul' should become a verb.

I would accept that what is described in definition 1 exists, interpreting it as the description of a concept, rather than a 'thing' - I would take 'essence' not to mean something spiritual, but as a sort of description imposed on a person. So if I talked about the essence of life, I wouldn't be talking about a spiritual or supernatural entity, but rather I mightb e talking about life processes such as reproduction, or moral values that I hold, or whatever.

I'd accept that 3 exists, taking 'self' to mean a persons consciousness - and assuming that consciousness consists only of brain activity, rather than anything supernatural.

I'd accept 5a and b as well, they coudl quite easily be used to describe dispositions caused by the brain - things that we actually know about. We know that the brai nat least plays some role in emotion and other 'feelings.' Whether there is a spiritual element as well, we don't know - I see no reason to believe that there would be.

And finally, I can't deny that people exist, so if 'soul' means 'person,' then souls exist.

But what many people refer to when they use the word 'soul,' I don't believe in. How could something immaterial be spatial? And how could something non-spatial leave your body? - to leave your body something would have to move through space, and occupy space - and be spatial, and therefore material. I think the whole 'soul' farce probably comes from a misunderstanding of what 'soul' is - an abstract noun, not a concrete one. Or it should be, anyway.

Same goes for God - I tend to call myself an athiest-agnostic rather than an athiest because I believe that there might be or there might have been a God in the sense that the universe might have had a beginning. 'God' would be the name I would give to the first cause, so to me God would be a concept, rather than a being.

As a physicist whose brain is infested with computer science concepts, I like to think of the soul as software, and of flesh, bones, and nerves as hardware. Nobody doubts I can be a consistent atheist and believe that computers run software; so I don't see why religionists such as thunder_runner have so much trouble with the concept that I can be a consistent atheist and believe that humans have souls.