Soul

Um, from what you say... Are you telling me that you will be disappointed if you discover that there really is a soul? So you have enough evidence to convince a small child that the soul exists. That's not especially compelling. That is why none of this is relevant. The soul, whether it exists or not, is objective. Your subjective experiences and ideas are completely irrelevant. Fair enough. Not much use to the rest of us though Based on that logic, it was sensible for the Yorkshire Ripper to murder women, because his belief that God had told him to kill no doubt seemed sensible to him. But you don't necessarily see one either; you merely think you do. In the absence of any other corroborating evidence, that is worth nothing. That is not what I am saying. It's not just because I can't see the soul, but rather because no-one can, beyond the vague and subjective sense of a soul that you describe. That is exactly the same level of evidence we have for pixies, celestial teapots, the Spaghetti Monster, et al.I don't see the point in being a "soul agnostic". If there is no evidence, I assume, tentatively, but nonetheless quite confidently, that it doesn't exist.

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Mutate and Survive

Sure, in a loose sense of the word evidence. Maybe being a 'reason' is a better word. Would that not be a reason for you to kill me? Because they can be a means too, albeit a shitty means. Not that it must be true. I could very well be wrong about the soul.It more amounts to whatever I think is true, I believe is true. If I have reasons to think something and then I believe it, isn't the belief based on reasons?

I'm perfectly willing to concede the point that there may be a soul that exists non-physically. Science says nothing about non-physical entities. What I am arguing is that for a soul to matter it has to interact with the physical. If two things interact, there is a change created in at least one of the things. If there is no change, there is no interaction, if there is no interaction, then the existence of the one is irrelevant to the other. So, until you can show me where the soul interacts with the body, then at the very least we can say the soul is irrelevant to the body.As for your subjective experience, it may be illuminating to ask if you felt the existence of your soul before you had heard of the belief or after. If no one had shown you a Bible or introduced to you the concept of a soul, would you still feel you had one? I know these are difficult if not impossible to answer, but they are interesting things to contemplate.

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"Of course...we all create god in our own image" - Willard Decker, Star Trek: The Motion Picturehttp://perditionsgate.bravepages.com

Well now we must enter the world of conjecture Its possible. Their soul might be less developed by the same amount that their sentience is less developed and in that case, it would be about as useless as compared to ours. That's one reason why not.... In that scenario, it would seem that the soul develops much like the body does. The preemie baby might have a preemie soul.Who knows...

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I'm saying that if I feel a soul, then it is sensible for me to believe that that soul exists. I don't think that is evidence for you to believe in souls, but it is for me myself.

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I wish someone would babble off that sort of thing to my face - then I could spit in their face.I feel as if my penis is 9 inches long when I am really drunk, the women I am with never feel this. My feelings have nothing to do with a reality. I might want to convince myself of this stupid fact, I bet I could.I bet a rapist can feel his penis in a womans vagina prior to destroying her life forever. Well, if he can feel it, it is a reality to him - what is the harm in making one final connection he assumes. He has already done it in his mind, it is only sensible for him to believe the rape has taken place. Most rapists start out this way with pornography. Then they cinch(spelling) the deal with the act. My serial killer books seem to put it at 2-4 years later.I am amazed at the linguistic contortions or hoops a theist goes through to attempt to make himself feel logical in the presence of reality.The fact you feel you have a soul, for which their is no evidence.... Actually, all evidence except for a few words in the bible seems to conclusively suggest it is not real does not make it real.We have many people in mental institutions who have been locked up for our protection because of such delusions. Because something has felt real to them yet held no basis in reality. I am shocked why religion is the trump card. Why the heck are theists allowed to act delusional while other delusional people are locked away, medicated or excommunicated - not tolerated.I think(no scratch that). I know 60% of the problem is non-theists making excuses for comments like:

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I'm saying that if I feel a soul, then it is sensible for me to believe that that soul exists. I don't think that is evidence for you to believe in souls, but it is for me myself.

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Belief ignorant, stupid, caring, delusional, psychotic, good or not all lead to action. One can only assume a delusional/psychotic belief will lead to a similar action.I am tired of idiots. I challenge the mods to post this. Then I challenge people like CS to visit me:65 Lincoln Ave
Brownsburg, Indiana
46112Purplebear

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People are not stupid, religion is.

Well, we don't know.But I've speculated that the interaction could take place in the mind. How would we identify the change created in this scenario? What would you say if an isolated person did think that they had a soul?And the logical conclusion of your position would be that the first idea of the soul could not have arrisen because noone could have introduced the concept

This kind of trolling only makes you look like an idiot. If you don't like someones idea and aren't smart enough to argue against it, then the next best thing is violence. You don't seem to understand my position.If you had some reason to think that your penis was that long, then that would be a reason for you to believe that your penis was that long. It could very well be a false belief, but your belief would not be baseless.I don't believe in my soul, willy-nilly, for no reason whatsoever. It is not a baseless belief. That I cannot demonstrate the soul does not negate the reasons that I do have for believing in it. Because we cannot know if the theists are right or not. What the hell are you talking about?This belief of yours is more irrational than my belief in the soul. You're hypocritical Wow, now I know your an idiot.

Well, the mind is another thing we'd have to show the existence of, like the soul. The "mind" as a nonphysical entity, is something I would argue against as well. The "mind" as merely a term meaning the conglomeration of electro-chemical signals in the brain that make up our thoughts, feelings, etc would be more akin to what I think of as the mind. The first definition of mind, is often synonymous with some people's definition of soul.As for the first concept of the soul, obviously someone thought of it, and no, I don't consider that any more proof than your feelings. I just think it would be an interesting thing to ponder. When I was younger, I believed in God and souls and stuff, but I reached a point where I asked myself why I believed those things, and all I could come up with was that others had told me. Once I started looking for independent verification, I couldn't find any. I find it interesting to question my beliefs from time to time and try to understand why I believe something and if there might be a reason to change my belief. Over the yeras, a number of things have come and gone, and I truly feel that I'm getting closer to the "truth" every time I do this little mental investigation. You may do the same thing and still come to the conclusion that you have a soul, and it will all depend on what we consider to be convincing evidence. I consider personal feelings to be the weakest form and when I find those are the only reasons for my belief, I hold them in the most tentative of ways.

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"Of course...we all create god in our own image" - Willard Decker, Star Trek: The Motion Picturehttp://perditionsgate.bravepages.com

Where do "think" and "believe" seperate?
No it is based on assumption.Without real evidence, empirical evidence, anything else is speculation and assumption. Some speculation and assumption is valid and some is not.Assumption of the ordinary and mundane is ultimately based on repeated empirical experience.
Assumption of the extraordinary and spectacular (omniscient omnipotent beings, everlasting etheral souls etc. etc.) frankly borders on the delusional.Apart from anything else you are misusing the word evidence.
Evidence is how we differentiate between that which is true and that which is not. If a form of evidence can equally support two mutually exclusive conclusions either, or neither, of which may be true then it is no sort of evidence at all.You "feel" that you have a soul. (Lets assume) I "feel" that you have no soul. The "evidence" is equal and opposite. It is not evidence. It is assumption with regard to subjective feeling on both counts.The use of the word "evidence" is being used to legitimise things which do not warrant that claim. Evidence is not just something that can be used to suggest both the truth and falsehood (plus anything in-between) of any iven claim.You should see the "Probability of God's Existence" thread regarding this topic as this one and that are converging on the same areas.

No Being pleased with a result doesn't necessitate me wishing the result. Actually, I haven't claimed that I have enough evidence to convince anyone. The point was that if something seems to be real to someone, then that is enough reason for them to believe that it is real. What makes you think the soul has to be objective? That suggest that it exists in the physical world; maybe it exists somewhere else. Correct, if his judgment was sound then he was sensible. You can be sound, but be incorrect. In other words, you can be sensibly wrong. I say that most people do believe in the soul, not to argue from popularity, but to show that there is not an absense of ANY corroborating evidence.I feel it, most people feel it, we might be on to something. We don't believe in the soul for no reason whatsoever. People can "see" them. No, it is not the exact same. I, personally, don't have any reason to believe in those things like I do for the soul. If you don't feel your soul then there's no reason for you to believe it exists other than most other people telling you that it does. I think that is reason enough to be agnostic about it but maybe your threshold is higher.But to confidently believe that it does not exist because you are assuming that your lack of evidevce is enough is no more sensible than my position.

Sounds similiar to me...I was an atheist too for a while but when I honestly went looking for 'those things', I found them. I hold my personal feeling in a higher regard. Its my world, afterall.

In a similiar place where hypothesis and conclusion seperate.I shouldn't have use the word whatever up there. I might think something is true, and then when I investigate it, find out that it doesn't really seem to be true. Then I would not believe that it is true.For things that we have little evidence to investigate, we might believe what we think from a gut feeling or something as a way of trusting ourselves in what we think. It goes from 'think' to 'believe' when you have reasons to believe it. Those reasons might be what caused you to think it in the first place. I already admitted that and its not in the statement you quoted anyways. I've started using 'reasons' instead of 'evidence'. But not necessarily baseless. Then we're prolly going off topic here.

In this case, I would want to know your motives for looking. Were you looking because you were just generally curious, or were you looking because you wanted to find something?What was it that you found that changed your mind, and what stopped you from seeing/feeling/noticing that when you became an atheist in the first place?I want there to be an afterlife, and I want there to be an eternal part of me. But my desire doesn't make me think its actually true. A strong desire to find something can often cloud our judgment when we start out to find it. My cousin at one point had a profound experience, I can't describe exactly what it was, since I didn't experience it, but he told me that he could see how some people could attribute the feeling to God, how some people could make it a religious experience. He chalked it up to the amazing power of humanity and nature. Depending on how you filter the experience could cloud judgment on what the experience actually was. Even something as mundane as remembering the color of a car you passed a few minutes ago gets clouded by expectations and desires, to the point where an eye-witness testimony is often shown to be suspect at best.I have no doubt you feel something but to say that feeling points to one possibility over another is a completely different question.

No No No. How many things do you "confidently believe" do not exist because there is no evidence for them at all?Thor, Zeus, Santa, Tooth Fairy etc. etc. etc. Are these assumptions about their inexistence equally valid with assumptions that they do exist?
There is nothing but a lack of evidence to base any conclusions or assumptions on in each of these cases.Reliable assumptions are borne of repeated everyday and very empirical experience.
When you start claiming that assumptions of things that are extraordinary are equally valid with those that are mundane you are intentionally conflating and confusing words like "evidence", "belief", "assumption" and "knowledge" in order to justify and somehow legitimise your own evidenceless beliefs.I know I exist
I can reliably assume that you exist.
There is no basis on which to reliably assume that a soul exists. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Conclusions are borne of empiricall tested and verified hypotheses.How do you go about distinguishing "think" and "believe"....? In the absence of any reliable evidence we make assumptions based on relevant experience, personal prejudice and philosophical bias.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.