Soul

How do you know?

The only intellegent answer to your questions is: "We don't know."Anything else is pointless speculation.Like your assertion that the soul doesn't exist...

The two options you mentioned are:

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1) Souls don't exist
2) Souls don't matter

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First of all, absense of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absense.Us not being able to put our finger on souls doesn't mean that they don't exist. Things' existences are not dependent on our abilities to find them. IMHO, I think its possible that the doorway between the physical and spiritual is the mind. Your soul could exist on some spiritual plane, parallel to our physical plane, and the soul could interact with your body through your mind. This would allow the interaction of different souls on the physical plane via people's bodies through their minds. That provides a mechanism for actions in the phyical world affecting the spiritual. Of course, this is all conjecture. Es imposiblé.

No empirical evidence, sure.But if I feel like I have a soul and conclude from those feelings that I do have one, then my conclusion is not baseless.

But to me, it seems like I have a soul. I think that is some kind of evidence, albeit shitty evidence. It is, though, a reason to believe it exists. I have a reason to believe in my soul, though. I wouldn't say there is absolutely no evidence for it. And I could come up with some needs for it, so I can't really say that is isn't real. But I don't have any reason to say that Santa is real.

Why?It isn't necessary. Those electochemical processes could be a result of the soul transgressing the mind, just sayin' Being able to describe things physically does not negate a possible non-physical element uderlying those physcal processes.For example, the ToE could just be describing how god did it. It is a reasonable reason, to myself, for myself to believe in my soul.

Its not wishful thinking How could you even possibly know my thoughts? Yes, for the small child it is. It depends on what we are willing to consider evidence.Nothing subjective is really evidence in the best sense of the word evidence. But I do use my subjective experiences to come to my own conclusions. And in the end, all of my experiences are ultimately subjective. Its valueless as evidence for anyone other than myself. But to myself it has merit.Your previous position:

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I would go further and say that the only sensible position regarding the existence of things for which no evidence exists is to assume that they don't exist.

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While my subjective experience is not really "evidence" for the soul, in the sense of empirical evidence, I consider my position sensible because it makes sense to me. From what I can tell, my soul does exist. You being unaware of souls doesn't trump my own experiences. It wouldn't be sensible for me to drop my belief in my soul simply because you don't see one. I don't think you should take the proposition more seriously if you don't think there are souls. But to claim that my position lacks sensibility simpy because you don't see the result is not sensible in itself.

I'm not saying that we should start accepting other people's personal feelings as evidence for the existence of things.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. When the feelings are your own.

Yes, those beliefs can be considered sensible as well. If the judgment is sound, then it is sensible, by definition. I think that basing my judgments on things that I’m convinced are real is sound.

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From Message 26
Well, my reasons for postulating the existence of the soul are the subjective experience I have that suggest the soul exists and is non-physical. You’re assuming that I’m just believing in my soul without any reason at all and that is false. Again, not necessarily.This is essentially the same statement that I asked why to before . Like you said, there could be fairies pushing the ball down. We wouldn’t know if there were, would we? Gravitational Theory explains it just fine without them. This doesn’t mean that they cannot be there.If I saw a fairy pushing the ball down, then I might believe they exist. Your argument that theory explains fine without them wouldn’t negate me seeing them. Thus the folly of science in its failure to identify a non-physical realm. It might be irrelevant to the explanation of the mechanism by which things happen, but there could be more to this world than just the “how’s” . (like the “why’s”)

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Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence.
Letting the reigns go to the unfolding is faith, faith, faith, faith.
Science has failed our world.
Science has failed our Mother Earth.
-System of a Down, "Science"He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.
-Avenged Sevenfold, "Bat Country"

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?

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...

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.

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.