Why the soul?

[MidGe]

Right! Proof that god could not possibly exist:

1) god by definition (defining my terms) would have to be benevolent and all-powerful.

2. Since I see a lot of unwonted suffering in the world, the world could not come about thru the agency of a god. In fact such would be intolerable to a benevolent god.

3. QED


Nexr!

[NotReady]

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3. QED


Nexr!


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If you don't agree with his definition of materialistic naturalism then the argument doesn't apply to you. If you do agree with it, where's the straw?

[MidGe]

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If you don't agree with his definition of materialistic naturalism then the argument doesn't apply to you. If you do agree with it, where's the straw?

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If you don't agree with my definition of god (ie. he is not benevolent, or he is not all-powerful, or is neither), then my argument is not with you.

[NotReady]

Where's the straw?

[flipdeadshot22]

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Beyond faith and religion, why do some people still insist that there exists a soul?


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Assuming that if you deny the soul you are a materialistic naturalist one of the best counters to this is the argument from reason. I think Kant first formulated it, then Balfour in England, then C.S. Lewis included a version in Miracles. The basic idea is that if our thoughts are nothing but the random motion of electrons then reason is an illusion and the laws of thought have no meaning. How can one bit of matter think about another bit of matter?

A more recent version is by Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason. A short article by him on this can be found here.

Richard Carrier of Infidels has written a detailed rebuttal and Reppert has replied to that.

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It seems that you are of the school of Cartesian Dualism. Philosophical arguments aside, I think it would be much more instructive to consider tangible, medical reasons against the existance of a soul (ala dualism). It has been shown that certain types of well-established phenomena, such as the creation of two separate streams of consciousness operating simultaneously in one body in split-brain patients (who have had the corpus callosum connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain severed), cannot be accounted for on dualism. If the mind was an indivisible immaterial substance that could exist independently of the brain then we should not be able to create two minds simply by severing the corpus collosum. Nor should the mind be directly affected by any tampering with the brain. If Cartesian dualism were true the only effect that brain damage could have would be to incapacitate the ability of the mind (or soul) to control the body, but the mind itself would remain intact.

Your premise involving thought being generated by the "random motion of electrons" (I suggest you do some research into neurobiology if that's how you think a neural network operates), doesn't lead logically into the conclusion that "reason is an illusion and the laws of thought have no meaning." The electrons passing through the port of the modem on your computer are continually "moving around," and as a function of that, sets off a process that eventually leads to my text I type being sent to your screen which (I hope) DOES have some meaning. All notions of perception and meaning do not need to have a basis within the context of a soul to be understood.

[MidGe]

The straw is [ QUOTE ]
...In presenting this argument, it is necessary to contrast the atheist's view of the world with that of the theist. I will present a model of the atheist universe which I will call mechanistic materialism. Although worldviews other than mechanistic materialism are compatible with atheism, mechanistic materialism seems to be the worldview held by most atheists. So if I can show that the existence of reason makes sense in a theistic universe but not in a mechanistic materialist universe, I will have given some good reasons for preferring theism to atheism. If an atheist wishes to propose a form of atheism that differs from mechanistic materialism, I would be happy to discuss that worldview as well....

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There is the straw he assumes 1) most atheists... and then again 2)assumes everyone has a world view.


Wrong on both counts.

But I am glad you find no faults with my previous post. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[NotReady]

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1) most atheists..


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If an atheist wishes to propose a form of atheism that differs from mechanistic materialism, I would be happy to discuss that worldview as well....


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Where's the straw?

[NotReady]

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It has been shown that certain types of well-established phenomena, such as the creation of two separate streams of consciousness operating simultaneously in one body in split-brain patients


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Link?

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The electrons passing through the port of the modem on your computer are continually "moving around,"


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If you read the Reppert article you will remember he discussed the computer analogy. The electrons in a computer are controlled by a mind - the guy at the keyboard.

[Piers]

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Is it simply a concept spewed out by the ego to allow a human to personify himself as something more than matter,

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Yes, so whats wrong with that?

[flipdeadshot22]

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It has been shown that certain types of well-established phenomena, such as the creation of two separate streams of consciousness operating simultaneously in one body in split-brain patients


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Link?

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The electrons passing through the port of the modem on your computer are continually "moving around,"


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If you read the Reppert article you will remember he discussed the computer analogy. The electrons in a computer are controlled by a mind - the guy at the keyboard.

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http://www.tcnj.edu/~leonard2/CogPsy...p/brainBg.html

I think this is a decent read about split brain patients, plus it gives you some background on the case of phinaes gage, a person who's personality was dramatically altered by brain injury (which shouldn't be the case if there was a conciousness that transcended the consituent matter of his mind.)

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If you read the Reppert article you will remember he discussed the computer analogy. The electrons in a computer are controlled by a mind - the guy at the keyboard.


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Why do you need to affix some sort of immortal conciousness to the idea of sentience? Do you believe that the "spirit" of Windows XP lives on even after the destruction of all the computers on earth?