Goodness atheists and religious people

[Martin]

Martin,
I don't know why you are using expressions like, "unreasonable" in this discussion. We have different opinions that is all, unless of course you consider anyone who has a different opinion to you is being unreasonable.

I'm using the expression 'unreasonable' because you described your stance as 'reasonable' (see post 20) which it plainly isn't.  You, by your own admission have excluded the fact of evolution because it won't fit the explanation the way you want to explain it.  As some more honest person said earlier, that's a cop out.

Humans and animals differ in as much that human being posses a part of them that survives death, the part we call the soul.

Says who? there is not one shred of evidence for this.

[saundthorp]

[saundthorp]

Humans and animals differ in as much that human being posses a part of them that survives death, the part we call the soul.

Says who? there is not one shred of evidence for this.

Read the Bible, Martin, you will find the evidence there

[Martin]

[Martin]

Humans and animals differ in as much that human being posses a part of them that survives death, the part we call the soul.

Says who? there is not one shred of evidence for this.

Read the Bible, Martin, you will find the evidence there

I'm very well versed in the Bible thank you.  The idea of a soul is a Greek one, taken up to some extent in the Bible, but that doesn't constitute evidence for its existence.  The soul was a proposal based upon the prevailing doctrines and dogma, ideas and understandings of the time, but, just because it is a proposal, doesn't mean that they had, or could present, evidence for its existence as something apart from the functions of the brain.

Had the ancient Greeks had the benefit of modern medicine's understanding of brain function, I doubt whether the idea of the soul would have been understood as something apart from the body.

[JJ]

Humans and animals differ in as much that human being posses a part of them that survives death, the part we call the soul.

Says who? there is not one shred of evidence for this.

Read the Bible, Martin, you will find the evidence there

One doesn't normally find evidence in a book. 

[Jan]

Read the Bible, Martin, you will find the evidence there

The Bible is a collection of ancient scriptures written by many different people over a long time period. Some parts may or may not be true.  It is not 'evidence' !!

[saundthorp]

Read the Bible, Martin, you will find the evidence there

The Bible is a collection of ancient scriptures written by many different people over a long time period. Some parts may or may not be true.  It is not 'evidence' !!

One doesn't normally find evidence in a book.

Jan and JJ,
I think you guys and gals are taking the ****. or to use a phrase a famous tennis player used to scream at the umpire,
"You can't be serious"

[JJ]

Wow no, I'm not taking the **** saundthorp.  What do you mean?

I for one am totally serious, pace John McEnroe!  , I don't think something written in a book is evidence of anything.  Evidence is fact based,  and may come from something that can be replicated easily or corroborated by more than one. Ask the CID !

[Jan]

Jan and JJ,
I think you guys and gals are taking the ****. or to use a phrase a famous tennis player used to scream at the umpire,
"You can't be serious"

Pardon??

I said "The Bible is a collection of ancient scriptures written by many different people over a long time period. Some parts may or may not be true.  It is not 'evidence' !!"

the above statement happens to be quite true Saundy - it is not 'taking the ****'.

Why do you think it is 'taking the ****'?

[Martin]

While I don't think there is evidence for the soul's existence as some sort of conscious entity which is apart from the brain or body, I do think the word has its place (perhaps along with 'heart') to represent the very core of our thoughts and emotions, the part of us from which which good arises, the part which Loves, the part which longs for a better world,  the part which is upset and angered by injustice etc.   

There is something important about referring to these important human characteristics with a sort of reverence - I have no problem calling this the 'God' part which is in every human, it seems appropriate and accurately expressive to use language in this way.

[saundthorp]

[saundthorp]

Wow no, I'm not taking the **** saundthorp.  What do you mean?

I for one am totally serious, pace John McEnroe!  , I don't think something written in a book is evidence of anything.  Evidence is fact based,  and may come from something that can be replicated easily or corroborated by more than one. Ask the CID !

One doesn't normally find evidence in a book.

That statement quite took my breath away, JJ. Where did a lot of the evidence for early Christianity come from, the written words of the early writers of Christianity, the Apostles, Paul's writings, the so called Early Fathers of the Church. To bring it bang up to date. Where is a lot of evidence in the phone hacking scandle coming from, emails.
Surely you have heard the expression "a paper trail" in investigations.
The evidence for the "Final Solution" in Hitler's Germany came from notes and letters written at the time. The written word has sunk many a criminal and the written word has provided the evidence for the Truth of the Bible.
The Bible is not just "a book", or is that just how you regard the Bible?

[Martin]

Martin,
Your attempts to diminish God in the affairs of man seem almost desperate.
Here is a link which should give you food for thought.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09580c.htm

Saudthorp, I rather think it is you who diminishes God, since you clearly feel the need to cling to beliefs that have long ago been proved to be false in order to protect you god.

Perhaps, rather than spewing links to Roman Catholic websites which do no more to provide evidence for a soul than you have given yourself, you could indulge yourself with a bit of thinking of your own. You are so evidently locked in dogma that your mind refuses to ask questions that think outside the box defined for you by the Catholic church.

I fail to see how you can describe my posts as 'desperate attempts', it's patently clear to anyone who reads this that you haven't got any evidence to support your case, and that your posts are the desperate ones.

Incidentally, I don't think you have understood the point JJ is making (either that or you understood it, ignored it, and chose to address one that she isn't making).   JJ is saying that the sort of evidence that was being asked of you, to show that such a thing as the soul actually existed as something other than the brain, could only really be supplied by the results of an experiment or observation of some sort.  An ancient religious text provides conjecture, and theories which are necessarily based upon ancient understandings.  If we are to treat the Bible with any respect as a writing we must read it in that context and must not use it to attempt to prove the existence of things like a soul!

The Bible writers may provide us with wonderful ideas that we can interpret in our modern context, but whatever we do with them, our interpretation will be just that, an interpretation, and something we can only really use if it doesn't conflict with what we can know with absolute certainty about the world, because evidence exists to make it certain.

Now I have asked you, and you have been unable or unwilling to to answer, so I ask it again, what about the other human species that existed before our own?  If souls exist then, would these other human species have had souls?   Specifically, what about Neanderthals, who were a separate branch of humanity with a brain size similar to our own, who buried their dead with ceremonial objects.  Do you think they had souls?  And I'm not asking for someone else's ideas, I'm not asking for a link to another Catholic Encyclopedia page, I'm asking you for your own opinion, derived from your own thoughts.

[saundthorp]

Jan and JJ,
I think you guys and gals are taking the ****. or to use a phrase a famous tennis player used to scream at the umpire,
"You can't be serious"

Pardon??

I said "The Bible is a collection of ancient scriptures written by many different people over a long time period. Some parts may or may not be true.  It is not 'evidence' !!"

the above statement happens to be quite true Saundy - it is not 'taking the ****'.

Why do you think it is 'taking the ****'?

Jan,
I thought this discussion board was broadly Christian so I was quite taken aback by what you said, because it was so dismissive of the Bible.
Christians don't regard the Bible as just a collection of ancient writings.
How do you react to this statement taken from the Catholic Encyclopaedia, regarding the Bible?

The Bible, as the inspired recorded of revelation, contains the word of God; that is, it contains those revealed truths which the Holy Ghost wishes to be transmitted in writing. However, all revealed truths are not contained in the Bible (see TRADITION); neither is every truth in the Bible revealed, if by revelation is meant the manifestation of hidden truths which could not other be known. Much of the Scripture came to its writers through the channels of ordinary knowledge, but its sacred character and Divine authority are not limited to those parts which contain revelation strictly so termed. The Bible not only contains the word of God; it is the word of God. The primary author is the Holy Ghost, or, as it is commonly expressed, the human authors wrote under the influence of Divine inspiration. It was declared by the Vatican Council (Sess. III, c. ii) that the sacred and canonical character of Scripture would not be sufficiently explained by saying that the books were composed by human diligence and then approved by the Church, or that they contained revelation without error. They are sacred and canonical "because, having been written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that have God for their author, and as such have been handed down to the Church". The inerrancy of the Bible follows as a consequence of this Divine authorship. Wherever the sacred writer makes a statement as his own, that statement is the word of God and infallibly true, whatever be the subject-matter of the statement.

Trusting that you don't have the same antagonism towards Catholicism that other posters have, I have used a Catholic source. I could have used a non-Catholic quote, which apart from the reference to Tradition, would have been very similar.