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Atheists/Agnostics/Other: Does man have a soul

Does man have a soul?

  • Atheist/Agnostic and yes, he does

    Votes: 3 5.8%

  • Atheist/Agnostic and no, he does not

    Votes: 24 46.2%

  • Other belief system and yes he does

    Votes: 11 21.2%

  • Other belief system and no, he does not

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • BTSOOM/FIIK (beats the **** out of me/fvck if I know)

    Votes: 10 19.2%

  • Cake or death?

    Votes: 4 7.7%
  • Total voters
    52
Define.... 'soul'.....
 
I am not closed to the concept of a soul. I disagree strongly with the idea that the soul is some sort of ghost inside me that rises to heaven or descends to hell based on some sort of dogmatic point system. I'm comfortable saying I dont really know. The problem is too large.
 
Orion said:
I can see we are making no headway here. You know my position, I won't restate it. You are entitled to your beliefs and to disagree with me, though I don't feel you truly understand where I'm coming from. You seem to feel threatened which is not what I'm trying to do here. But then, a lot of staunch secularists need to feel like all of reality is knowable and quantifiable in order to feel secure in their world, so I would understand why you would be flying off the handle a little bit.

P.S. Using "WTF??" in response to someone's thoughtful replies is REALLY rude.
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Dude you claimed to have taken University level physics and when I told you that gravity is the displacement of space by mass you replied that I just explained an effect of gravity when gravity was in fact the effect of the mass upon space.

Dude earlier you claimed that science once said the earth was flat when in actuality science said the earth was a sphere since the ancient Greeks and Eratosthenes using trigonometry even predicted the circumference of the earth more than two thousand years before we made it into space.

Dude you actually claimed that science doesn't use inductive reasoning.

Dude you actually claimed that inherently random spin correlation of twin subatomic particles some how gives credence to the idea of a soul.

Dude you have made an unfalsifiable positive assertion which is just as useful as my unfalsifiable positive assertion that there is an invisible heatless fire dragon living in my garage. I would strongly suggest that you read The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan.
 
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Agent Ferris said:
Dude earlier you claimed that science once said the earth was flat when in actuality science said the earth was a sphere since the ancient Greeks and Eratosthenes using trigonometry even predicted the circumference of the earth more than two thousand years before we made it into space.
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Measuring the circumference of an object does not mean the object is a sphere. Pythagoras theorized(in reality he just 'guessed' as he couldn't really confirm it) the earth was spherical but then again many prominent greek scientists and phylosophers thought the earth was a flat disk. Ancient scientists(and I will use that term lightly as most 'scientists' of the time were really phylosophers and clergymen) did not confirm nor deny the sphericity of the earth. Modern science proved the sphericity of the earth. A few speculators theorized it.
 
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Hatuey said:
Define.... 'soul'.....
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A soul is a human being. It used to be expressed in common language, such as so many souls live in this place, or not a soul was around, etc. A soul, or human being, is in possession of a body for as long as his/her mortal life lasts. After that, he/she might get a new body, or might be bodiless, no one really knows.

That's what makes it puzzling when people express a disbelief in souls. We do know that human beings exist, don't we?
 
Hatuey said:
Measuring the circumference of an object does not mean the object is a sphere.
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So you think the Greeks thought that the earth was of a donut shape?

Pythagoras theorized(in reality he just 'guessed' as he couldn't really confirm it) the earth was spherical but then again many prominent greek scientists and phylosophers thought the earth was a flat disk. Ancient scientists(and I will use that term lightly as most 'scientists' of the time were really phylosophers and clergymen) did not confirm nor deny the sphericity of the earth. Modern science proved the sphericity of the earth. A few speculators theorized it.
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Which prominent Greek scientists thought the earth was a flat sphere? Aristotle knew the earth was a sphere due to astronomical observations in which stars in Cyprus could not be seen in Egypt later the Earth's radius was proven by Eratosthenes. Who are you suggesting proved the spherical nature of the earth?
 
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Dittohead not! said:
A soul is a human being. It used to be expressed in common language, such as so many souls live in this place, or not a soul was around, etc. A soul, or human being, is in possession of a body for as long as his/her mortal life lasts. After that, he/she might get a new body, or might be bodiless, no one really knows.

That's what makes it puzzling when people express a disbelief in souls. We do know that human beings exist, don't we?
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If you're going to equivocate, you're going to be puzzled. If you're going to use "a soul" as a synonym for "a person" then I don't believe people who express disbelief in souls mean it in the way you do, they mean disbelief in the typical alleged intangible aspect to a person that survives death. You should consider the conception they are rejecting, and you'll find yourself less puzzled.

Its like when someone explains "god is love," that doesn't mean that someone who doesn't believe in any gods doesn't not believe in love.
 
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Redress said:
I have seen no compelling evidence to suggest a soul, so without that I have no reason to believe in one.
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That would make you merely a sack of meat. I think man is much more than that.
 
This debate is retarded.

Just as I predicted.

"I has proven evidence of a soul!!"

"No you hasn't, I refused to believe you"

"Yes I has"

"No you hasnt'"

etc.
 
How would the absence of a soul make you merely a sack of meat? Sacks of meat don't often develop space travel and plant national symbols on moons.
 
Actually, I appreciate everybody taking the time and effort to write, especially those of you who thought it out and gave me clear, concise reasons with videos etc. (that means you, Gabriel). I don't know why anybody else weighed in. I already know what I think, and what those who think like me, think *for the most part*. I wanted to hear from the opposing view. "If not, why not", etc.

Thanks!
 
I'll reiterate one more time in case it was lost in the shuffle, the statement of "there is a soul," is a positive assertion which lacks falsifiability, it has as much validity and usefulness as "an invisible dragon which breathes heatless fire lives in my garage."


The Dragon in My Garage by Carl Sagan

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so. The only thing you've really learned from my insistence that there's a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You'd wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I've seriously underestimated human fallibility. Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don't outright reject the notion that there's a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you're prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it's unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative -- merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of "not proved."

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons -- to say nothing about invisible ones -- you must now acknowledge that there's something here, and that in a preliminary way it's consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it's not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you're pretty sure don't know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages -- but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we're disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I'd rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren't myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.
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American said:
That would make you merely a sack of meat. I think man is much more than that.
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This is one of the main problems with all religions and religious people. They somehow think that without some imaginary entity that they call a "soul" living within them that a human being is nothing more than a carbon based machine, incapable of love, honesty, integrity, ethics and values. There is enough scientific and psysiological evidence in the fields of biology and evolutionary psychology that pertains to the nature of sentient human consciousness that it is a wonder people still believe in the existence of a soul, or anything supernatural, at all.

No matter how much a believer "thinks" or "feels" that there is a separate part of their existence that will somehow leave their physical bodies and magically travel to another realm, the fact remains that there is no empirical evidence to substantiate the existence of soul. In fact, belief in the existence of a soul is only present as a result of the religious concepts of salvation and damnation and the delusional fantasy of a soul would not even be relevent if people did not require a defense mechanism in response to the fear generated by the belief that one can be eternally consigned to fabricated places like hell.

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UAF said:
This is one of the main problems with all religions and religious people. They somehow think that without some imaginary entity that they call a "soul" living within them that a human being is nothing more than a carbon based machine, incapable of love, honesty, integrity, ethics and values. There is enough scientific and psysiological evidence in the fields of biology and evolutionary psychology that pertains to the nature of sentient human consciousness that it is a wonder people still believe in the existence of a soul, or anything supernatural, at all.

No matter how much a believer "thinks" or "feels" that there is a separate part of their existence that will somehow leave their physical bodies and magically travel to another realm, the fact remains that there is no empirical evidence to substantiate the existence of soul. In fact, belief in the existence of a soul is only present as a result of the religious concepts of salvation and damnation and the delusional fantasy of a soul would not even be relevent if people did not require a defense mechanism in response to the fear generated by the belief that one can be eternally consigned to fabricated places like hell.

8080sig1.jpg
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You must be one of those militant atheists I keep hearing about.

dictionary.com said:
soul   [sohl] Show IPA
–noun
1.
the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.
2.
the spiritual part of humans regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come: arguing the immortality of the soul.
3.
the disembodied spirit of a deceased person: He feared the soul of the deceased would haunt him.
4.
the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.
5.
a human being; person.
...
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If you are using definition #5 of course "souls" [human beings; persons.] exist, but that doesn't mean that there's any reason to think that souls of the first three definitions occur in reality.
 
Anarcho-fascist said:
You must be one of those militant atheists I keep hearing about.


If you are using definition #5 of course "souls" [human beings; persons.] exist, but that doesn't mean that there's any reason to think that souls of the first three definitions occur in reality.
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Thanks for the props, Anarcho. My references are strictly drawn from the religious point of view. Oh, and yes, I am one of those Militant Atheist :soap
 
ads1981 said:
Actually, I appreciate everybody taking the time and effort to write, especially those of you who thought it out and gave me clear, concise reasons with videos etc. (that means you, Gabriel). I don't know why anybody else weighed in. I already know what I think, and what those who think like me, think *for the most part*. I wanted to hear from the opposing view. "If not, why not", etc.

Thanks!
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:3oops:

Your more then welcome.
 
Lachean said:
If you're going to equivocate, you're going to be puzzled. If you're going to use "a soul" as a synonym for "a person" then I don't believe people who express disbelief in souls mean it in the way you do, they mean disbelief in the typical alleged intangible aspect to a person that survives death. You should consider the conception they are rejecting, and you'll find yourself less puzzled.

Its like when someone explains "god is love," that doesn't mean that someone who doesn't believe in any gods doesn't not believe in love.
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I don't think you understood my post. A human being is a soul. That "intangible aspect" of the human being is the human. The body is just something that the human inhabits, much as a driver controls a car. Once the body is no longer inhabitable, the soul no longer has one to inhabit, in much the same way a driver abandons a car than no longer operates.
 
YAY! Good to see you, mister. :) Now you owe me a bag of jellybeans or some such for introducing you to your new playground.

UAF said:
Thanks for the props, Anarcho. My references are strictly drawn from the religious point of view. Oh, and yes, I am one of those Militant Atheist :soap
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One bag of jellybeans on the way! Lol...
 
I have no idea, or in other words (or symbols): "BTSOOM/FIIK"

I allow for the possibility that souls exists, but have no way to prove it.

I also allow for the possibility that no such thing exists, but have no way to prove that either.

This lack of provability seems an innate part of the whole idea, somehow.
 
The Mark said:
I have no idea, or in other words (or symbols): "BTSOOM/FIIK"

I allow for the possibility that souls exists, but have no way to prove it.

I also allow for the possibility that no such thing exists, but have no way to prove that either.

This lack of provability seems an innate part of the whole idea, somehow.
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Look we have a winner!
 
peepnklown said:
To make this simple; if empirical evidence of a soul is found then I will change my mind.
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That still doesn't address my point. Basically you believe what the evidence supports and reject what the evidence does not support. While that may work most of the time, it effectively means you think that everything we don't have evidence for right now does not exist.

A better stance would be, "Current evidence does not suggest a soul, however that does not equate to it not existing." Rummy was partially right when he said absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
 
The Mark said:
I have no idea, or in other words (or symbols): "BTSOOM/FIIK"

I allow for the possibility that souls exists, but have no way to prove it.

I also allow for the possibility that no such thing exists, but have no way to prove that either.

This lack of provability seems an innate part of the whole idea, somehow.
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Yes it is a positive assertion which lacks falsifiability, it is a completely worthless assertion and holds equal validity and value to other unfalsifiable statements; such as, invisible dragons which breathe heatless fire live in my garage along with invisible pink unicorns.
 
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obvious Child said:
A better stance would be, "Current evidence does not suggest a soul, however that does not equate to it not existing." Rummy was partially right when he said absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
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Your suggestion is invalid as it suggests that because evidence does not suggest invisible pink unicorns, that does not equate to them not existing. Absence of evidence may not be evidence, but it most certainly does not presume proof, either. Even after over one-hundred years, Russell's Teapot is still strokin'...
 
UAF said:
Your suggestion is invalid as it suggests that because evidence does not suggest invisible pink unicorns, that does not equate to them not existing. Absence of evidence may not be evidence, but it most certainly does not presume proof, either. Even after over one-hundred years, Russell's Teapot is still strokin'...
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For now we can safely assume that it does not exist considering all the evidence tends towards that direction and barring some unforseen new evidence be left wondering why so many people are suffering from the same strange shared delusion.
 
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