Dragon-I've read some Kant, but less that perhaps i should. With out understanding the exact point that he makes, i'll say that it's not a proof against my arguement to claim that there is a natural law. Whatever the source of an absolute, it is a challenge to atheism, since it indicates a moral component with greater authority than us.

as for humanism, the fundamental axiom is "i would not like." Humanity is the final arbiter of morality, and so if another would like to be lied to, you don't really have a claim for wrong when they lie to you. Preferences do not make an absolute.

Human systems, however complete or exhaustive, either point to a reality greater than man (Bhuddism) or are grounded in human preference and not absolute in the way that a Deity is (Humanism, Legal codes, etc...). I don't mean to use this arguement to claim these are wrong-indeed they may be all we have, but i think its important to know that this is one of the ideas we should confront.

"Stanley Miller greatly increased our understanding on how life may have started on this planet. After university, Miller went to Chicago, where, together with Harold Urey, he tried to recreate the formation of life on Earth. He added an electrical discharge to water under a gas mixture of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. After a week, he found that amino acids, the ingredients of protein - an essential constituent of all living organisms - had been formed."

--1000 Makers of the Millenium

This adds some sort of credibility to the assumption towards evolution.

Now where's your proof on Creationalism?

Oh yes they do. When a society as a whole determines that something is bad, it is bad. period. Anyone doing the "bad" thing is a criminal/amoral/bad. Thus, this moral system is "greater than man", in that it is part of the culture of that society, and any one man typically cannot change that.

You derive your moral authority from a possibly-nonexistant divine source; I derive my moral authority from a definately existing cultural system. I do not need a higher authority than that; I *know* some things are bad, because my culture says they are. That is all I need.

Ok i see what you are going after. Well the simple fact is that we have all these medecines and other substances that alter our counciousness, awarness even our personality (lsd, ecstacy, prozac just to mention a few) and they all alter the verry foundation of what is said to be the soul. lsd can make a true beliving christian minister into a serial killer, while the prozac can make him into a "vegetable".

Aswell as brainsurgeons by shortcircuting parts of the brain can alter things as basic as our ability to count (1,2,3,4,5,6... so forth..) as well as our ability to speak and feel (love, hate, pain and so forth). So they can alter both the practical and abstract aspects of the brain simply by positioning a pice of conducting metal on one part of the brain and then placing the other end on another part of the brain.
All of theses aspects of our mind are considered having it's origin in our "soul".

Then we have the epeleptic woman they mannaged to call fort an OBE simply by letting weak currents of electricity cource through a specific part of the brain. (OBE: Out of body experience, concidered to be one of the main proofs that we have a soul). This is showing what OBE's really are. A little shortcicuit of neurons in our brain nothing more and most certanly nothing less).

As far as i have experienced no proof of the souls existence have ever been able to hold in a critical viewpoint.

As far as the "Abrahams time" argument you presented it was certainly clever but the fact is that it was, what maybe 6000 years ago??, and that they knew nothing compared to what we know today. They were trying to make sense in a world verry hostile twoards humankind but lacked the critical viewpoint of theories that we have developed during the post medieval, beginning of renissance period of our history.

Before this period they simply looked at a dead body and saw that there was something missing (life) and claimed it to be the soul.

it is CSfilms cavemen theory that again comes into play and shows us the basic idea behind the development of our religions. Since noone could prove that there were no afterlife it was assumed that an afterlife existed since a simple wordplay had made it the caveman who said it wasn't so's responsibility to prove that it didn't exist. The reason the theory was so well accepted was because it was comforting to think that this is not the end, i get another chance.

Another example is as far back as the neanderthals (maybe even further back in time, i haven't delved that deep into our prehistoric development) they placed gifts in the graves of their fellow clanmates to journy with them in the afterlife. So even though Abrahams faith did not contain an afterlife our human tradition has passed on that missconception throughout the ages.
Aswell as the sun revloves around the earth, the earth is flat and so forth..

And for the understanding of the organic nature of the brain, we have come much further in our reasearch than to simply understand it, we have come so far that we can manipulate and even alter it. How else do you explain the successes with antidepressants and similar medecines.

How come an ordinary person, with a normal emotional and empatic level, who gets a hard blow to the head at the wrong place becomes a psychopath? How come a simple physical action can shut of such an important part of our emotinal and social sense as empathy? And without him even reflecting over it.

In my eyes that is true proof of the souls nonexistence. (and so on with no soul = no afterlife = god unimportant, uninteresting and most likley nonexistent).

(To be quiet honest with you i find this discussion verry amusing and stimulating. If the tone and wording of my messages seem harsh and offensive to you, please don't take it too seriously as i don't mean any disrespect to you as a person but simpy writes what is on my mind concerning the matter).

Forgive my lateness in posting this, I’ve been away. I see the conversation has moved on. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to reply to this, because it seems you missed my point.

You presumably fall back on your assumption that all religions are contradictory, which is understandable, given the state of the world today. However, I never said that two contradictory things could be true. Nowhere did I state that P & ~P was logical. Since everyone contributing to this thread seems so fond of logic, I will eschew rhetoric and re-express my point symbolically, even though it is not my strongest subject.

Organized religions claim that they are exclusively correct in their beliefs, and that therefore everyone else is wrong. I will represent this as

P v Q v R v S

(P,Q,R,S being religions, and the OR statement being the Exclusive OR, or more correctly (P v Q) & ~(P & Q), but give me a break, I have to write this in a hurry)

My assertion that all religions can in fact be correct was

P & Q & R & S

It was not, as you seemed to take it

P & ~P

If evolution was in fact accepted as a law instead of a theory, this conversation would be moot. Little children would learn about it alongside the laws governing gravity and electricity in public schools, and that would be the end of it. But Evolution is not, for all extents and purposes, a fact. It remains an unproven theory.

Here is my third theory. Humans have always been here, and always will be. I have no evidence to back up this unproven theory, but that's not my point. I've had this conversation before, and it only took me a minute to come up with that idea. Surely other people could come up with other ideas, if they actually tried.

I'm a jovial nihilist. Simply I don't believe in anything, question everything enough (ask the annoying "why?") and any question will be desimated into nothingness. If my subconscience would ever accpet my ideals then I would stop breathing. But alas my brain is hot-wired due to genetics to fall back into the comfortably numbing realm of "reality". The only "meaning" I can find in life is that of obtaining knowledge and to further test my viewpoints on humanity and reality.

What's occuring in the Bible is a few good things mixed with a lot of bad things. All good and bad equally espoused as good things. You didn't need God to sort those things out; only your own sense of morality.

What do you use to seperate the divine truth from the human error? Your own morality. You've got a book that equally espouses the good and the bad as good. The Bible claims that both the good and the bad are messages from God. You're using your own morality to filter out what couldn't be messages from God. You use your own sense of morality to determine what's bad and what isn't bad. You use your own morality to determine what God would want to be the absolute rule on morality. You're able to determine what's morally wrong and right on your own as demonstrated by your ability to seperate the human error and the "divine truth" found in the Bible.

Concession accepted.

Well the point is that our bodies are made of matter, which are controlled by our brains. Our brains are also made of matter, and hence follow the laws of physics. So were we able to explain the behaviour of the brain (at the moment we cannot), we could conclude that the brain follows the laws of physics, leaving no room for "magical" intervention by a soul.
Although we are currently far from understanding the workings of the brain, I see no reason to believe that it is beyond us.
Again being able to encapsulate the workings of our mind in the physical laws of the workings of the brain, does not explicitly prove the non-existence of a soul, but we are, once again, in the territory of the invisible purple llama.

I would agree with chavous on this one. You cannot have a Universal and Absolute ethical system without a God which is above it.
I already explained my views on ethics earlier in this thread. I believe in "personal" ethics, rather than absolute ethics.
Kant proved nothing. He showed that a logical, complete and objective system can be created to govern ethics. Quite a profound statement, but it misses the point entirely. All systems of knowledge (e.g. mathematics) are based on a series of axioms. A complete system is one where it is impossible to dervive to contradictory truths from the set of axioms. So we have a complete system of ethics...but a MAN MADE system of ethics. There is no way to prove that this system of ethics is "true", only that statements can be tested against its axioms...i.e. that somehting is right or wrong within that system. It does nothing to show that that system is universal.
Now I will admit fully to not knowing a whole lot about Kant. So if I am incorrect in my above statement, please elaborate.

Anyway, for the rest of your post I agree with you. Atheists can live perfectly principled and moral lives. But the point is, that these humanitarian concepts cannot be deemed to be absolute.

Persoanlly I believe that the core ethical message of christianity provides a very good basis for a system of ethics: "wouldn't the world be a great place, if everyone was nice to each other?". Unfortunately this core message has been hideously bastardised over the centuries, which is what gives religion its bad name.

He was reffering to God deciding against smiting the worshipers of the false Gods, after Moses "talked him out of it".
Perhaps such a story is untrue... I take it that was what you were trying to say when you claimed you did not accept the idea of divine penmanship.
But if it IS true, it would show a contradiction. The morality of God is absolute...yet he was about to do something amoral.
If God cannot provide absolute morality...who can?

I think that you're just tripping up over words.
The point is, that what society as a whole deems ethical is not absolute.
to quote my earlier post, a large number of subjective opinions does not equal objective fact.
So I would agree with you about what we define as ethical, and how we atheists can still live principled lives. But without an "absolute" figure of authority, we cannot claim that what society deems as good or bad is good or bad.

But the point is that different religions are mutually exclusive in that they believe different things. thats what makes them different religions. Did jesus physically get up out of his tomb on the third day after his death? Some religions say yes, some say no. They cannot both be correct.


Trust me, the fact that in America religion can dictate what a science teacher can and cannot teach in a classroom is one of the most incredibly farsical things in existence today. The reasons are purely political and religious. They have absolutely nothing to do with science. You try to find me a respectible science journal which seriously suggests that The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is fundamentally* incorrect...

It is "only a theory" that the earth rotates around the sun. Read that statement again. It is only a theory. But for all intents and purposes it is treated as fact. Why? Because it is a theory that is backed up by all of the evidence, and has withstanded years of attempted falsification.

Hey...we can all go ahead and make up our own "theories". But this is NOT A THEORY in the scientific sense. A theory is ALWAYS backed up with evidence. A theory is ALWAYS falsifiable. Once a theory is falsified, then it is no longer considered a theory.
I could come up with a "theory" that the earth was shat into existence by gigantic interstellar ants, but it wouldn't make such an idea debatable. Are you seriously suggesting that humans have always existed, or were you using that example to make a point? If you honestly belive that, you are hideously misinformed. Not only is it lacking in evidence, there is also very specific contradictory evidence. Your "theory" is falsified. Either way, you have not really suceeded in making any valid point. Agreed, we can all come up with stories to answer any particular question. But that in itself means nothing.
Edward O Wilson explains far more elloquently than I ever could on what the word "thoery" means in the scientific sense. On Scientific Theory



* You may indeed find an article which questions particular details of evolution by natural selection. Such debating is purely natural, and exists in all areas of science. But these "disagreements" are always abused by being blown out of proportion by people who want to use them to prove the overal theory incorrect. Richard Dawkins illustrates the absolute absurdity of such arguements with a wonderful example.
That is why I highlighted the word "fundamentally".

personally i believe it to be more logical that there isn't a god than there is.

Dragon-for that society, it is bad. For another, it may not be. And the reason why it's bad is by human declaration...and we know that humans are faliiable. Murder is wrong, wrong for you, wrong for a society, but it's not wrong in a universal, what if nobody was watching way that i'm talking about. You state that this is all you need, and that's fine....but it's not absolute because it's dependant on a unsure authority. Morals change over time, etc....

Beating and torturing the same man, could brainwash him in to murder, and breaking all his bones would make him a vegetable...it's long been known that a person can be forced or tricked in to bad behavior, etc. A physcially alterable brain does not disprove
the existance of a metaphysical mind or a soul.

Further, i brought up abraham to prove that faith is not dependant on an afterlife, or a permanent soul. Personally, i do not know what will happen to me or anyone else when death parts us from the world. My faith is that in the story of life, love and grace had the first word, and it will have the last. Apart from that, i make no claim... And this is why Abe is important-faith is not predicated on the bribe or promise of eternal life. God is not rendered unimportant if there is no life after death. There is still this life...and it is from this life that i have faith in God. It is for this life that i have faith in God. I just don't understand how you think you can "prove" athiesm by taking shots on the idea of heaven.

Btw, Regziever, i'm also having a great discussion...thanks.

Paper: Perhaps. But it would be quite difficult to prove so. My faith that credits God with creating the moral law that we humans "discover" is not a logically provable or disprovable item. Sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but the trite and condensending phrase of "concession accepted" is not only rude, but it's also wrong. It is hardly a credit to your arguments to speak in that manner.

CS-if it is true, we're in deep shit. If God changes God's mind, and is in to genocide, there is a whole lot more at stake than philosphical abstractions. I think we'd all have to prepare to be smited for what we've said here.... I say it's a false story because the continuing experience of God points away from that primative idea.

Religious ideas, just like rational or scientfic laws, evolve with continued input. Why expect the science of the ancients to be perfect? Why expect the religion of the ancients to be perfect?

Why the big deal on absolutes? I was under the impression that there was no ether and that all frames of references are equally valid.

To the people saying that God makes morality absolute: you may *think* it does, but if God isn't real... then that morality is simply another man-made system, and thus not absolute. Given that you cannot prove that God exists, it is pretty silly to say that his supposed holy books are somehow better than a cultural system of morality. :)

Thats what I believe, at least. Some people though don't believe like that, and instead believe in absolute morals...thats what the big deal is! ;)

Who is to say that your "definitely existing cultural system" is correct?

While I do not defend a relgious system per se, the statements that you are making all come down to whether humans have a system for judging inherent right/wrong or if social deviance is, in fact culturally relative.

Your cultural stigmas carry no weight in some parts of the world just as theirs would not carry any weight in ours.

Cultural relativism is a major issue in Social Deviance...which is inextricably linked to theism/atheism/agnosticism...

Personally...as a scientist....I feel from my studies/readings/wonderings so far...that religion as we know it is a unique product of humankind....however, I think if we were to discover another society in this universe at the same evolutional level as the earth, similar beliefs would be prevalent...

I personally feel that it is strange that the closer we proceed to a "solution" to all of the physical problems of the universe, the farther we receede from an explanation...

I do not believe in organised religion, however, I think that (in the end, and by cause and effect) there must be something that created this "bit" of the universe or this universe itself for us to live in...and the infinity on both ends of the scale...

wow...i confused myself there ;) ;)

What good is a metaphysical mind if it is powerless over the actions of the physical brain? Again, the metaphysical mind is another made up idea used to explain that which we didn't understand. Now, although we don't know in any kind of detail how the mind/brain works, we have certainly made a lot of progress.
People who get a severe knock on the head can turn into completely different people. Their friends and family can no longer recognise the personality of this "new" person..."what happened our old Jimmy?".
In this type of situation what do you believe happened? That the knock on the head actually influenced the metaphysical mind?...not much of a metaphysical mind if you ask me!
The "original" personality is the metaphysical mind, which is has had its "communication link" damaged, and so cannot completely control the brain? What is controlling the rest of the brain? Is it working on its own? In that case what is the need for a metaphysical mind at all, if the brain is perfectly capable of operation in "automatic"? After all it is working perfectly well...just different than before.

What mechanism are you proposing for how this metaphysical soul operates? How can it interact with the physical world of the brain? The brain works on electrical impulses and chemical signals, all of which follow known physical laws. Are you suggesting that the brain defies such laws? That like charges attract? A believe you will find few who agree with you on that one!
The only possible apparent mechanism for a metaphysical mind appears to me to be one the opperates ona quantum level. But such a suggestion, to me feels very cheeky! But I'll continue with it for now.
Quantum level actions are random. They have come up positive in every test for randomness that we have at our disposal. On the large scale we can make very accurate predicitions of the outcome of such randomness, but a single event behaves in acompletely random manner. (In a similar way that we cannot predict the outsome of a single spin of a roulette wheel, but we can make a prediction on the large scale: ultimately the house will win!) So this leaves, ultiamtely no room for the intervention of a metaphysical mind, unless, once again you are to accept the it can defy the laws of physics as above.

For the most people the afterlife plays a vital role in their faith. Almost all faiths have the promise of an afterlife. Atheism takes upon itself to take shots at everything religious. But what point is there in worshiping God, if there is nothing after life? Is kind of the exact opposite of Pascals Wager.

[b]

How do YOU decide what it moral? How do you understand what is right and wrong? I explained my take on this earlier on in this thread. Most religious people would claim that they take their sinse of morality from their holy scriptures. You have already claimed that you do no such thing. So where do you get YOUR sense of absolute objective morality from? How does it differ form my subjective personal morality?

What religion are you? If you feel you don't want to categorise yourself, at least give a brief explaination of what you do believe. Its hard to argue against your beliefs when without knowing what they are!

How do you decide what is true and what is not out of the bible? You just take it upon yourself to decide? Doesn't sound like a very good system to me.

Dragon-fair point. The existance of what i claim being an actual absolute does depend on God's existance. I can't much prove it, but i can claim it.

CS-No, and i think you give my imagination a little too much credit here. Perhaps it will be possible at some date to fully understand the software, if you will, of the brain. As it stands, there is much we don't. This is my sole assertion-that the information that the physical brain contains is more than just electrical impulses-it is part of the most powerful learning computer we've ever seen. I don't think that's irrational at all to state.

My conclusion from this? Part of that mind seems to dwell on the "religious." Is that all a physical interaction? Perhaps. But that still doesn't disprove God. As i've stated before...it would not surprise me in the least to know that a physical, rationally understandable part of our brain is responsisible for us processing information relivant to reality known as "God". We have understood science through our minds...we have understood subjective ideals such as love and freedom through our minds. Why do you expect us to understand God differently?

What point is there in living a life of the mind and learning about science if there is nothing afterwards? What point is there in experiencing love if there is nothing after we die? If there is a reality greater than us, why not journey through life with that force? If God is real, why would one want to spend life away from God especially if this life was all you have?

I don't personally hold the key to every absolute moral. I believe that many human traditions, including secular humanism, are discovering more and more about the "law written upon our hearts" (Jer 31:33, Rom 12:15). The claim that i make is not that i know when something is wrong, but that even when mankind fails to decry an evil, that it is still wrong, and that sin is not condemned only by fickle human audiences. Wrong is wrong, even when nobody is watching, or when nobody cares.

I am a professing Christian.

With much thought and prayer, with great respect to tradition, and skeptic's mind. But, decide is a tough word...since i know that i cannot be certain in many ways. In the end, i learn more from the engagement, the mental arguement, and the process, than a simple "true/false" dichotomy. The particular facts are much less important than the current engagement and relationship. The bible records the faith journey of a community over generations-and i read it to experience the ideas they had, to feel their revelations, and to connect myself to what they learned. "Right" or "wrong", it is in working out the answer that i experience the divine.