Are we souls or are we machines?

[oxmixmudd]

Okay, I think that's really what I was asking. I didn't think you were special or claiming to be special, but you did mention the acquisition of knowledge about someone. The only way to know God is to believe in him, and God teaches you about him. What does he teach you that I cannot know apart from "having faith" in him specifically?



I know many people who'd claim to have a relationship with God and would be inquisitive about why you think it not proper. Many people have been geographically and culturally excluded from having a "proper" relationship with God. it seems.


I defer to my point about culture and geography.

Proper was probably a bad choice as it kind of has erudite implications. Christian theology is that our sin puts a wall or barrier between us and God. Christ is the means by which that barrier is removed, through His sacrifice, our sin is atoned for and we are given a clear conscience before God. So, one way of looking at this is that to be free of guilt before God, one needs to first be forgiven and cleansed of sin by Christ. Any attempt at a relationship with God apart from Christ will always be hindered by ones own conscience and guilt, one's own sin nature as yet unatoned for. This is what Baptism symbolizes. Our death to the old life, our burial with respect to that life, and our birth into a new life with Christ where the veil that separates us from free access to God (sin) is torn in two and we are given direct access to Him as sons.

Generally, in discussions like this, people quickly become offended at the exclusive nature of Christian theology. The verse I quoted in the previous post is in fact one that can produce a great deal of anger or annoyance. In fact, it is words like that which led to Christ being crucified, and likely has led many a Christian to Martyrdom. Christ is the only way to have a truly clear conscience before God, to have a free and unhindered relationship with God. This is what Christ taught, this is what the disciples taught, this is what the Christian church has historically taught.

Now, does God allow for faith in Christ in a form I would not necessarily recognize as faith in Christ? Perhaps. But it is through Christ we are saved. And only through Him. However God manages that.

Now to Phank all religion is the merely a cultural phenomenon where believers effectively are geographically determined. There is a certain truth to this - the religion of a person is often at least at first the religion of their culture. And yet, this can't be completely true, or the Christian faith would not exist, as it came from a predominantly Jewish source, and then also overcame a powerful polytheistic religion. So people do respond to more than their culture in choosing which faith (or lack of faith) they will follow. Whereas Islam initially spread by the sword and by war, Christian faith began without any military power and under intense persecution - yet it still conquered simply because of what it is.

Anyone who wishes to can follow Him and receive what He offers. The message is simple - are you burdened by your sin before God, do you wish to know God, do you wish to be free of guilt and have a clean conscience before God? If so, believe on Him who died that we might live, who is God in the flesh, yet who gave fully of Himself so we might be free. That is the message, that is what Christ brought to the world, that is what can give anyone who wants it a 'proper' relationship with God, a relationship free from the taint of sin.


Jim

[lilpixieofterror]

Lol. You sound like Buford Pusser.

And you sound like you're more interested in supporting your own doubts then in discussing this issue in depth.

If Jesus sinned once, would that have been the end of it? Was there a backup plan in case that happened?

What if Jesus came as a frog? Well, I guess we'd all be screwed case salvation would only be given to frogs. You sound like I did at 12 years old, I would ask a ton of 'what if questions' not because I wanted to hear the answers, I just wanted to annoy. He didn't, so is there any point to asking the endless question game about things that never happened or about things there is no way I would know the answer to anyway?

[Michelle]

Far more than I can discuss here. Start with the to linked documents below: if you ant more, you probably need to go talk to a neurologist.

* http://kyb.mpg.de/fileadmin/user_upl...ve_%5B0%5D.pdf
* http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1163454

The second study actually deals with negative emotional states, but reflects blood-flow and cognitive changes during emotional stimuli. The second study may require a subscription.

Thanks so much for the links, technomage. I look forward to reading them tomorrow.

[Whag]

Do I really need to spell this out? Anyway, it depends upon your view of how these things work. Do you believe that the mind/spirit are both immateral or do you believe they are different? If you believe the mind is immateral and linked or is the spirit, there is a belief that if you receive brain damage, it will affect the spirit's ability to work within the body. Likewise, there is another view that the mind, body, and spirit are three different things that may balance or do not balance between one another. Anyway, the argument I would make is how does brain damage affecting personality prove there is no spirit when one takes the view that the material and immateral are linked together?

What do you mean "affect the spirit's ability to work within the body." Be clear: are you saying that "spirit's work" represent my grandmother's personality? What function are you referring to that I can relate to (other than the ghostly one)?

[lilpixieofterror]

Well, this is counting angels on pinheads. To paraphrase the famous recipe for rabbit stew, first catch an angel! I personally have never been able to tell which of the many gods people have believed in, if any, are the appropriate one(s) to have a relationship with. Ask a believer, and he says "mine, of course".

Too bad nobody every talked about such a question and it was used more as a mocking tool then talking about something actual.

(And incidentally, "dark matter" isn't really considered a "thing". Instead, it is a LABEL given to a set of anomalous observations. Galactic motions we observe are explainable most easily by modeling a broad source of gravity in their vicinity. The best example of this is a collision between galaxies. Observations like that allow us to map the distributions and intensities of the hypothetical gravitational field. Now, what is generating that field (if indeed that's what's happening) is speculative. I'm hoping it's something altogether outside our experience.)

Which still doesn't deal with my argument in the least bit, if we can not fully describe things we can physically detect, what makes people think we can describe the nature of things we can not?

[Whag]

And you sound like you're more interested in supporting your own doubts then in discussing this issue in depth.



What if Jesus came as a frog? Well, I guess we'd all be screwed case salvation would only be given to frogs. You sound like I did at 12 years old, I would ask a ton of 'what if questions' not because I wanted to hear the answers, I just wanted to annoy. He didn't, so is there any point to asking the endless question game about things that never happened or about things there is no way I would know the answer to anyway?

Well at least we're getting to the bottom of what spirits do. That should be progress.

[lilpixieofterror]

What do you mean "affect the spirit's ability to work within the body." Be clear: are you saying that "spirit's work" represent my grandmother's personality? What function are you referring to that I can relate to (other than the ghostly one)?

The endless question game, always amusing. I think I remember doing this at 12, so do I have to explain every little thing and how it works? In that case, explain to me the nature of dark matter, how it works, what it is, how it interacts, etc. Can you do this?

[lilpixieofterror]

Well at least we're getting to the bottom of what spirits do. That should be progress.

Nah, the endless question game is not designed to actually look for answers to questions, it is designed to annoy and/or mock. I've played this game growing up Whag, so you can't kid a kidder.

[phank]

Thank you for your response, phank



I understood everything until I got to the phrase...."are suffcient to explain what consciousness seems like to itself." (Actually, I understand "are sufficient" just fine and find it an interesting concept.) How does consciousness self-evaluate?

I think that's what we're doing all the time. The mind is what the brain does for a living. Consciousness is what the mind produces. Then consciousness ponders the nature of mind, and what it means to be objective or subjective. There is something fundamentally recursive about brain studies, since those doing the studies are using the operation of the very brains they are studying to conduct and interpret their experiments and their results. If our computer hardware and software become sophisticated enough, for all we know the same thing will happen - the computer will become self-aware and ponder its own nature. And maybe reprogram itself in ways we can only dream of.

Thanks for admitting that your conjectures are just guesses. I appreciate the candor.

Well, I have a blind spot when it comes to religious faith. I don't know what it might be like. But it seems clear to me that this entire thread reflects a certain tension between what we understand of the physical, and what certain individuals apparently desperately wish to believe is not physical, whatever that might mean if anything. I personally have no problem conceiving of myself, my personality, as emerging from the simultaneous chemical and electrical processes going on in my brain. I see no reason to ask for more than that. So I can't guess why anyone would want to.

Nor do I deny the sheer imaginative power of our brains. We have used that power to literally move mountains - to invent both science and gods, to produce universally appreciated works of music, art, literature, and engineering. And nothing more than the operation of the brain is required for all of this. WHY try to talk yourself into something nonexistent as far as we can tell, when it's not necessary and not rational? Beats me.

[oxmixmudd]

(And incidentally, "dark matter" isn't really considered a "thing". Instead, it is a LABEL given to a set of anomalous observations. Galactic motions we observe are explainable most easily by modeling a broad source of gravity in their vicinity. The best example of this is a collision between galaxies. Observations like that allow us to map the distributions and intensities of the hypothetical gravitational field. Now, what is generating that field (if indeed that's what's happening) is speculative. I'm hoping it's something altogether outside our experience.)

This is not particularly accurate. Dark matter is in fact expected to be a 'thing' in the sense that is has mass and does influence other things in the universe like normal matter or light on account of its mass. There are alternative explanations for the observations that lead to the hypothesis of dark matter, but dark matter itself, that hypothesis, is that there is a yet undiscovered form of matter which only interacts with normal matter in terms of its mass. Which means it is, in fact, a 'thing'.


Jim

[lilpixieofterror]

This is not particularly accurate. Dark matter is in fact expected to be a 'thing' in the sense that is has mass and does influence other things in the universe like normal matter or light on account of its mass. There are alternative explanations for the observations that lead to the hypothesis of dark matter, but dark matter itself, that hypothesis, is that there is a yet undiscovered form of matter which only interacts with normal matter in terms of its mass. Which means it is, in fact, a 'thing'.


Jim

Plus my point was that if we struggle to explain the basics of dark matter or dark energy, how much harder would it be to describe something immaterial like a soul?

[phank]

if we can not fully describe things we can physically detect, what makes people think we can describe the nature of things we can not?

I don't think anyone can fully describe anything that exists. All we have is data. Science operates by making increasingly better observations of whatever seems to exist, until it's pretty well pinned down. From time to time, this process shows that what was thought to exist actually did not - things like N-rays and phlogiston. But it's helpful to notice that the evidence for either of these was either highly indirect (emerging from an inaccurate model which made a wrong prediction), or right at the very limit of inappropriate observation technology and instrumentation. Better instruments and better models, and the apparent either became better documented, or it vanished.

And this is all qualitatively different from investigating what there is NO data for, except in our imaginations, and which may not exist at all. There is an ENORMOUS difference between saying "well, we don't know what causes these observations, but here's what we see" and saying "I claim X exists, despite NO observations, because I WANT TO BELIEVE that X exists." Equating them is a category error.

There is an infinity of things we can imagine that don't exist. So the only way to make any progress is to OBSERVE something. As Isaac Asimov wrote, the most powerful words in science are not "Eureka, I found it" but rather "hmmm, that's odd..." In other words, an unexpected OBSERVATION. Something very different from pure wishful thinking. And so nobody investigates something for which there is no evidence, except occasionally to establish more firmly that there IS no evidence. To put it another way, for practical reasons, the default is that if there is no observational indication that something exists, it simply does not exist until such time as such an indication should be found.

(And interestingly, things we can't detect are the EASIEST to describe. In incredible detail. This is true becauser there are no annoying observations to get in the way. Our imaginations are free to pile creative BS as high as we wish, with no limit. I've seen literally hundreds of treatments of what life is like after death, from Mark Twain to the Twilight Zone to countless science fiction stories to religious tales like The Inferno and on ad infinitum. Why not? Piece of cake!)

[Whag]

Proper was probably a bad choice as it kind of has erudite implications.

It has many implications, none of which I would call erudite. One of them is the implication that every religious believer but Christians has a dysfunctional relationship and are hampered by guilt. I've met many a Catholic (see Mel Gibson!) who clearly refute this broad claim. Erudite is how you describe an educated person.

Christian theology is that our sin puts a wall or barrier between us and God. Christ is the means by which that barrier is removed, through His sacrifice, our sin is atoned for and we are given a clear conscience before God. So, one way of looking at this is that to be free of guilt before God, one needs to first be forgiven and cleansed of sin by Christ. Any attempt at a relationship with God apart from Christ will always be hindered by ones own conscience and guilt, one's own sin nature as yet unatoned for. This is what Baptism symbolizes. Our death to the old life, our burial with respect to that life, and our birth into a new life with Christ where the veil that separates us from free access to God (sin) is torn in two and we are given direct access to Him as sons.

I know so many conscience-stricken and guilty-feeling Christians.

Generally, in discussions like this, people quickly become offended at the exclusive nature of Christian theology. The verse I quoted in the previous post is in fact one that can produce a great deal of anger or annoyance. In fact, it is words like that which led to Christ being crucified, and likely has led many a Christian to Martyrdom. Christ is the only way to have a truly clear conscience before God, to have a free and unhindered relationship with God. This is what Christ taught, this is what the disciples taught, this is what the Christian church has historically taught.

Not angry or annoyed, just...puzzled about the logistics and logic of this plan. As for martyrdom, I don't think in this day and age that should be used to demonstrate anyone's devotion. Have you ever seen a Buddhist self immolate? That's madness. Those martyrs could have feared an unending Hell for all we know. Perhaps the sacrifice of being sewn into animal carcasses with wild beasts and dragged around a Colosseum seemed more pleasant than an eternity on fire?

Now, does God allow for faith in Christ in a form I would not necessarily recognize as faith in Christ? Perhaps.

Perhaps? Is it not patently evil to punish someone forever for belonging to a specific culture?

I thought there were certain safe assumptions in Christianity, like God won't punish babies and the retarded and all that.

[pancreasman]

Well, with respect, I don't see any clear idea about what a soul or spirit is or what it does. Are souls different to spirits? Does either the soul or spirit develop and mature with time? If we were to imagine a human being with all the same neurological and hormonal equipment as you or me but who did NOT have a soul or spirit, how would they differ from us in behaviour or personality? If spirits or souls influence the physical brain does that influence flow backwards as well? In other words, can brain injury affect souls or spirits? Do drugs which affect the brain affect either the soul or spirit? What exactly do we know about souls or spirits aside from the bare assertion that they exist? It seems to me we are far more talking about philosophy and metaphysics than we are about natural science when we talk about these things and we all know how definitive THEY are.

[phank]

This is not particularly accurate. Dark matter is in fact expected to be a 'thing' in the sense that is has mass and does influence other things in the universe like normal matter or light on account of its mass. There are alternative explanations for the observations that lead to the hypothesis of dark matter, but dark matter itself, that hypothesis, is that there is a yet undiscovered form of matter which only interacts with normal matter in terms of its mass. Which means it is, in fact, a 'thing'.


Jim

This aspect of the discussion challenges our language. We see what gravitational effects would produce. We are reluctant to modify our theories to permit gravity to behave differently at galactic and larger scales. We are reluctant to permit gravitational influences without attaching gravity to matter (as oppose to some other unknown source of gravitons). So the simplest explanation is that there is some form of matter indetectable except through gravitational influences, which we can say is a "thing". But "thing" is a word with at the very least hazy boundaries. If it turns out that spacetime is more complex than we suspected at large scales, is that a "thing"? I suppose so.