Existence of the Soul

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse I raised many objections of my own in how in most of our daily lives in our ordinary dealings, we move about more on belief, than we do on what we know. In fact, I specifically pointed out many areas of life where we have faith, not reason, even in the world we know. What's your point here? Apparently you haven't read enough on metaphysical thought, nor theology and philosophy to understand the difference between faith and reason. If you had, you wouldn't make the assumptions that you do.

Mousy, I agreed with you that faith is essential. I have repeatedly agreed with you about that. I've read about plenty about metaphysical thought, far more than I had any business reading. I think you know that. I know the difference between faith and reason perfectly well. Faith comes in when reason ends, as you said. I agree perfectly. Where we disagree is that I believe it is unacceptable to believe in a metaphysical worldview based on faith alone. I have produced arguments to demonstrate this. All you do is repeatedly assert that it isn't possible to produce such an argument. The simple fact that I have proves you wrong. I don't even need a separate argument to do that.

So for you the world always was and is?

Again, I DON'T KNOW. Please get that through your impossibly thick rat skull.

Oh the "Go back and read" paradigm, when all else fails. I stated that all our actions are based on reaching a certain point, leading good and noble lives, having dreams and goals, and perhaps living past our lives to have our thoughts echo for others.

You stated that I continued posting because I have a desire that my views be validated by your agreeing with me. Have you already forgotten that? You did it something like twenty minutes ago.

Do you not have that drive? You mean to tell me you are just a stagnant person that has no ambition, no sense of purpose, no nobleness, no moral guide of the things you ought to do and how you ought to live your life? This is not so much a mystery, but rather our conscience self.

Biology alone may be able to explain human ambition. Then again, it may not be. We won't know until biology has advanced a great deal. Perhaps by the end of our lifetime. This is exactly why I'm studying biology. I honestly hope that we can know this before I die. If not, then future generations can. The simple fact is, right now, we do not know.

Everything I have said about other religions is negative? Where did I say that. This is clearly text manipulation for the mere anything left to say other than rework phrases and words and develop your tautology.

What are you reading, Mousy? Everything you said about love was negative. Whether or not you were joking, the fact remains, in threads that were meant to be serious, where every other poster was being serious, you said that love does not exist. I do not think it was a huge stretch for me to think that you actually felt this way. Obviously, at this point, I know that you do not. I urge to take the threads more seriously in the future, and if you have nothing to contribute, then don't contribute. You can boost your post count wonderfully in the thread entitled What Are You Listening To? There was also a word association thread a while back. Another good one is Just to Type.

You sound like a fundamentalist evangelical priest with your "I REPEAT YOU DO NOT KNOW..." hokum.

No, I am sounding like a biology student who is a little put off by someone who has never so much as looked at a study of behavioral biology and has no idea how they are conducted and what conclusions are drawn from them assuming that they are inherently flawed and can't answer the very questions they are asking. At least look at the damn things, Mousy. Then you can criticize them. Until then, I will rightfully put absolutely no creedence into anything you say about them. It's a bit like me giving you a critique of The Wings of the Dove. I've never read it, so I can't.

Calm down sport. I never claimed to know animal behavior nor anything of that nature. I merely said that science will only uncover functions and processes in their brain and behavior. What underlies that we won't know. We won't know for example if the animal is self aware like us, possessing a different consious sense of itself.

Again, without any knowledge of the studies, you have no grounds on which to say this. You have no idea what science is capable of. You'd be amazed at the things that can be done and the things that can be figured out. Science is limited, sure, but not in that regard. You can determine that an animal is not thinking the same way you determine a machine is not thinking. I'm not talking about dogs and cats and birds and frogs here, Mousy. They almost certainly do think, which would imply some level of consciousness. But studies have been conducted on insects in particular that show that they have no thought processes whatsoever. Even larger mammals are largely automatons, responding the same way to the same stimulus every time, and they are easily fooled. Their thinking is extremely limited. Several, however, as well as several species of birds, show rather amazing problem solving abilities, showing rather conclusively that they have rather complex thought processes.

Why would we assign personality traits to people if they didn't have souls eh loser?

Gene expression modified through environment. Perhaps though the phenomenon of consciousness, a human might even will certain traits into existence. I'm guessing that's rare, but I'm also guessing it's possible. Using that as an argument for the existence of the soul is completely ludicrous.

[Crimson Glow]

Wow, after being in the AC chat room, I never thought I'd find a thread like this in an Armenian related forum (I was getting ready to change my last name there for a minute).

Damn, where to begin on a topic I've been struggling with for years........

I think the only thing established through this thread is that nothing can be proven. In one way, shape, form or another, it's all theories, or guesses, or "faith".....whatever you want to call it.

I myself prefer the simply concept of "believe in nothing". Believing in something means you have basically closed off yourself to all other possibilities, because when you believe in something, more often then not, you will fight tooth and nail for it.

Somewhere early on, I believe Loose asked for an exchange of ideas or some..."back-up" for lack of a better term. Well, here goes nothing. I present to you for your pondering, and anyone else who has braved reading this entire thread (and, in typical internet forum fashion, I'm sure the shredding apart of)......

The anti-"faith" argueement:

Having "faith" in a Creator can be seen just as arrogant as reasoning through science, can it not? You are again professing to have an answer. "There is a God, He created all, and He has the path for us". I don't see how this differs too far from "the Earth came to be through a monumental explosion". Both are forms of answers, be they unprovable as they may. Even if it isn't in a state normally considered this, you ARE using reasoning for your arguement! When a "miracle" (or something that has not yet been deemed explainable by science) occurs, there are several different ways to rationalize it. "Since science and tengible evidence/knowledge can't explain what happened, I gather that there must be something beyond the material world." This is still a use of "material world" reasoning to obtain an explaination. Just because it isn't scientific doesn't mean it isn't a form of reasoning.

And while we're on the subject, this also begs the question where does one's particular faith come from? The concept of gods has been around practically since the beginning of man, more or less due to our inability to explain many things in a tangible, "scientific" way. It would make sense that these beliefs were carried on as tradition, changing repeatedly through time. So then what makes the "faith" we pick the right one? Why were there so many different concepts on god(s) before Jesus came to proclaim the "one true god"? What makes Native Americans, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. wrong? If it is something unexplainable that is "built into us" as you say, Mousy, then why doesn't all of man kind have one concrete, definitive faith? Why did we loose so many of our fellow Armenians to believers of a different faith? Believers who believed in their faith SO strongly, that they believed all others should die? Why does he "intervine" in some non-believers' lives, while making some other whole hearted, good to the bone followers suffer such horrible pain? The answers to these questions are usually summed up with the traditionally corny lines like "well, son, the lord works in mysterious ways" or "god is testing us". Yet again, the human ego kicking in instead of being able to say "you know what? You got me!"

Other issues. If our personalities/reactions/etc. are not tangible or are spiritual, then why is it they can be manipulated? How come almost all of America is taking their precious Paxil, or some other form of MAOIs to "enhance" their moods? Is that not altering this spirit? What about people born with mental handicaps? Many of them are not conscious to the concept of existance at the same level we're at. Were those people born without a soul?

The anti-science argueement:

Just to be balanced. Well, I could get into all the long and boring "evidence" that points to the flaws in just about any scientific explaination of how the Earth came to be, but disproving them doesn't erradicate science. Then let's just look at some other ideas for the hell of it, shall we? The issue of "consciousness". Why is our's so advanced in comparison to anything else on the planet? Sure other creatures fear and avoid death, but good ol' science has all but proven that that's instinct. We, on the other hand, have the ability to...be sitting..at our computers....typing on the internet we created....that keeps our lives busy.....with debates on our very existance. Somehow, I doubt that's what's on Fido's mind. There is no question that our level of consciousness is far more complex. This also makes me wonder how neurotransmitters and sensory receptors account for such a thing. How do electrical signals and molecules translate into a consciousness so evolved, that not only can we annalyze our own behavior, but we can even recognize instinct, habbit, and weaknesses FORMED by the above mentioned, and alter, eliminate, or improve upon them?

And if life exists due to the scientific parameters we have established (water, oxygen, etc.), why are there not completely different forms of life on other planets? Forget our rules. I'm talking about something TOTALLY unimagined yet. Something that doesn't need air or food, something that doesn't take a shape our wildest imaginations have ever invisioned, etc. We're so stuck on this idea that "the atmosphere on other planets can't sustain life". WHY???? It can't sustain what we've come to know, but if the atmosphere on Earth sustains this kind of life, why can't there be entirely different kinds on planets with different atmospheres?

Well, I could ramble on and on for or against either side until the cows come home (or until Jesus returns, which ever you prefer ), but I think this post has gotten long enough. And there's more then enough to get the discussion away from crediting or discrediting trivial things like "reason" and "immaterialism".

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname God is a word in human language. Christianity is a word in human language. You have used human langauge to explain your experiences. You are betraying your own sense of wonder by defining these things that you claim are undefinable.

Realy, so now you mean to say you know more of what I have experienced than I myself have, eh? I use human language to express. I never said one shouldn't attempt to define them. I simply said that even if one tries one will fail. That is all. You are thus arguing a non-issue.

Originally posted by loseyourname Mousy, your argument gets weaker with every subsequent post. Now you're saying we can't measure time because humans are imperfect? Honestly, Mousy, that's your argument? I don't even know what to say to that. I feel like I'm explaining how a clock works to a four year-old. When your legs are cut out from under you, just sit down. There is honor in admitting you are wrong. I'm not going to go so far as to say you're wrong about your belief in God. The simple fact is, I don't know. But you are most certainly wrong when you say that time is immeasurable. Furthermore, you have completely ignored my demonstration of why time is measurable and how it is measurable. You have not addressed one single point that I have brought up.

Now you twist words to try to make me out as saying "time is immeasurable". Humans attempt to measure time, and have done so since the dawn of civilization, but that in itself is a human objective measurement of something that is beyond humans. Thus, it is not so much of whether or not humans can measure time, but rather, that whatever they measure is arbitrary. I will go further into elaborating why time and space are immaterial things which we try to measure and map arbitrarily. In all our contemplation of personal, business, social and other problems of life, we constantly figure the space or distance we must go, or the material things will move. We constantly figure the time that our action will occupy and that we must devote to the accomplishment of the purpose we have in mind. Therefore, time and space are related and very real things of our mortal nature. However, we must admit that we have never seen either time or space. Our best argument for time and space is to claim they are elements of which we are conscious in some weird way. We may claim that, as we stand in front of our house, and look towards the distant mountains we sense that the element of space between himself and those object had to be momentarily created. Thus we prove to ourselves that space and distance are elements of a mental or objective realization and not actualities.

Space and time are not important factors but that our consciousness of them is. If we have an immediate realization of something, we are then not aware of time. Furthermore, if we can perceive an object that seems to be a part of us, we do not realize space between it and us. Time and space, therefore depend on the relation of our consciousness, our state of awareness, to other things. With greater speed in transportation we are not in reality annihilating space and time, rather we are changing our consciousness much more rapidly in relation to other things which we perceive in our world.

Originally posted by loseyourname Read Einstein's paper on General Relativity. I'm not going to explain to a grown man that space and time are extended dimensions.

This is a nice way of dodging the argument by avoiding it. "Read Einstein's paper". Einstein was doing no more with this theory of relativity, then the Babylonians were with their sense of the rising and setting of the sun. The idea of telling time is an arbitrary thing which you cannot grasp. Going back to my previous experiment of the ball rolling faster in the same amount of time, as a ball rolling slower, we can see that we try to give objective qualities to time. If it takes a certain amount of time for a ball to roll along the ground in the extent of space it covers, we can change that by making it roll faster therefore cutting the same distance in less time.

We cannot conceive of the ball going from my hand to any distant point in "no time". In other words, we cannot conceive of the ball being in my hand and at some "distant" point at the same moment. This is because we still insist from our obective point of view that there is a space between the ball and my hand and the point where the ball is to end its movement.

Lets assume that I am standing three meters away from a hole in the lawn and I want to roll the ball across the 3 meters into the hole. Ill find by experience that the faster I roll the ball or more force I use in starting the ball, the more quickly the ball will reach the hole. I reduce the element of time, but i do not reduce the element of space between myself and the hole in the ground. If I'm firing a gun, a bullet may be sent across the 3 meters of space to the hole in the ground so rapidly that the time of its movement could hardly be measured, but I also believe that it would take more time for the ball to roll across the 3 meters of space, and I'm quite sure that the 3 meters of space between myself and the hole exist.

Originally posted by loseyourname Both sets of beliefs cannot be right. Jesus cannot both be and not be the son of God. Simple as that. Perhaps the message was misinterpreted, and the word got a little screwed up along the way. Nonetheless, Jesus either was or was not the son of God. The two options are mutually exclusive. I am using the existence of competing faiths to negate the argument that one is correct because of your personal conviction. The fact is, people of different religions have just as much conviction that you are wrong. One of you is. Perhaps both of you are. But both of you cannot be right. You can both be good moral people, you can both go to heaven, you can both lead full lives. But you cannot both be correct. .

How do you know that both sets of beliefs cannot be right? We don’t know that. The modern monotheistic religions are not an end in and of themselves; they are all built onto previous pagan ones. The symbolism of Jesus is allegorical, not literal. It is no different than the death and rising of the Sun God Mithra whose birth was celebrated on December 25th. While the Hindu reveals to us that which first revealed to him in the form of Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, Siva, the destroyer; the Egyptian told us different of the gods revealed to him in the form of Amun Re, the creatoer, Neith, matter, Phtha, thought and this differed from the Bhuddists who spoke of Bhudda, the intelligence, Dharma, the law, and Sanga, harmony, while Plato talks about the supreme good, of the reason and intellect, and of the soul or spirit; whether the Christian believes in Jesus, who suffered for our sins, matters not. While all these faiths may assert their claims to the exclusive possession of the truth, God is one, and is precisely of human limitations and being finite that man, imperfect, has made different conceptions of God in different cultures, in different times, in proportion to his intellect. The fact remains that God is one, and Gods thought uttered in Gods word is responsible for the universe, and preserves it by the expression of that though, through the soul of man. If you have no working knowledge of ancient cultures and religions you shouldn’t be participating. Moreover look at the symbolism of the serpent which is found in nearly every culture, or references to the Garden of Eden. It is the self styled logician that is attempting to use one faith to cancel out the other. I see no point with your argument here. It is a desperate attempt at drilling a non-issue since you realized you could not use reason to argue down a persons faith, a clever way of transforming your argument line.

Originally posted by loseyourname You can do that, but it won't be true. I have repeatedly addressed your point that faith and reason are mutually exclusive, and I have repeatedly demonstrated why you are wrong. You have repeatedly ignored my demonstrations.

“I demonstrated how you are wrong”. Relax champ. You are so caught up in “proving everyone wrong” that you yourself failed to understand the difference between faith and reason. What I have been saying is that using reason and logic to prove or disprove the existence of God is hazy at best, since that is a immaterial concept, which faith deals with. We cannot employ the use of science and evidence and reasoning to disprove God, for that is outside of its domain. Thus when we are dealing with our known material world, and then comparing that to an immaterial world of God and hereafter, faith and reason are mutually exclusive. If you really understood this, you would have left this a non-issue and not continued arguing of how to disprove the immaterial and faith using criteria of the material. That you did shows your basic misunderstanding with this, and why now it wouldn’t be prudent to simply let it go.

Originally posted by loseyourname So it's only in the end that we can know if your faith is correct, and yet you know that your faith is correct. I'm confused here. When did the end come?

You are using slick tactics of “reasoning” by asking question to pin the opponent into a web of contradictions by somehow exposing faith to reason. I’ve said this a thousand times, and your hang up with this is essentially more based on your ego than it is on letting the non-issue be a non-issue. Only time will tell who is correct and who is not, perhaps all those who adhere to a belief system are correct, we don’t know that. You are trying to “know” something of the immaterial which believers themselves don’t know, but have faith in. Thus you are even going a step ahead of believers themselves by projecting yourself beyond mere faith and insisting on knowledge of the immaterial or the hereafter.

Originally posted by loseyourname I don't know. All I'm trying to show is you do not know either.

I think you need a crash course on faith and reason, for it was you who initially because of misunderstanding the two, maintained that through reason, faith is made moot. Well of course according to reason we shouldn’t believe in a God, there is no evidence. But that is using the criteria of this material world to try to answer something not of this world. You are entirely mistaken and confused sir. I believe it is you who maybe knows too much of one, and not enough of the other, or simply neither.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname No. I think we should strive toward an ideal, but I don't think that many of us actually do this. I will admit, there seems to be an innate recognition of what is good is any clear-thinking human being. Arguments about morality typically come in when there are conflicting goods to be considered, such as the good of preserving the environment versus the good of boosting the economy of Brazil. This is about the strongest evidence for the existence of God that I can think of, but it isn't proof. The simple fact is, reason can submit hypotheses to explain this fact as well.

There is no “proof” in human and material terms for God. You are wasting your time. As a believer I’ll tell you now that there is no such ‘proof’ that you will find in the material world if you are not a believer that “God exists”. And it is from this “moral law within” as Immanuel Kant says, that we come to know more about God, than anything else. The moral law is basically the same in all cultures. Though there are differences from one culture to another, they are not really that great. Since the beginning of recorded history people have been aware of a law that they felt they had to obey. All humanity that history has heard of acknowledge some kind of morality. They feel towards certain proposed actions the experiences expressed by words such as ‘I ought’ and ‘I ought not’. Usually they fail to live up to this law. As C.S. Lewis states, “Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, they do not in fact behave in that way. These two facts are the foundation of al clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.”

When one compares the cultures of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks, Romans we find that they have differed very little in regards what people ought to be unselfish to, whether it was only your own family, your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. In all history even pagans, were aware of a moral law and a failure to live up to it, and expressed fear of punishment. We ‘just know’ that there is no reason why our neighbors happiness should be sacrificed to our own, just like we ‘just know’ that it is not good to lie to our mothers. If we cannot prove either axiom its not because they are irrational but because they are self evident and all proofs depend on them. Its because morality is based on self evident principles that when we tell another person, reminding them of right conduct to ‘be reasonable’.

Now if morality is objective and we all have a sense of what we ought to do, but fail, where does it come from? Of course my belief is in God, but you don’t know.

Originally posted by loseyourname I'd say back it up.

How can I back up my faith? What “proofs” do you want? When someone sees sublime beauty, a process, a purpose and a guiding principle in nature and in the conduct of man, and he attributes that to God, that is his faith. What evidence do you want?

Originally posted by loseyourname Positive belief is an unsettled matter is wrong. You have faith that God exists. Perhaps you really do have proof that you can't put into words. I don't know. Maybe something really has been revealed to you and you are absolutely certain that your assertion is true. I have, however, repeatedly shown, and I really don't think it was necessary to do so, that people can be convinced of many things that are wrong. This includes you, Mousy. To assume that what you are convinced of is correct, when so many others have been equally convinced, without any external confirmation, is just foolhardy.

Positive belief in an unsettled matter is wrong? Why? We have faith. So this means that we shouldn’t have faith in our loved one since we can never know if they truly love us, we just have faith that they do when they tell us they do. So by that, we shouldn’t bother with that eh? I don’t assume of what I have experienced in life is correct, I feel it. I feel that there truly is a purpose to what we do here and how we live our lives and how we lead them. You are dialectically an unbeliever, but ethically a moral person. Where do that sense of right and wrong and the ability to lead a good and noble life come to you from? While I may not know what you are thinking, I will state that I believe you yourself have a desire to believe, like Agent Mulders poster of ‘I want to believe”. When I was an atheist, and an agnostic, I had a deep seated desire to have my self proven wrong and my faith reaffirmed. I’m not claiming to know what you feel, I’m only using my own experience to assume this.

Originally posted by loseyourname Mousy, do you even read what I post? I never said anything of the sort. I have stated repeatedly that there are types of knowledge that do not come through the senses, most notably rational knowledge and self-knowledge. It would be nice if, during the course of a discussion, you would pay attention to what I'm saying. Not only is this common courtesy, but it's necessary if we are to have any meaningful discourse whatsoever, which I would like to think we have been doing. Thought and volition are manifestations of consciousness, which may be purely a physiological phenomenon. Even if science can't explain what it is, it can still be a physical phenomenon. Science cannot explain what an electron is. No one argues that it is immaterial because of this. Consciousness, however, may be a manifestation of an immaterial aspect to our being. Now if we can agree to put this behind us, I will post the evidence I originally intended to post that this is the case.

I have read everything that you posted thus far, and I never questioned you on that point. However, I do question you with regard to consciousness being material. How can science explain thought? It is intangible. If Thought and Volition are manifestations of consciousness which we both agree, and are intangible and immaterial, consciousness is as well. If consciousness “may be purely physiological”, then science must show evidence of thought, and volition. To assert that it “might” or “might not” have proof in the material well never know. For all we do know it is immaterial. To assert that “we don’t have enough research” only means that more research will reveal more processes and functions and names. How a material method of gaining knowledge ( science ) will prove consciousness which is simply a “feeling” we have, is beyond me.

Originally posted by loseyourname When you die, this consciousness may die as well. You may not be equated with your body, but you are equated with your mind. It is foolhardy to simply assume that your mind is separate from your brain without making any evaluation of the evidence for and against that hypothesis.

We don’t know what happens to consciousness, we can only have faith. I have faith that our soul lives on. But that’s just me. Thought which is a product of consciousness lives on. I believe our mind is separate from our brain. Our brain merely is the cpu of our system. Since I believe that soul or mind is a product that God has breathed into us, therefore its manifestations are also immaterial and live on, such as thought. Thought lives on. The thoughts of Socrates, Confucius, Plato, Kant, even our dead relatives or the dead poets all live on with us. It’s the dead that govern us.

Originally posted by loseyourname Say it all you want. The simple fact is, all known brain processes are manifested physically as the exchange of ions between nerve synapses, traceable as electric current. This included conscious thought processes. You may think of them as completely immaterial, but it doesn't mean that they are. Descartes had no knowledge of neurophysiology. For you to be quoting something written hundreds of years ago, when we had little to no knowledge of brain processes, only shows that you are so caught up in history that you are ignoring advances that have been made since that time. Every time I bring up very well-known biological and physical principles uncovered during the 20th century, you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Wrong. The fact that it outlives you does not show it is immortal. All thoughts will die with the death of human thinking. When all humans are gone from this planet, and all the paper biodegrades, even Shakespeare's thoughts will go with it. These thoughts, and Shakespeare himself, may live on in another form in another place (although place clearly is not the right word), but your argument is so completely invalid that I barely know how to respond.

Wrong. The fact that it outlives you does not show it is immortal. All thoughts will die with the death of human thinking. When all humans are gone from this planet, and all the paper biodegrades, even Shakespeare's thoughts will go with it. These thoughts, and Shakespeare himself, may live on in another form in another place (although place clearly is not the right word), but your argument is so completely invalid that I barely know how to respond.

You can keep giving the physical characteristics of the brain, and they remain nothing more than characteristics of the brain, that send signals from hither and hither for our body to move. What triggers these ‘electric currents’ to move is still a mystery. That you know it is a electric current, is not the question, what underlies it is a question. We don’t know what happens to consciousness, we can only have faith. I have faith that our soul lives on. But that’s just me. Thought, which is a product of consciousness lives is on. I believe our mind is separate from our brain. Our brain merely is the cpu of our system. Consciousness of self and of personal identity is co existent with our existence. We cannot conceive of mental existence without it. Its not the work of reflection nor of logic nor the result of observation experiment, and experience. It is a gift from God, like instinct, and that consciousness of a thinking soul which is the person that we are, and other than our body, is the best and most solid proof of the souls existence. We have the same consciousness of a power on which we are dependent, which we can define and form an idea or picture of, as little as we can of the soul, and yet which we feel and therefore know exists. True and correct ideas of that power, of the absolute existence from which all proceeds, we cannot trace. If by true and correct we mean “adequate” ideas, for of such we are not, with our limited faculties capable.

The idea of the universal preceded the recognition of any system for its explanation. It was felt rather than understood, thus philosophy itself with analytical development is a product. The sentiment first observed by the self conscious mind was perhaps said best by Plato, “a divine gift, communicated to mankind by some Prometheus, or by those ancients who lived nearer to the gods than our degenerate selves”. The mind deduced from its first experiences the notion of a antecedent to which it shortly gave a name and personified it. It explained all things but itself, God. It’s a true cause, but an incomprehensible one. It would be ages before men would acknowledge that the first cause was an object of faith rather than science.

Since I believe that soul or mind is a product that God has breathed into us, therefore its manifestations are also immaterial and live on, such as thought. Thought lives on. The thoughts of Socrates, Confucius, Plato, Kant, even our dead relatives or the dead poets all live on with us. It’s the dead that govern us. Humanity is linked and bound together by those influences and sympathies, which in the truest sense do make mens fates. Humanity is the unit, of which the man is but a fraction. What other men in the past have done, said, thought, makes the great iron network of circumstance that environs and controls us all. We take our faith on trust. We think and believe as the old lords of thought command us, and reason is powerless before authority.

We do not know when thought comes, nor what it is. It is not we. We don’t mold it, shape it, fashion it. Its neither our mechanism, nor our invention. It appears spontaneously, flashing into the soul, making that soul the involuntary instrument of its utterance to the world. In other words thought comes to us. Volition, like thought is spontaneous, an effect without a cause. Circumstances provoke it, and serve as its occasion, but do not produce it. It springs up in our souls, like thought. Is it a manifestation of the soul merely making apparent what passes within the soul, or an emanation from it, going abroad and acting outwardly, itself a real existence, as it is an admitted power? We can but reveal our ignorance to this. Its certain that it acts on other souls, controls, directs them, shapes their action, and yet it is not material or visible. And as thought of the soul, emanating from the soul, become audible in words, so did the thought of God, emanating within God, immortal as God utter himself in the word, its manifestation and mode of communication, thus create the material, mental, spiritual universe. Even the thought of God lives and is immortal, embodied in the word, is not only created but it is preserved. In other words it will never die.

Originally posted by loseyourname And? Are you honestly going to argue from the fact that we control our bodily actions with thoughts that man has an eternal soul? Does this honestly make sense to you? What are you on, Mousy? I will pay you $10,000 for one hit of that stuff. .

This is not an argument. I am not arguing from anywhere that this to me is evidence of the eternity of thought and of soul, as uttered to us by God. It is a matter of faith. You cannot argue this. Reason is useless here. This is something reason cannot explain. You cannot prove thought, despite the continuous text you will type as a response to this asserting that “continuous research may do this or that”. That is just your attempt at trying to maintain your disagreement with me so not as to concede that yes, thought as no proof, but you are putting faith in science that it may answer this. In other words, I believe this, you don’t therefore for you this is, or at least should be a non-issue.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Mousy, I agreed with you that faith is essential. I have repeatedly agreed with you about that. I've read about plenty about metaphysical thought, far more than I had any business reading. I think you know that. I know the difference between faith and reason perfectly well. Faith comes in when reason ends, as you said. I agree perfectly. Where we disagree is that I believe it is unacceptable to believe in a metaphysical worldview based on faith alone. I have produced arguments to demonstrate this. All you do is repeatedly assert that it isn't possible to produce such an argument. The simple fact that I have proves you wrong. I don't even need a separate argument to do that.

You produce an argument using reason regarding the immaterial. I have repeatedly taken your position and argued that from the point of view of the rational mind, it is not reasonable to believe in a God. From reason this seems like pointless, as you suggest why believe something since there is no evidence, we don’t know, it’s a mystery. That I have argued this shows that I have used your side of reason to admit that with reason all this is moot, and you shouldn’t even be here arguing. But what I have already touched on, on our sense of self awareness, on our sense of morality, on our sense of consciousness and thought, of will and soul, these things aren’t explainable in material terms, nor provable. Thus we have faith in something higher, a first cause, an antecedent that endowed us with these gifts. This is where we disagree, your repeated assertion that we need evidence to make this leap of faith. I see the evidence as being those things which we cannot explain, such as consciousness, or thought, or morality. We cannot prove these, yet we feel them to be true. I believe that these immaterial “evidences” are enough to make that leap of faith.

Originally posted by loseyourname Again, I DON'T KNOW. Please get that through your impossibly thick rat skull.

That we don’t know is obvious. Why have people believed in a first cause or antecedent since the dawn of civilization and that it has given them morality that they have to strive for? Thus we must believe there was, precisely because we don’t know it. We are not meant to know. We are only meant to perform our duties and live noble lives. Without a belief in right and wrong, which is nothing but working towards an ideal, society is a bleak and purposeless place. Thus the recognition of morality itself is evidence in us of a purpose that we strive for, to do the right thing, to lead a noble and just life. Why believe in these immaterial things, yet not connect them to an antecedent. Of course, you can remain in the void with this one.

Originally posted by loseyourname Biology alone may be able to explain human ambition. Then again, it may not be. We won't know until biology has advanced a great deal. Perhaps by the end of our lifetime. This is exactly why I'm studying biology. I honestly hope that we can know this before I die. If not, then future generations can. The simple fact is, right now, we do not know.

Science or biology, deals with the material world. Ambition is an idea that forces us to act towards something higher, no different than kindness, or happiness, or compassion or virtue and vice. Moreover those that are too ambitious are dangerous, and are often found in mend with the lowest vice, such as tyrants or political would bes, who are often the ones with too much pride and selfishness that will not care for their fellow man and will xxxxxle on him. These are all emanating from systems of morality which deal with the right and wrong, and are endowed to us by something else, not of the material world. Why does science intend to go into the realm that deals with morality to answer ambition?

Originally posted by loseyourname What are you reading, Mousy? Everything you said about love was negative. Whether or not you were joking, the fact remains, in threads that were meant to be serious, where every other poster was being serious, you said that love does not exist. I do not think it was a huge stretch for me to think that you actually felt this way. Obviously, at this point, I know that you do not. I urge to take the threads more seriously in the future, and if you have nothing to contribute, then don't contribute. You can boost your post count wonderfully in the thread entitled What Are You Listening To? There was also a word association thread a while back. Another good one is Just to Type.

I am rarely serious in most discussions on the forums unless I am passionate about them, such as history or economics, or this. Thus, everything else is merely to counter the pervading theme and the pattern of posters, to give a touch of salt to the soup of posters that are answering seriously. What I say is or shouldn’t be taken literally on the forums except for here. Thus you have a misunderstanding, and no my post count will be racked where ever I want it to be racked.

Originally posted by loseyourname No, I am sounding like a biology student who is a little put off by someone who has never so much as looked at a study of behavioral biology and has no idea how they are conducted and what conclusions are drawn from them assuming that they are inherently flawed and can't answer the very questions they are asking. At least look at the damn things, Mousy. Then you can criticize them. Until then, I will rightfully put absolutely no creedence into anything you say about them. It's a bit like me giving you a critique of The Wings of the Dove. I've never read it, so I can't.

I never assumed they are flawed. Can you, for once, provide evidence where I assumed they are flawed? In fact, I never even denied the importance of any of it. I only said it will explain behaviors and functions and by that give us only a new name of that, not its underlying cause or what its source is. That is all, no different than science can discover brain functions, and neurohormonal differences, or electric triggers, it only discovers a process and adds a new name, not its source or what underlies it.

Originally posted by loseyourname Gene expression modified through environment. Perhaps though the phenomenon of consciousness, a human might even will certain traits into existence. I'm guessing that's rare, but I'm also guessing it's possible. Using that as an argument for the existence of the soul is completely ludicrous.

The arguments for the existence of the soul I have already used, thought, volition, morality, and consciousness.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse Humans attempt to measure time, and have done so since the dawn of civilization, but that in itself is a human objective measurement of something that is beyond humans. Thus, it is not so much of whether or not humans can measure time, but rather, that whatever they measure is arbitrary. I will go further into elaborating why time and space are immaterial things which we try to measure and map arbitrarily.

Mousy, have you been paying any attention at all? Space and time are not immaterial. Your knowledge of modern physics is obviously not very extensive. That's okay. That's why I'm giving you a break here and not completely ripping into you.

In all our contemplation of personal, business, social and other problems of life, we constantly figure the space or distance we must go, or the material things will move. We constantly figure the time that our action will occupy and that we must devote to the accomplishment of the purpose we have in mind. Therefore, time and space are related and very real things of our mortal nature. However, we must admit that we have never seen either time or space. Our best argument for time and space is to claim they are elements of which we are conscious in some weird way.

No, it isn't. Our best evidence of the material existence of space and time is that we have observed their warping. Things that are immaterial do not warp. They have no form to warp. Your argument is so completely off base and irrelevant, I don't even know where to begin.

Space and time are not important factors but that our consciousness of them is.

That is the most ridiculously anthropocentric thing I have ever heard.

If we have an immediate realization of something, we are then not aware of time.

When you go to sleep, you are unaware of your body. I assure that it's still there.

Furthermore, if we can perceive an object that seems to be a part of us, we do not realize space between it and us.

Again, great argument against trusting human perception by itself. This is exactly why I tell you not to completely trust your religious experiences. They are the products of imperfect perception and can fool you. You have still not produced an argument showing any reason why radionuclear decay can't effectively measure time. You are only producing reasons why human perception, without any objective measuring stick, can't do it. Well all I have to say to that is DUH!

Time and space, therefore depend on the relation of our consciousness, our state of awareness, to other things.

No, they don't. Only your perception of them do.

With greater speed in transportation we are not in reality annihilating space and time, rather we are changing our consciousness much more rapidly in relation to other things which we perceive in our world.

No, we are not. We are changing our speed. Our consciousness is unaltered and nothing is annihilated.

This is a nice way of dodging the argument by avoiding it. "Read Einstein's paper". Einstein was doing no more with this theory of relativity, then the Babylonians were with their sense of the rising and setting of the sun.

Again, you're talking about something you don't know anything about. Read the paper, then tell me that.

The idea of telling time is an arbitrary thing which you cannot grasp. Going back to my previous experiment of the ball rolling faster in the same amount of time, as a ball rolling slower, we can see that we try to give objective qualities to time. If it takes a certain amount of time for a ball to roll along the ground in the extent of space it covers, we can change that by making it roll faster therefore cutting the same distance in less time.

This is so jumbled and nonsensical I honestly have nothing to say. This is akin to attempting to refute the statement "blog is tlark."

We cannot conceive of the ball going from my hand to any distant point in "no time". In other words, we cannot conceive of the ball being in my hand and at some "distant" point at the same moment. This is because we still insist from our obective point of view that there is a space between the ball and my hand and the point where the ball is to end its movement.

No, it's because there is space between where the ball is and where it will end up.

Lets assume that I am standing three meters away from a hole in the lawn and I want to roll the ball across the 3 meters into the hole. Ill find by experience that the faster I roll the ball or more force I use in starting the ball, the more quickly the ball will reach the hole. I reduce the element of time, but i do not reduce the element of space between myself and the hole in the ground. If I'm firing a gun, a bullet may be sent across the 3 meters of space to the hole in the ground so rapidly that the time of its movement could hardly be measured, but I also believe that it would take more time for the ball to roll across the 3 meters of space, and I'm quite sure that the 3 meters of space between myself and the hole exist.

Yeah, and? Is there any point to this whatsoever?

How do you know that both sets of beliefs cannot be right? We don’t know that.

Can you honestly not grasp that it is not possible for one man to simultaneously be and not be the human incarnation of God? Is that really too complex for you?

The modern monotheistic religions are not an end in and of themselves; they are all built onto previous pagan ones. The symbolism of Jesus is allegorical, not literal. It is no different than the death and rising of the Sun God Mithra whose birth was celebrated on December 25th. While the Hindu reveals to us that which first revealed to him in the form of Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, Siva, the destroyer; the Egyptian told us different of the gods revealed to him in the form of Amun Re, the creatoer, Neith, matter, Phtha, thought and this differed from the Bhuddists who spoke of Bhudda, the intelligence, Dharma, the law, and Sanga, harmony, while Plato talks about the supreme good, of the reason and intellect, and of the soul or spirit; whether the Christian believes in Jesus, who suffered for our sins, matters not. While all these faiths may assert their claims to the exclusive possession of the truth, God is one, and is precisely of human limitations and being finite that man, imperfect, has made different conceptions of God in different cultures, in different times, in proportion to his intellect. The fact remains that God is one, and Gods thought uttered in Gods word is responsible for the universe, and preserves it by the expression of that though, through the soul of man. If you have no working knowledge of ancient cultures and religions you shouldn’t be participating. Moreover look at the symbolism of the serpent which is found in nearly every culture, or references to the Garden of Eden.

Thank you for a history of religion. Where does this fit in?

It is the self styled logician that is attempting to use one faith to cancel out the other.

No, I am showing that there exists no objective way to measure the validity of faith, so that it cannot lead to certain knowledge. Two faiths that make contradicting claims cannot both be correct, and yet there is no way to tell which is and which is not, or even if either is correct.

I see no point with your argument here. It is a desperate attempt at drilling a non-issue since you realized you could not use reason to argue down a persons faith, a clever way of transforming your argument line.

Actually, I see this as a desperate attempt to completely dodge the argument by deflecting from the main point and speaking of the transcendence of God's word and the evolution of religious belief. None of this changes the fact that two belief sets that contradict each other cannot both be right. If I say the earth is cubical, and you say it is a pyramidal prism, we cannot both be correct. It is actually quite simple.

What I have been saying is that using reason and logic to prove or disprove the existence of God is hazy at best, since that is a immaterial concept, which faith deals with.

Reason deals with ideas. Ideas are immaterial. Therefore, reason deals with the immaterial. That is a foolproof deductive argument that proves you wrong. You have yet to address it.

We cannot employ the use of science and evidence and reasoning to disprove God, for that is outside of its domain.

First off, I didn't. I used reason. Second, if you are indeed Christian, then your faith has many things to say about historical events that are quite material. If they indeed occured, there would be evidence. If god indeed intervened the way he is said to have done, people would have noticed. It would have left some mark. I'm not saying it didn't. I really haven't looked into this enough to be able to say, although I certainly know the synoptic gospels at least are extremely suspect.

Thus when we are dealing with our known material world, and then comparing that to an immaterial world of God and hereafter, faith and reason are mutually exclusive.

That is a completely unsubstantiated statement that you have still yet to back up. I have provided actual arguments for my assertion that faith and reason are not mutually exclusive. You have also yet to address these arguments.

If you really understood this, you would have left this a non-issue and not continued arguing of how to disprove the immaterial and faith using criteria of the material. That you did shows your basic misunderstanding with this, and why now it wouldn’t be prudent to simply let it go.

Wrong. Your complete ignorance of my arguments showing your fallacy show that you have no idea what you're talking about. You're just making things up and giving no backing for them whatsoever.

You are using slick tactics of “reasoning” by asking question to pin the opponent into a web of contradictions by somehow exposing faith to reason.

Yes, and it has worked. You have contradicted yourself many times, and you have fallen in so deep that you can't produce any justification or defense of yourself. You simply to contradict your own beliefs and them defend yourself by saying that because your beliefs are based on faith, they can contradict themselves because they are not subject to reason. That simply doesn't hold up.

I’ve said this a thousand times, and your hang up with this is essentially more based on your ego than it is on letting the non-issue be a non-issue.

One more time you make a knowledge claim as to another human being's motivation. I'm going to start quoting you on these.

Only time will tell who is correct and who is not, perhaps all those who adhere to a belief system are correct, we don’t know that.

Finally, you admit that you don't know. This is all I've wanted the entire time. Can we finally let this go now that you have admitted that you do not know?

You are trying to “know” something of the immaterial which believers themselves don’t know, but have faith in.

Exactamundo, Mousy. You don't know, you only have faith. Thank you for finally saying what I have been saying the entire time. You have faith, not knowledge.

Thus you are even going a step ahead of believers themselves by projecting yourself beyond mere faith and insisting on knowledge of the immaterial or the hereafter.

Excuse me? I challenge you to produce any statement that even hints that I think I actually know something about the hereafter or religious statements.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse But what I have already touched on, on our sense of self awareness, on our sense of morality, on our sense of consciousness and thought, of will and soul, these things aren’t explainable in material terms, nor provable.

Yes, and you may be wrong. These things may explainable in completely material terms. We won't know until a complete inventory of human gene expression and brain function is done. It will be a while, and after that no one else will be having this argument.

Thus we have faith in something higher, a first cause, an antecedent that endowed us with these gifts.

Dude, you really gotta take the mouse of your pocket. It is you, not we, that have faith in this.

This is where we disagree, your repeated assertion that we need evidence to make this leap of faith. I see the evidence as being those things which we cannot explain, such as consciousness, or thought, or morality.

So you disagree that you need evidence, then you produce evidence?

We cannot prove these, yet we feel them to be true. I believe that these immaterial “evidences” are enough to make that leap of faith.

Wrong. You cannot prove those things to another person. You can prove them quite easily to yourself, and the fact that every single person that has ever testified claims to have experiences these exact same things, an extremely small leap of faith (actually, it's called inductive logic) leads us to believe that all humans possess these things.

That we don’t know is obvious.

Then why do you keep saying that you do know?

Why have people believed in a first cause or antecedent since the dawn of civilization and that it has given them morality that they have to strive for?

Why did people believe from the dawn of time that the earth was flat and that lightning came from an angry god?

Thus we must believe there was, precisely because we don’t know it. We are not meant to know.

So you're not meant to know, yet you must believe that you know?

We are only meant to perform our duties and live noble lives. Without a belief in right and wrong, which is nothing but working towards an ideal, society is a bleak and purposeless place. Thus the recognition of morality itself is evidence in us of a purpose that we strive for, to do the right thing, to lead a noble and just life. Why believe in these immaterial things, yet not connect them to an antecedent. Of course, you can remain in the void with this one.

Because they may have a material, identifiable cause. Many philosophers have argued pretty effectively for ethical systems using reason alone, and many biologists have argued that recognition of the good may be completely explainable in material terms. I'm not saying they're right, in fact, I lean the other way, but you are saying they're wrong, and the simple fact is, you don't know that.

Science or biology, deals with the material world. Ambition is an idea that forces us to act towards something higher, no different than kindness, or happiness, or compassion or virtue and vice.

It is an idea that may or may not originate in biochemical processes in our brains. Your argument from personal incredulity does you no service.

Why does science intend to go into the realm that deals with morality to answer ambition?

If science has anything to say, it is only where these originate chemically. It has nothing to say about what they are conceptually or how they should be used. Science may be able to tell us why we have a sense of moral, but science cannot tell us what is moral.

I am rarely serious in most discussions on the forums unless I am passionate about them, such as history or economics, or this. Thus, everything else is merely to counter the pervading theme and the pattern of posters, to give a touch of salt to the soup of posters that are answering seriously. What I say is or shouldn’t be taken literally on the forums except for here. Thus you have a misunderstanding, and no my post count will be racked where ever I want it to be racked.

Well, thanks for interjecting your unwanted sarcasm into other people's serious discussions. This is exactly why I said you're a five year-old.

I never assumed they are flawed. Can you, for once, provide evidence where I assumed they are flawed?

You said they can't show that certain animal behavior is automatic and unconscious. You are wrong.

In fact, I never even denied the importance of any of it.

And I never said you did.

I only said it will explain behaviors and functions and by that give us only a new name of that, not its underlying cause or what its source is.

And you are wrong. The source is gene expression modified through environment. Nobody is renaming the actions.

That is all, no different than science can discover brain functions, and neurohormonal differences, or electric triggers, it only discovers a process and adds a new name, not its source or what underlies it.

The laws of physics are the source. The only thing science can't explain is the source of the laws of physics.

The arguments for the existence of the soul I have already used, thought, volition, morality, and consciousness.

Which are a good start. Without any investigation, this is probably the best evidence we have. It is not, however, enough by itself. Now if you will let us get past this, I will post additional evidence.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse No my post count will be racked where ever I want it to be racked.

You're really tempting me to go delete four thousand of your old posts.

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Crimson Glow Having "faith" in a Creator can be seen just as arrogant as reasoning through science, can it not? You are again professing to have an answer. "There is a God, He created all, and He has the path for us". I don't see how this differs too far from "the Earth came to be through a monumental explosion". Both are forms of answers, be they unprovable as they may. Even if it isn't in a state normally considered this, you ARE using reasoning for your arguement! When a "miracle" (or something that has not yet been deemed explainable by science) occurs, there are several different ways to rationalize it. "Since science and tengible evidence/knowledge can't explain what happened, I gather that there must be something beyond the material world." This is still a use of "material world" reasoning to obtain an explaination. Just because it isn't scientific doesn't mean it isn't a form of reasoning.

And while we're on the subject, this also begs the question where does one's particular faith come from? The concept of gods has been around practically since the beginning of man, more or less due to our inability to explain many things in a tangible, "scientific" way. It would make sense that these beliefs were carried on as tradition, changing repeatedly through time. So then what makes the "faith" we pick the right one? Why were there so many different concepts on god(s) before Jesus came to proclaim the "one true god"? What makes Native Americans, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. wrong? If it is something unexplainable that is "built into us" as you say, Mousy, then why doesn't all of man kind have one concrete, definitive faith? Why did we loose so many of our fellow Armenians to believers of a different faith? Believers who believed in their faith SO strongly, that they believed all others should die? Why does he "intervine" in some non-believers' lives, while making some other whole hearted, good to the bone followers suffer such horrible pain? The answers to these questions are usually summed up with the traditionally corny lines like "well, son, the lord works in mysterious ways" or "god is testing us". Yet again, the human ego kicking in instead of being able to say "you know what? You got me!"

Exactly what I've been saying.

Other issues. If our personalities/reactions/etc. are not tangible or are spiritual, then why is it they can be manipulated? How come almost all of America is taking their precious Paxil, or some other form of MAOIs to "enhance" their moods? Is that not altering this spirit? What about people born with mental handicaps? Many of them are not conscious to the concept of existance at the same level we're at. Were those people born without a soul?

Another good point that I didn't even think of.

There is no question that our level of consciousness is far more complex. This also makes me wonder how neurotransmitters and sensory receptors account for such a thing. How do electrical signals and molecules translate into a consciousness so evolved, that not only can we annalyze our own behavior, but we can even recognize instinct, habbit, and weaknesses FORMED by the above mentioned, and alter, eliminate, or improve upon them?

This is another good point at which to simply say, until further study has been done, we just don't know.

And if life exists due to the scientific parameters we have established (water, oxygen, etc.), why are there not completely different forms of life on other planets? Forget our rules. I'm talking about something TOTALLY unimagined yet. Something that doesn't need air or food, something that doesn't take a shape our wildest imaginations have ever invisioned, etc. We're so stuck on this idea that "the atmosphere on other planets can't sustain life". WHY???? It can't sustain what we've come to know, but if the atmosphere on Earth sustains this kind of life, why can't there be entirely different kinds on planets with different atmospheres?

You need either an atmosphere or bodies of water for chemical reactions to occur. Without chemical reactions, you can't have life.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Mousy, have you been paying any attention at all? Space and time are not immaterial. Your knowledge of modern physics is obviously not very extensive. That's okay. That's why I'm giving you a break here and not completely ripping into you.

The question is, have you been paying attention yourself? No one denied the essence of time and space as they are very real and part of our mortal nature. Whether one has knowledge of physics at this point is pointless for this discussion because ultimately it is our conception of time, and our conception of time is, a duration of consciousness. Now I have gone on to explain our perception of time with regard to how the ancients measured time from the rising and the setting of the sun, and gave further examples into the workings and texture of our every day lives of time perception and how we try to measure time by objective standards, what in reality is intangible. You have not addressed any of this and instead maintain your same position of “You haven’t any knowledge of physics and I won’t need to rip you apart for that”. A true superior person with superior knowledge would not need to resort to condescending snubs in order to secure his position. Thus by your constant attempts at trying to sound condescending I am to guess that you have nothing of value to add to this, thus you end up with such things.

Originally posted by loseyourname No, it isn't. Our best evidence of the material existence of space and time is that we have observed their warping. Things that are immaterial do not warp. They have no form to warp. Your argument is so completely off base and irrelevant, I don't even know where to begin.

This discussion on your side at least, has pretty much devolved to the point of “you are so off base” or “you have no knowledge of it” therefore “I wont bother ripping into you” and “Your argument is so irrelevant I don’t know where to begin”. I have repeatedly said time and space are something very part of our nature, but it is all based on our consciousness. I gave several examples of our everyday life and the arbitrariness of how we come to view space and time. You never seem to have objected to them, so I’m left wondering what you’re arguing here. I can go into further examples of how our measurement of time and space are all arbitrary, but it appears that it would be both a waste of my time and yours.

Originally posted by loseyourname That is the most ridiculously anthropocentric thing I have ever heard.

That you cannot fathom that space and time is based on our conception is not my fault, really. I have already provided an argument. You have not only ignored it, but you haven’t replied to what you think of it or what is off or not.

Originally posted by loseyourname When you go to sleep, you are unaware of your body. I assure that it's still there.

How does this change the fact that we are still not aware of time when we are asleep? Thank you for brilliantly proving my point in action.

Originally posted by loseyourname Again, great argument against trusting human perception by itself. This is exactly why I tell you not to completely trust your religious experiences. They are the products of imperfect perception and can fool you. You have still not produced an argument showing any reason why radionuclear decay can't effectively measure time. You are only producing reasons why human perception, without any objective measuring stick, can't do it. Well all I have to say to that is DUH!

Even WHEN you use science, ala radionuclear decay, to “tell time”, you eventually still have to conform to the model of how we conceive time in our mind. Thus if science asserts that a certain planet is “20 billion years old”, the fact that it uses “years”, is in reference to our conception of years based on our conception of time, from our method we use, the Gregorian calendar. It all gets back to our mind and how we perceive it. Furthermore there are many flaws in radio decay, radio dating, carbon dating, etc., etc. All one has to do is search for it online these days to see that not even scientists agree with scientists.

Moreover, my religious experiences really don’t have anything to do with this. The fact that my religious experience has come to me through things other than my five senses is why this doesn’t apply, since our ability to measure time, or rather our objective realizations at telling time, come to us from the 5 senses. It is because we measure time and space by means of these limited faculties, we are subjected to a limited and not a reliable method of comprehension. One phase of consciousness is what we call objective because it arises out of external stimuli, dealing with external factors and sensory impressions, not our inner thoughts, evaluations and feelings. The deeper form of consciousness is what we call as “psychic”, or “subliminal” or what the psychologists call “subconscious”.

It is because of this that when we look at a distant building, our eyes carry a scene to our mind in the form of energy. We interpret thes impression as a picture and arbitrarily add the sense of space and distance to the objects in that picture. If our eyesight is faulty, our interpretation of distance and space will be different from that of other persons. A drunk, or someone suffering a blow to the head, doesn’t interpret in a normal manner. Therefore, our realization of time and space are different. Time and space are essentially then just realizations of the mind through impressions arising out of objective sense faculties, regardless of what they may be actually.

Originally posted by loseyourname No, they don't. Only your perception of them do.

Yes they do, since our perceptions are limited and we attempt to measure time by these limited perceptions.

Originally posted by loseyourname No, we are not. We are changing our speed. Our consciousness is unaltered and nothing is annihilated.

I gave an experiment of the rolling ball to show how our perception of time and space is altered when we increase the speed. You said nothing about that but merely an assertion of “No we are not…..” Really if a discussion is this, we might as well just state “No, you’re wrong”, and I’ll respond with “No, you’re wrong”. You simply state it has to be so because it has to be so. My example demonstrated contrary to what you just claimed though, that’s the funny part.

Originally posted by loseyourname Again, you're talking about something you don't know anything about. Read the paper, then tell me that.

I like this line of dodging discussions. This isn’t simply about whether you know more or I know more, it’s simply a point where you cannot grasp that telling time is an arbitrary thing.

Originally posted by loseyourname This is so jumbled and nonsensical I honestly have nothing to say. This is akin to attempting to refute the statement "blog is tlark."

It makes perfect sense, and this was just me restating what I mentioned earlier. It is expected in this discussion that you will say “Such incoherence”, in order to avoid addressing it, because my example really proves how our nature of time is arbitrary. Now you can accept this as it is, or tell me how our measurement of time is absolute, when it really is not since my examples already demonstrated the arbitrary nature of how we conceptualize time.

Originally posted by loseyourname No, it's because there is space between where the ball is and where it will end up.

I don’t see how this has anything to do with what I stated. My point was that the ball we hold in our hand cannot be someplace else at the same time. Unless you can prove that it can, I don’t see what the problem here is.

Originally posted by loseyourname Yeah, and? Is there any point to this whatsoever?

The point with that example, as with all other examples, is that our measurement of what we think time and space is, changes.

Originally posted by loseyourname Can you honestly not grasp that it is not possible for one man to simultaneously be and not be the human incarnation of God? Is that really too complex for you?

This is if you assume Jesus to be human, but then again this is if you assume the story of Jesus to be literal. But like I mentioned later in my post, faith is faith, logic is logic. I don’t see what you are jammering about here.

Originally posted by loseyourname Thank you for a history of religion. Where does this fit in?

This fits in your attempt at trying to use faith to cancel another faith. In order to understand any faith one must understand many faiths and where they come from and see the similarities. Moreover, they are all based on similar allegories and teachings. One cannot have an understanding of Christianity without having an understanding of the other systems of belief. It is precisely when one studies these and reads up on them, one sees cross cultural and cross religious similarities with regard to where our religions come from and what allegories they use. Thus for you to try to use one faith to excommunicate another shows a gross misunderstanding of religious systems since they have more in common root with one another than one can believe.

Originally posted by loseyourname No, I am showing that there exists no objective way to measure the validity of faith, so that it cannot lead to certain knowledge. Two faiths that make contradicting claims cannot both be correct, and yet there is no way to tell which is and which is not, or even if either is correct.

This attempt comes from having no background on religions and other belief systems, their development, and the similarities they carry.

Originally posted by loseyourname Actually, I see this as a desperate attempt to completely dodge the argument by deflecting from the main point and speaking of the transcendence of God's word and the evolution of religious belief. None of this changes the fact that two belief sets that contradict each other cannot both be right. If I say the earth is cubical, and you say it is a pyramidal prism, we cannot both be correct. It is actually quite simple.

I can now turn around like you and say “This is a point by you to further dodge the argument”, but I won’t since this was not my intention, but you seem to like it. If you study belief systems you will study that they more or less have different allegories of telling the same story and meaning. Thus only fundamentalists believe in the argument line you are using. To try to use one faith and state “That is right” without studying the other faiths to see how these all tie in, you are essentially using an argument from the rallying point of fundamentalism. I am not a fundamentalist, and like Peter Abelard, whom I quoted earlier, it is entirely possible for a person of another faith to lead a good and ethical life.

Originally posted by loseyourname Reason deals with ideas. Ideas are immaterial. Therefore, reason deals with the immaterial. That is a foolproof deductive argument that proves you wrong. You have yet to address it.

I don’t believe I ever denied this. Au contraire, I expressed the fact that we are discussing, and discussion uses ideas, therefore it is obvious. There is no point of contention here. However what lies beyond our known world reason cannot answer, and for the millionth time, it is where faith comes in. You seem to be simply rehashing the same old arguments to have something to argue with, correct me if I’m wrong.