Dear George,

Humans imagine substances and entities to explain phenomena and the vagaries of human existence. Eg phlogiston and ether. Lavoisier with his discovery of oxygen and the chemistry of combustion eliminated phlogiston.The Michelson-Morley experiment eliminated ether. Another imaginary entity was life as creating a different kind of matter. That concept survives in the names organic and inorganic chemistry. Organic referred to that which was suffused with the animating substance of life and inorganic referred to that which was not so suffused. The distinction has disappeared since organic substances can be made in the laboratory. However, the names have been kept.

Many religions now concern themselves with the soul. The Catholic Church defines soul:

“The spiritual principle of human beings. The soul is the subject of human consciousness and freedom; soul and body together form one unique human nature. Each human soul is individual and immortal, immediately created by God. The soul does not die with the body, from which it is separated by death, and with which it will be reunited in the final resurrection.”

There have been experiments to determine the existence of the soul. One experiment weighed dying people before and after death. That was done by putting the death bed on a scale. No change in weight was noted. No evidence for the existence of the soul has been found.

Humans have also invented supernatural entities. Divinity may reside in a tree, the wind or a stone or be a human attribute or institution personified. There are deities of love, war, mischief, greed, agriculture, etc. Most humans have discarded those deities as we recognise that emotions and character lie within us and that war and other group actions stem from the circumstances of our society.

We finally invented a deity not linked to any particular attribute, people or location but all-knowing, all powerful and all good. Having invented such a deity we became aware that such a deity would prevent evil, but we have evil. So we invent theodicy to explain away the contradiction.

It seems simpler to rid ourselves of all supernatural entities.

banjo..<<..when I..“think in words”..
[edit]..am I actually..talking to god.>>

i dont know about word thinking
[my thinking is in pictures/sounds/smells..
people qualities things..that impress the mind to [continues at end]

anyhow..we each have our dominant..inflow means
by which..we structure our minds

[some like david?..[and you]?..with words
others like george and sdwedenberg..by modeled numbers

mine as i earlier said is sensual..event recall..mainlyby7 picture/images..sounds smells that have a meaning..to my life experiences

they..inform the brain..to..instruct..the finger..
to dribble out..the location of the letters on/my keyboard..
into a stream of letters..i then try..to edit it all..into a logical flow..using yet more mind imagery..more sensa..more words..till i feel my mind say enough}

<<..I should be interested to hear..what our scientific friends, George and David f..have to say about...>>..word thinking

yep me too

<<..Conscience/has mainly (if not exclusively)
to do with our education>>..if only it was that simple

recall your child theory<<..“The way we talk to..our children becomes their inner voice..>>..my parents rarely talked

[but i note that first..a child must first see..[empathize]..with something outside..of itself..and its needs wants..ok education..but application..recall..if only it was that clear

but i have watched..those pre empathy
so that most recent update relates

its relating the stream..of conscious flow..
via the material..into the spirit..and the sentience..of a sentence
onto the explanatory gap argument..which..doesn't demonstrate a gap in nature,..but a gap in our understanding of nature...

this nurture
bound within that nature
or not..it was mostly randomized topically..
trying to..join some dots..to expand the mind talk possibility

see long ago i learned..to ask..
is to set off an avalanche...of reply..
by/through every sense..available..to them..in spirit..
of like mind-set..[like/vibe]..all..so eager to earn the karma..of simply trying to help other..by any means they can..input the better concept..into our awarenewss of mind

.

Dear George,

.

[>>Who could doubt that science has its limitations (your expert advice) ? Who could doubt that they are constantly evolving (my layman’s observation) ? <<

I don’t see a contradiction between the two … ]

.

Neither do I. They are complementary.

That is why I propose that we conclude:

“Let us, therefore, content ourselves with defining its point of destination and set it free.”

.

Dear Banjo,

>> when I “think in words” I am actually talking to god. I should be interested to hear what our scientific friends, George and David f have to say about this.<<

I completely agree with you. It is not true that when I talk I am necessarily talking to you, although if I wish, I can talk (write) to you. The same about “talking” to God, called meditation or prayer. As we know, people can meditate without directing their meditation to God, or anything else. Buddhist monks when meditating, might or might not feel they are directing their meditation towards something spiritual, whatever that is they envisage. Most probably it is not to the God of Abrahamic religions.

Dear david f,

Phlogiston was part of an explanation (model) for the burning process, and what was eliminated was not the purpose for which phlogiston was invented but its explanatory function. The same could perhaps be said about “naive” models of the Spiritual. If they seem absurd, it might be in the way they depict the Spiritual, not in the very concept of a Spiritual realm.

[ I use Spiritual instead of “supernatural” since you identified the latter with its esoteric use, which is not completely unrelated, only represents a naive model of the Spiritual. Perhaps something like science fiction is not completely unrelated to science only is based on a naive and entertaining interpretation, or rather extrapolation, of it.]

As to the definition of soul you quote, it fits well the outdated Cartesian dualism (body and spirit as two separate entities) but also the more contemporary understanding as the software running the hardware. In this latter interpretation soul would correspond to what is usually called mind (a word that e.g. in German does not have an unequivocal equivalent). Belief in “afterlife” is then a belief, that a new “hardware” will (or does) exist on which my “software” will run. This is just one interpretation but perhaps less absurd than that of a disembodied soul flying around somewhere.

Experiments to weigh soul or mind are, sorry, simply silly.

(ctd)

(ctd)

Divinity residing in a tree could be seen as a naive (from the Christian point of view) understanding of Incarnation.

>>We finally invented a deity not linked to any particular attribute, people or location but all-knowing, all powerful and all good. … such a deity would prevent evil, but we have evil. <<

That is an understandable interpretation of the concept of God, who certainly cannot be found in the laboratory, but perhaps in human history. Your interpretation is kept open also in the Rodney Stark book “Discovering God” that I like to quote: “This book can be read either as a study of the evolution of human IMAGES of God, or as the evolution of the human CAPACITY TO COMPREHEND God. The same theoretical model suits either interpretation.”

As to having evil, well, without the idea of negatives we would not have an idea of positives. We only know how God should act to prevent evil, if he was thinking like us. Probably like a magician playing tricks, or a bad engineer having to interfere all the time to keep his machine running properly, or a bad programmer who keeps on having to correct mistakes in his original program. These are not models of God who is perfect in whatever sense a human mind can imagine.

>>It seems simpler to rid ourselves of all supernatural entities.<<

There are certainly many people who find their life simpler without a belief in God. And others who find it simpler, more meaningful, with such a belief. Both are personal positions to be respected. As for societies, it will take a couple of generations to see wether a world without God can be at least as lasting as was the (Western) world with Him.

There are naive approaches to science and also naive (or even dangerous) approaches to the idea of God. One should get rid of both, but as far as the Spiritual, God, is concerned, I think one should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

we are..talking weight..[of soul]..
as just under..one ounce..not 21 ounces..[used to..refute]

thats part/of..the clear..BIAS*[of soul-man]
http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp#bjL8OtEoHRgWTP4s.99

earlier..a point was made..from a biased source
i spent some time..following the red herrings..abound..before realization..of its falseness..plus bias..

but..i was looking..for it
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15094#15094

this..direct from..the..biased/source
read it thyself..

<<..It would take..a great deal of credulity..
to conclude..that MacDougall's experiments..demonstrated anything about post-mortem weight..loss,>>

its insulting..to..those who KNOW..how precise..he was being

<<.much less..the quantifiable/existence..of the human/soul...
For one thing,..his results were..far/from consistent,>>

as..some souls carry..more emotional [baage..[eneries=mass]
unlike the dogs..used later..which enerally have..very..little..[emotional hangover]..or none

thus..conveniantly/inignoance
able tosay..<<varying widely across..his half-dozen test cases:

1..."Suddenly coincident with death
the loss..was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce."

2..."The weight lost..was found to be half an ounce.

Then my colleague..[r]auscultated the heart..and found it stopped. I tried again.and the loss was..one ounce and a half..and fifty grains."

3. "My third case..showed a weight of half an ounce lost,..coincident with death,.and an additional loss of one ounce a few minutes later."

4. "In the fourth case..unfortunately our scales were not finely adjusted..and there was..NOTE?BY THEN}..a good deal of interference.by people..opposed to our work

I regard this test..as of no value."

5. "My fifth case showed..a distinct drop in the beam
requiring about three-eighths of an ounce..which could not be accounted for.

<This occurred exactly simultaneously..with death
but peculiarly on bringing the beam up again..with weights and later removing them,..the beam did not sink bac. to stay for fully fifteen minutes."

6. "My sixth and last case..was not a fair test. The patient died almost within five minutes..after being placed upon the bed and died while..I was adjusting the beam.">>

see how FREEWILL..is retained?
reasonable..doubt..for atheist..some validation..for thiest

<<So, ]..out of six tests,
two..had to be discarded,>>

<<one showed an immediate drop..in weight..(and nothing more),
two showed..an immediate drop in weight..which increased with the passage of time,..and>>..blah blah

one would think..just the drops in weight..
IMMEDIATELY..at death-point..is clear indication..of a likely..thesis..or for..further study..but..for..the atheist science/peers