Dear George,

< 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.>

I agree with the above. God was apparently invented as an explanatory function for the arbitrary nature of the problems we face and the inevitability of death. Some of us don’t need that explanatory function. All we need to do is to accept that both death and the arbitrary nature of what befalls us are simply part of life. I think there is no reason to think life has any meaning.

Those who find that reality too frightening may find comfort in the thought of a benevolent deity. One can also find comfort in the warm embrace of tribal fellowship. Religion serves the latter purpose admirably. Few people in today’s world live in tribal conditions, but we still have the brains of tribal people.

One of the explanations of the arbitrary nature of the vicissitudes we suffer while there is a benevolent deity is that those vicissitudes are part of a plan which is beyond our grasp. Another explanation is that it gives us the opportunity to choose good or evil in the exercise of our free will. There are other explanations of the contradiction.

The only reasonable explanation to me is that our concept of a benevolent deity is inherently contradictory.

< 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.>

The (Western) world imbued with the notion of God lasted from the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire until the Enlightenment. The Dark Ages lasted much too long.

Theology is the preservation of bathwater under the delusion that it contains a baby.

all quotes from
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15096#15096

<<..at its essence..the soul..is within..our flesh body..
held within..its astral-body..[but..it..can emit/project..beyond..the physical/body/material constraint..[see aura]..

the astral,..vessil[body]..is contained ..
within..its..[our]..mortal flesh/blood body..
that resides within..the astral form..that resides..within that is..our light body..and..inside all..of this = our.[gods]..life sustaining spirit..

visualize it..like body within body..within body
holding gods..holy life giving SPIRIT..to animate..the other bodies..and conjointly..they allow us material-occupation..in the flesh

the life spirit..[gods living spirit]..
sustaining the rest of our spirit and flesh bodies..their function...and use..is as determined by our freewill

and it is..by their joinder/points
that provide the allowance ..of the material body..
existent...in/of..its variable bodily/state intersessions..within the other realms

..within the bounds..of the relative bodies/qualities.
.of our various..material/spiritual/celestial/universal..bodies..in their appropriate place..as they..provide the way/means..that invoke the means..of our spi-ritual evolution..

our various soul bodies..
facilitate our further..evolving spiritual progress..in the many and varied realms..each more etherized..[aether-alised]..than the last..

but each..also larger..
as we..spiritual evolve ever-up..into our light body
and as we drop the body form dross..separating god..from his creation

never the less.. in hell..the 'stained/soul..is compacted..
as if..the evil..has hardened them..within..shrunken clay.

.[ie the ...soul-forms..active of evil
are the size of children..and the most truthfully..vile are no bigger than ..a fetus..[the smaller..the bug..the bigger the danger]

[and despicable/eventually..only as large..as an human egg..just prior to abortion..of their previous life's existent....[ie re incarnation]

continues
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15096#15096

Dear George,

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

I agree with your statement above. However, I agree because I have no reason to think a soul exists. However, mind can manifest itself by the detection of electrochemical impulses as a subject is exposed to various stimuli. One can detect those impulses. Mind manifests itself by impulses of a physical entity, the brain, even though the mind cannot be weighed. However, I know of no way that a soul manifests itself.

I got my definition of soul from a Catholic website. Is it fair to assume that, as a Catholic, you accept that definition?

OUG takes attempts to detect evidence that a soul exists seriously. OUG’s position differs from yours, but I think OUG’s position is more reasonable than yours. If a soul has no material existence how can it have any effect on beings that exist in the phenomenal world? What is its mechanism of communication? What is its function?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

Occam's razor (also written as Ockham's razor from William of Ockham, and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

The assumption of the existence of a soul accompanying our physical existence violates Occam's razor since its existence has no discernible effect on our existence. What justification is there for such an assumption? Of course the same question can be asked concerning the existence of God, but I’m not asking that question.

Dear George,

Please ignore my previous post. You do not have to account for your beliefs to me. Being a secular inquisitor is no better than being a religious one.

George,

I’m not sure why this has to be about me wanting something.

<<…I don’t know what you want from me. To communicate my views a little differently?>>

If you see an error, do you not feel the urge to correct it? The fact that you feel that I am trying to get you to agree with me suggests a defensiveness on your behalf. For what it’s worth, I gave up thinking that I could convince you of anything a long time ago. No offence intended.

We may not change the minds of those with whom we actually speak, but others around us can still benefit from what we say. You and I are not in a vacuum.

<<This is our fundamental difference. I can accept that many people (at all levels of intellectual sophistication) cannot believe in God, however modeled. >>

This is an unfair comparison. It would be different if we were disagreeing on, say, whether or not symbolic interactionism was the best sociological perspective to explain the problem of illicit drug use, but it’s not. It must be said that one position here has the clear advantage thus for, while the other is on the philosophical backfoot. So of course it’s easier for you to accept that others disagree with you one the question of God’s existence! It makes you a reasonable person, but it does not necessarily make you a “better” one.

In a similar sense, it is also unfair (and possibly an attempt to gag) to subtly denigrate someone’s inability to “accept” something that is clearly harmful and does not have any direct benefits.

So back to this…

<<I do not think you would regard anything I would write as a viable explanation of my position, since you seem to be unable to accept that some people believe in God…>>

If you are confident that your explanations are good enough for you, then why should my opinion on their viability have any effect on whether or not you share them? I may not agree, but others might gain something from them.

Continued…

…Continued

<<Unfortunately, I cannot take away your belief that I myself do not understand what I am referring to.>>

Well, one way you could do this would be to avoid appealing to the unknown or the incomprehensible (e.g. “These are not models of God who is perfect in whatever sense a human mind can imagine.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15257#268839)). When someone is quick to describe a concept in terms of what it is not, yet can only appeal to the mysterious when asked to describe what it actually is, then it is usually safe to assume that not only does that someone not know what they are talking about, but that they probably don’t want you to know what they’re talking about either.

Catholics are well-known for their frequent appeals to the mysterious. Unfortunately, though, we cannot answer a mystery with another mystery.