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God's Advocate
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 Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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| DogFutt wrote: |
The underlying reasons to the choice include instinct, previous experiences, current situation, logical reasoning (or lack thereof), emotional state, and many other factors. All you do is claim "soul did it" and accept it as a default explanation without explaining how, why, and by what means the soul did it, while at the same time claiming that said phenomena proves the souls existence. This is circular reasoning. Observe:
1) Santa Claus brings children presents on Christmas
2) Children receive presents on Christmas
3) Without Santa watching, children would misbehave
Conclusion: Santa Claus exists.
To prove that the soul is responsible, you have to explain what allows to the soul to do what you claim it does. |
All you do here is explain the information we use to make the choice. This does nothing for your claim that the brain is the final decision maker of the choice. I have said this before and I guess I need to say it again. Under a atheistic materialist world view, all that exist is the material world. If all that exist is the material, then the brain is only reacting to the information fed to it and should only react in direct correspondence to the information. Example: my body says I need to eat, therefore I have no choice to eat because my brain will not allow anything to happen contrary to the information it receives unless something else intervenes. Yet, I find myself being able to make a choice not to eat if I do not want to and without someone else forcing me not to eat. My conclusion of the soul is nothing compared to the ridiculousness of your santa claus scenario. We need something that transcends or body to manipulate the body to act in a certain way contrary to what it is wired by nature to do.
| DogFutt wrote: | Oh really? What societies do you speak of that existed long ago and followed what I consider to be modern moral values? Athens is considered one of the more enlightened ancient civilizations, and they had Socrates executed, accusing him of not believing in gods.
I find it funny that you claim gender equality was "God's plan". The Bible says in multiple passages that woman is to serve man as man serves God. And you are completely wrong in the claim that gender equality was first practiced in America. |
No society possessed all of these moral values as a whole, only certain groups in certain societies just as today. We do not have a society today or in the past that possesses all of these moral values. We only have people within the society who possess them. You are cherry picking one instance in one culture and making it normative over all time and cultures as a whole. There are still masses of cultures who practice all of these oppressions. If we were evolving morals as a whole, then we would see the same result everywhere because we are all humans. This is where you are committing ad populem. You say it is true because you say most cultures do so, which is false anyway. The claim stands that we still practice the same morals. Different cultures practice them at different times.
The main point here and the point you did not address is who are you to say any of these are wrong or that we are on the right path. Where is your point of reference for what is morally correct?
It was part of God's plan for equality. It's funny how you cherry pick a verse again to support your point. God also tells man that he needs to be a living sacrifice for his wife. I would say the word sacrifice is on par or above the word serve. Regardless, you are confusing the roles of a relationship that allow the relationship to exist with the equality of them as persons.
| DogFutt wrote: | | Humans are motivated by more than just survival instinct. Also, I am feeling less and less obligated to explain how the brain works when you have refused repeatedly to give me a single detail about how the soul works. |
First, you are placing traits on the brain that I place on the soul. We have agreed on this and we also agreed on a definition of soul. You merely describe the information used by our brain but have not explained how the brain works as you claim.
I know you said in your last post that we need to wrap this up. If you need to end this, just let me know, I do not want to be a hindrance to anything else you have going on. How did you do on your exams? |
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DogFutt
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| Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 1:26 am Post subject: |
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Unless you can describe exactly how the soul performs the processes of enabling free will and morality, using itself (which you claim is impossible), and achieving sentience and consciousness, it is not logical to claim these things as evidence of the soul, even if no known explanation for these phenomena existed.
I can claim that I possess an invisible, immaterial device that is the source of gravity which I keep in my garage, and claim that the fact that mass attracts mass as proof of the existence of this device. I can state that this device performs this task because it is in its nature, claim that the mover must differ from the moved, and point out that no alternative of the source of gravity is known to science. I can claim that this device is capable of doing what it does because it exists in a parallel universe, whereas nothing in this universe could cause gravity. Have I just proved the existence of this device, or even offered evidence for it? Of course not. One cannot simply assign an undescribed entity to a phenomena the claim the phenomena as proof of said entity.
Also, what you are attempting to accuse me of is generalization, not ad populum, which is something different. And I did generalize a bit when making the claims about how things were 1000 years ago. However, I stand by my claim that moral standards practiced by societies back then have changed dramatically.
We do have many societies and people with different values. Like many forms of evolution, a large part of cultural and social evolution occurs through competition. Values and morals that are not beneficial society can cause societies that practice them to collapse, while superior ethical and moral systems survive in the societies they support. In the meantime, new ideas are being tested, and while most fail, some succeed and become commonly practiced. Recently new technologies such as the internet have allowed ideas and values to compete more peacefully. We should be glad that we are not in medieval Europe, where theological debates were settled with bloodshed.
| Quote: | | I know you said in your last post that we need to wrap this up. If you need to end this, just let me know, I do not want to be a hindrance to anything else you have going on. How did you do on your exams? |
I did pretty good on my exams, thanks 
It is true I think we should wrap up this debate soon. How about we each do one more post, and then you can have the final word?
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Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
-Oscar Wilde |
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God's Advocate
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Joined: 02 Dec 2009
Posts: 80
Local time: 12:34 PM
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| Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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| DogFutt wrote: | | Unless you can describe exactly how the soul performs the processes of enabling free will and morality, using itself (which you claim is impossible), and achieving sentience and consciousness, it is not logical to claim these things as evidence of the soul, even if no known explanation for these phenomena existed. |
I am not sure what qualifies as evidence for you. I can not email you a video of a soul since a soul is immaterial. I can only provide arguments that deny that the brain is all that we are. We have to conclude if the brain is not the only thing capable of making us reason, feel, and make choices, there has to be something else interacting with our brain. I welcome any conclusion, maybe we are all just brains in jars being stimulated by a mad scientist to make us think that we are something else. Of course, we probably both find this ridiculous. The fact that you asked me to debate over a soul's existence tells me that you do not think that the soul's existence is ridiculous, just not probable from the evidence as you see it. You can correct me on this if I am wrong. Moreover, I can take your same sentence you just made and insert the word "brain" where "soul" is. "Unless you can describe exactly how the brain performs the processes of enabling free will and morality, using itself (which you claim is impossible), and achieving sentience and consciousness, it is not logical to claim these things as evidence of the brain, even if no known explanation for these phenomena existed." Like I said before, we are looking for plausability using evidence and reasoning from the world around us. Most of my argument is based of causality. We understand cause and effect and know that all of our choices(effects) must have a cause(brain,soul,physical or non physical force). My point about the morality was that we all agree that there is right and wrong, regardless if society is enforcing these rules.
| DogFutt wrote: | | I can claim that I possess an invisible, immaterial device that is the source of gravity which I keep in my garage, and claim that the fact that mass attracts mass as proof of the existence of this device. I can state that this device performs this task because it is in its nature, claim that the mover must differ from the moved, and point out that no alternative of the source of gravity is known to science. I can claim that this device is capable of doing what it does because it exists in a parallel universe, whereas nothing in this universe could cause gravity. Have I just proved the existence of this device, or even offered evidence for it? Of course not. One cannot simply assign an undescribed entity to a phenomena the claim the phenomena as proof of said entity. |
Nice!
I would welcome such an argument if there was not so much evidence in opposition of your claim. That is what we are doing here. Interpreting and weighing out the evidence. What we hope is that the other person understands what qualifies for evidence and is open to logic and reason. I love your example by the way. You are open to the evidence of non-material forces being able to act upon the physical world. This is analogous to the soul. We know that we can hold a baseball and keep gravity from imposing its force on the ball. But as soon as we let go, something else is interacting with the ball to bring it down. The external world can force us to make choices just like the hand on the ball. Hunger pains can force me to eat, but if I refuse to eat, there has to be another cause. Since no one is holding a gun to my head and nothing else in the physical world is forcing me not to eat, I can conclude that something non-material is the cause. The only non-material force I know of is the soul.
| DogFutt wrote: | However, I stand by my claim that moral standards practiced by societies back then have changed dramatically.
We do have many societies and people with different values. Like many forms of evolution, a large part of cultural and social evolution occurs through competition. Values and morals that are not beneficial society can cause societies that practice them to collapse, while superior ethical and moral systems survive in the societies they support. In the meantime, new ideas are being tested, and while most fail, some succeed and become commonly practiced. Recently new technologies such as the internet have allowed ideas and values to compete more peacefully. We should be glad that we are not in medieval Europe, where theological debates were settled with bloodshed. |
I believe the same moral truths have always existed and will always exist and this is independent of us. I do agree with you that the enforcement of them by certain cultures is better practiced. Since we do live in a technologically rich culture, there is more accountability to abide by this moral code and enforce it. That is what is changing, the enforcement of morality, not morality itself. If you see a moral or value that did not benefit society or fail, then I would argue that it was not a correct moral truth to begin with.
I would like to personally thank you for such an engaging and entertaining debate. I have thoroughly enjoyed this. I would also like to thank you for being so nice and respectable. I don't know if you did this because I asked at the beginning or if you are naturally like this, but it was a great example to the rest of the atheists that reside here. I hope I have not offended you in any way here and hope you do not possess any hostile thoughts towards me for any of my words. Too often, I am treated with great hostility for trying to engage with people on this site. Sometimes it is hard to get your point across with words that show no emotion.
I have included a few links below that I believe would be great information for you from some of the top philosophers in our present day. I have included these for various reasons. First, I care what happens to your soul. Second, I believe that if you want to debate this issue again with someone else, it might be of some help to you to know what the opposing side thinks or how they view the soul. I do this myself all of the time. I find arguments from the opposition and try to argue against what the opposing view is. This will help you and helps me form a more persuasive argument. Each one can be read in a few minutes time.
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6771
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5474
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6027
http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/tisthammerw/rlgnphil/soul.html |
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