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Mr. Wiggles posted:To quote the Vatican, the soul signifies the "spiritual principle" in man. It is our "innermost aspect", and that which is of greatest value within us. Or put another way, we are our souls, and our souls are us. This is not a "clear definition." I am a body, a mass of cells. If I am my soul, and my soul is me, is my soul my body? What is the difference between a soul and a body? In what way is an entity without a soul different from an entity WITH a soul?
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Jan 14, 2015 22:44
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Muscle Tracer posted:This is not a "clear definition." I am a body, a mass of cells. If I am my soul, and my soul is me, is my soul my body? What is the difference between a soul and a body? I would say that you also have a body, otherwise you would be having a hard time typing. 
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Jan 14, 2015 22:53
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Kyrie eleison posted:That is up to you. I wish that you would, that all humanity might forgive one another, but I won't let the judgment of others ruin my happiness. Forgiveness begets reflection and atonement, Kyrie. Without changing what you have shown yourself to be, an aplogy is meaningless. It does no good to those wronged and does not help those who may be wronged in the future. If you are sorry, then forgiveness is natural. But, to this thread, words are words. Tell us how this apology has affected you, changed you, and let us see the sincerity of your post. Also, still waiting to hear what animes you watch.
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Jan 14, 2015 22:55
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Mr. Wiggles posted:I would say that you also have a body, otherwise you would be having a hard time typing. Sorry, forgot you were illiterate. Nevermind.
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Jan 14, 2015 22:56
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Kyrie eleison posted:I forgive you. All the people in your avatar would find this passive aggressive conduct intolerable.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:09
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Mr. Wiggles posted:To quote the Vatican, the soul signifies the "spiritual principle" in man. It is our "innermost aspect", and that which is of greatest value within us. Or put another way, we are our souls, and our souls are us. Let's grant that "our souls are us". We are physical, ergo our souls (by virtue of sharing the same traits) are also physical. Please show physical evidence of the soul.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:11
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Who What Now posted:Let's grant that "our souls are us". We are physical, ergo our souls (by virtue of sharing the same traits) are also physical. Please show physical evidence of the soul. The church holds that we are more than just physical.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:23
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Mr. Wiggles posted:I would say that you also have a body, otherwise you would be having a hard time typing. http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/do-animals-have-souls-like-human-beings Yeeeeeaaaahhhh, it sounds like a lot of unicorns and cloudy thinking. quote:We also know human souls are immortal because spirits can't decompose. They have no parts: Only a thing with parts can fall apart. A spirit is a unit. It has no top or bottom, no left or right, no inside or outside. Thank goodness that thing that we cannot even show exists can't decompose, that was a huge worry! Its not like intellect is tied to grey matter or anything.....oh. quote:Human souls, by contrast, aren't material. They're spiritual. Only a spirit can know and love, a spirit's two chief faculties being the intellect (which knows) and the will (which loves). We know human souls are spiritual since humans can know and love. Considering we have PROVEN that multiple species of animals on Earth can love, show emotion, and even show mourning over loss, this is probably one of the most blind statements I have ever seen. quote:Animals and plants also lack a moral sense. When you scold Spot for chewing the carpet and tell him what he did was "wrong," you aren't assigning guilt of sin to him, since he can't commit a sin. Well, duh plants don't really have or need morality. But animals DO comprehend moral issues, 'Spot' can chew on the carpet and actually be well aware that he is likely to get in trouble for doing so, and Spot is fully capable of expressing guilt for knowing what he did will be frowned upon. http://www.npr.org/2014/08/15/338936897/do-animals-have-morals Mr. Wiggles posted:The church holds that we are more than just physical. That's great in the view of religion if you chose to believe it. But the idea that anyone outside of that religion should accept this idea as 'True' or 'Truth' is laughable. I'm going to treat it as a hypothesis that requires proving before its accepted as true. The biggest reason I find people like Kyrie and his blind faith in the Catholic Church laughable and sad is the sheer amount of Anthropocentrism they cling to. We're 'special'. We have a 'special' place in the animal kingdom. We have a 'special'place in the universe (the church clung to Geocentrism for a long time, fighting off Copernican Heliocentrism as long as they could, arguing it could 'demote' humanity and the most holy). The Catholic Church and its centrism are all the more reason that its laughable to accept anything they and their scholars argue is valid. Everything we keep learning via naturalism keeps flying in the face of what the Church holds dear and even the biases we held dear as a species. Despite the Catholic Church's pushes towards progressive strides, I just continue to feel that naturalism has done more to 'humble us' than religion every will. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 23:25
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CommieGIR posted:http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/do-animals-have-souls-like-human-beings Catholic.com is not a good source. But in any case you can believe whatever you want - I won't ask you to believe anything that doesn't tick the intellectual boxes for you. If you want to believe what I do or know more about what I believe, I'll talk to you about it, but otherwise your religion or lack thereof is your business, not mine. Edit for your edit: quote:The biggest reason I find people like Kyrie and his blind faith in the Catholic Church laughable and sad is the sheer amount of Anthropocentrism they cling to. We're 'special'. We have a 'special' place in the animal kingdom. We have a 'special'place in the universe (the church clung to Geocentrism for a long time, fighting off Copernican Heliocentrism as long as they could, arguing it could 'demote' humanity and the most holy). The Catholic Church and its centrism are all the more reason that its laughable to accept anything they and their scholars argue is valid. A fun thing to check out along these lines is de Chardin's Omega Point theory. The idea, at it's most basic, is that humans right now are kind of the tip of the spear for evolution, and that we are evolving towards eventual perfection and union with God, who is guiding and drawing all existence towards Him. The argument is much more complex than that, though, and it's really very fun reading. Here, check it out. Mr. Wiggles fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 23:34
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Mr. Wiggles posted:A fun thing to check out along these lines is de Chardin's Omega Point theory. The idea, at it's most basic, is that humans right now are kind of the tip of the spear for evolution, and that we are evolving towards eventual perfection and union with God, who is guiding and drawing all existence towards Him. The argument is much more complex than that, though, and it's really very fun reading. Don't take this the wrong way and I mean no offense, but confirmation bias via a a Jesuit priest who used his skills in evolutionary biology to justify the ideas of his theology is hardly going to be something I want to read, mainly because it has no basis in actual science and its literally someone misusing science to justify their personal theological beliefs. Tipper did something similar quote:Critics of the final omega point principle say its arguments violate the Copernican principle, that it incorrectly applies the laws of probability, and that it is really a theology or metaphysics principle made to sound plausible to laypeople by using the esoteric language of physics. Martin Gardner dubbed FAP the "completely ridiculous anthropic principle" (CRAP).[11] Oxford-based philosopher Nick Bostrom writes that the final anthropic principle has no claim on any special methodological status, it is "pure speculation", despite attempts to elevate it by calling it a "principle".[12] Philosopher Rem B. Edwards called it "futuristic, pseudoscientific eschatology" that is "highly conjectural, unverified, and improbable".[13] Its Woo-y pseudoscience. Sorry. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 23:44
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Well, read it or not, it's a pretty good time.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:46
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Well, read it or not, it's a pretty good time. So is reading Frank Herbert's Dune, but it doesn't make it legitimate non-Fiction. I mean, you might as well start reading Deepak Chopra for all the good that book will do, it'll make you FEEL nice, but it doesn't make it right or true.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:48
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CommieGIR posted:So is reading Frank Herbert's Dune, but it doesn't make it legitimate non-Fiction. Dune did give us a badass David Lynch movie, though.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:50
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Dune did give us a badass David Lynch movie, though. I liked the SciFi take on it better, mainly because they made the Baron a character I could actually enjoy as a villain.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:52
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I think you have to read this kind of thing to understand how other people think, the ways in which believing operates. To standoffishly just say everything is ridiculous is an abnegation of a sort, you can learn something even from a full blown quack (this guy wasn't one of those either, fyi). The worst version of this thread isn't the version where Kyrie and Cows are giving the lo-down on their sociopathy (real or otherwise), it's when it's just a shouting chamber of 'your view is retarded!'. That's not really a very critical engagement or a very interesting way of disagreeing.Mr. Wiggles posted:Dune did give us a badass David Lynch movie, though. The fan made long cuts are surprisingly good and closer to the books. If only they hadn't hosed up the weirding module stuff, the movie would have been amazing. Also, the score owns.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:53
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I think I may have asked this before, but I've seen "woo" thrown around in the specific context of "capital-s Skepticism discussing Things Which Are Not That" -- where did that come from? It makes it sound like Scientology is trying to... seduce me, erotically. It's kind of hot. Anyway Wiggles would you say that it would be accurate to call the "soul" that sense of self, the conception of yourself as an individual? (If so, does this not raise some troubling questions regarding infant development, since the Church holds the soul enters at conception I believe, or at the very least implantation, but self-awareness seems to come substantially after birth)
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Jan 15, 2015 00:04
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Yeah, the soundtrack was great, which is weird because it's Toto. It's really the HR Giger art/set dressing which set the universe in it for me, though. Truly weird stuff that made it feel thousands of years in the future. Nessus, I think the "soul" being a sense of self is a pretty good description, though probably not complete. I don't think it raises any troubling questions for the church, though, since they hold that the soul isn't a static thing, but rather something that can grow and develop just as our bodies do. Sure, self-awareness as we understand it may not come until after birth, but there may be something there even in a nascent sense. I don't really know, though.
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Jan 15, 2015 00:14
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Mr. Wiggles posted:The church holds that we are more than just physical. Demonstrate this.
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Jan 15, 2015 00:49
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Mr. Wiggles posted:The church holds that we are more than just physical. But the soul isn't meant to actually influence anything physical, right? Otherwise we could detect it. So why should I care about this hypothetical non-interacting thing following me around? It doesn't really have anything to do with me; all my thoughts, emotions, memories and ways of thinking are demonstrably in my (material) brain. Is the soul a constantly updated backup, so God doesn't screw up and perma-kill someone?
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Jan 15, 2015 00:51
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Catholic.com is not a good source. I'd like to know exactly what you believe and, far more importantly, why you believe what you believe. What, specifically, convinced you that your beliefs were true?
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Jan 15, 2015 00:54
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Kyrie eleison posted:Satan is the embodiment of evil, he deserves his reputation, unless he were to atone. lol you don't know your own dogma~
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Jan 15, 2015 01:35
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Who What Now posted:I'd like to know exactly what you believe and, far more importantly, why you believe what you believe. What, specifically, convinced you that your beliefs were true? Of course I realize this is not a thick reed; the most I want, personally, is to not get berated as mentally ill or fundamentally irrational and menacing to All Good Things of Western Civilization (which have happened, albeit nowhere near as badly as people subject to actual religious discrimination).
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Jan 15, 2015 01:40
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Nessus posted:I can answer this for myself, though I'm not a Catholic: Subjective personal experience. May I ask what it was that brought you to it, if you're comfortable sharing?
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Jan 15, 2015 01:52
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Nessus posted:Of course I realize this is not a thick reed; the most I want, personally, is to not get berated as mentally ill or fundamentally irrational and menacing to All Good Things of Western Civilization (which have happened, albeit nowhere near as badly as people subject to actual religious discrimination). I mean, that is A Thing That's Gonna Happen, and happens to Atheists all the time in the opposite direction, too. And, as you suggest, people die for it too. Of course some people who do have subjective religious experiences almost certainly are mentally ill and displaying a symptom, but subjective religious experience is a very wide spectrum. I think it is fair to ask you why you value your own subjective experience so highly, when subjective experience is so often wrong. If subjective experience is the only touchstone for religious belief it is certainly going to be impossible to make a strong argument as to the merits of one's particular belief, after all. I think people waiting to be shown evidence of a soul by empirical proof and inductive reasoning ITT are going to be waiting forever. It's not the foundational premise of religion, it's a belief that logically follows from other (in my view quite wrong) basic assumptions. Trying to [citation needed] it is total folly. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 01:52
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Nessus posted:I can answer this for myself, though I'm not a Catholic: Subjective personal experience. This a completely fair answer. Meridian posted:May I ask what it was that brought you to it, if you're comfortable sharing? And this would be my follow up question. Do you believe your experience could be replicated by others with similar results?
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Jan 15, 2015 02:12
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Who What Now posted:This a completely fair answer. What do you mean by this? You can reasonably expect that they're going to have a similar experience as other believers by virtue of believing in the first place. Edit: Not to be confrontational, I just don't understand the question. Do you mean could someone go through what they went through, or walk the steps a bit and end up in the same place? Theotus fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 02:33
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If I get my brain put inside a robot body does my soul come with it or is it still trapped in my old body?
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Jan 15, 2015 04:20
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Twelve by Pies posted:If I get my brain put inside a robot body does my soul come with it or is it still trapped in my old body? Yes, it moves with your brain, according to Martian law.
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Jan 15, 2015 04:23
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Meridian posted:What do you mean by this? You can reasonably expect that they're going to have a similar experience as other believers by virtue of believing in the first place. I mean what sort of specific experience he had that convinced him that was God was real and whether or not someone else could replicate that experience deliberately.
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Jan 15, 2015 04:35
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Who What Now posted:I mean what sort of specific experience he had that convinced him that was God was real and whether or not someone else could replicate that experience deliberately. I can't say that it would convince someone that there is a God, and I'm not sure if I'd say there is a "god" in the sense of the sky-father or the historical Jesus; the sense I had was more of a perception of vast purpose and (distant) benevolence. This could probably be interpreted in a lot of ways, and I would not claim that I necessarily 'saw the truth of God' in some objectively provable way. I actually wrestled with the matter and finally decided that it was more parsimonious to say 'I brushed against the presence of the divine or something that could be called that, in a very tiny and memorable way' rather than a bunch of lengthy back-twisting that amounts to 'that thing, but with a bunch of wretched amateur psychology and neurology behind every clause.'
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Jan 15, 2015 04:45
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Nessus posted:I think it would be possible to have a similar experience to what I had in terms of the cognitive states. (Indeed many of you probably have, though you've likely felt them in different ways. It involved a sort of mental exhaustion through repetition. There would be a lot of possible ways to accomplish this.) I really like that. My problem personally is that belief in that kind of thing would be a choice on my part, and I'd have to justify it to myself constantly. In the case of Christianity I'd also have to try to reconcile it with all the things I fundamentally disagree with, so at most I'd be looking at some sort of "personal relationship with God" type idea, but even then it'd be because I WANT to have that more than feel like I do by default. Do have some envy for that. One day maybe.
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Jan 15, 2015 05:06
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How should a person spend his life? When we are young, I think we just go where our passions take us... but when we stop and examine our purpose, and we see that time is fleeting, we reflect on the possible paths ahead. Should I be hateful? What is the case to be made that I should? If I am hateful, then I get to indulge in my passions... I get to feel pride, victory, and laughter at the expense of my enemies. But what is the cost of hate? I distance myself from other people... I split the unity of mankind. I fail to see myself in my brother or sister, and so I fail at my spiritual purpose, which is to love everyone and imagine myself as everyone. I isolate myself. What about lust? Should I indulge in private fantasy... or perhaps more expansive hedonism involving others? Or should I commit to a monogamous relationship, and if so, should I settle in my choice of partner? Time is of the essence, but is it really preferable to living alone? Or should I try harder to find that mythical person who fills my heart with joy? Or should I abstain completely, and focus on the spiritual, as Catholic teaching advises, as well as the Buddhist suppression of desires... Where should I live? What should I accomplish? How much money do I really want? Should I start a new career? What image should I make of myself? You can drive yourself mad piling up these questions. I think when they come, it's best to reflect on how good we've got it. Think about all of the just and decent and good-hearted people in history who have lived unfortunate lives. We should empathize with those who suffer, not envy those who live great, fulfilled lives. We should love them too, and pray for their satisfaction. The first shall be last and the last shall be first... let us be content with a simple life, let us not concern ourselves with loneliness or legacy or accomplishment... let us be grateful for what we have, that we have a warm bed and good food to eat, that we have family members and a handful of decent friends... that we have been granted so much wisdom and knowledge with which we can better interpret the world, and that we have a never-ending source of amusement in the Internet. Truly this is a blessed time to be alive and healthy and comfortable! So be grateful for that. If you don't know specifically what you want, it's just pride to dwell too much on your dissatisfaction. Be thankful and do not worry! You will grow old, and be dead soon enough, and forgotten, and the only thing that will matter is how God saw you. And God is sure to love you so long as your heart is good and kind and content. Everything else is ancillary.
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Jan 15, 2015 08:11
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Nessus posted:I can't say that it would convince someone that there is a God, and I'm not sure if I'd say there is a "god" in the sense of the sky-father or the historical Jesus; the sense I had was more of a perception of vast purpose and (distant) benevolence. This could probably be interpreted in a lot of ways, and I would not claim that I necessarily 'saw the truth of God' in some objectively provable way. I actually wrestled with the matter and finally decided that it was more parsimonious to say 'I brushed against the presence of the divine or something that could be called that, in a very tiny and memorable way' rather than a bunch of lengthy back-twisting that amounts to 'that thing, but with a bunch of wretched amateur psychology and neurology behind every clause.' Does this wishy washy vague feeling about vast purpose and benevolence include making, quite arbitrarily, complete medical abberations of human beings that die in suffering within a week of birth? I mean, what is God's purpose for it? Where is the benevolence? Here's a video from a prize winning journalist, be warned, it's NSFW. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXfIop5ZOsY o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 09:34
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Kyrie eleison posted:Be thankful and do not worry! You will grow old, and be dead soon enough, and forgotten, and the only thing that will matter is how God saw you. And God is sure to love you so long as your heart is good and kind and content. Everything else is ancillary. This kind of sounds like you believe that the dead sleep forever in their graves.
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Jan 15, 2015 09:52
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o.m. 94 posted:Does this wishy washy vague feeling about vast purpose and benevolence include making, quite arbitrarily, complete medical abberations of human beings that die in suffering within a week of birth? I mean, what is God's purpose for it? Where is the benevolence? It reminds me of the Thomistic poo poo I had to hear during a year in a Catholic college. "Isn't it marvelous that we exist?" (well, sure!) "and that we're in a universe that supports life, and that there are all these living things, and the world around us..." (That's a nice sentiment, really.) "It's as if a loving god created the world just so we could have moments like this warm spring day!" (Sure, why not.) "Therefore, Jesus." (hm)
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Jan 15, 2015 10:18
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So on what level, then, is God involved with the universe
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Jan 15, 2015 10:28
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o.m. 94 posted:So on what level, then, is God involved with the universe Since he said deistic, he pretty much means that God kicked the ball, triggered the big bang, created the universe as it was 6000 years ago, or whatever, and then hosed off. It somewhat diminishes the problem of evil, in that this God doesn't actively interfere, but it does kind of require questioning such a god's omniscience, since an omniscient, benevolent God would still be morally responsible for the suffering wrought by his actions, which is all suffering in the universe. Of course, we lack anything even close to the faculties to understand the attributes or context of a god with the power to create a universe before our universe existed, so this question is impossible to answer via anything but faith, which is awfully convenient for the faithful. bobtheconqueror fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 11:11
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Quite, it wouldn't necessary for God to be omni* to create the initial conditions that sparked the universe, if we consider him to be little more than an engineer running some kind of vast cosmic simulation, but it certainly throws purpose and/or benevolence out the window: If he could know all the possible outcomes of his creation (including unimaginable suffering), then he isn't benevolent. If he couldn't know all the possible outcomes of his creation, then a universe could develop that is not in-line with his "vast purpose", and he also isn't benevolent either, since he is allowing for the possibility of suffering. At this point we're really asking the question of what caused the universe, which is something nobody can currently answer with any authority. It seems even more ridiculous to just assume it was done in the spirit of purpose and benevolence when everything we observe around us contradicts this claim.
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Jan 15, 2015 12:06
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Kyrie eleison posted:I said that I was sorry, but I will not live my life in sorrow. If that is what you want, I cannot give you that. At the very least what we want is that you go forth and sin no more. And bringing matters back to Catholicism, if love is the important factor, just about the entirety of Roman Catholic teaching about sexuality from God making people who are "objectively disordered" and the denial of that form of love to the pride based document that is Humanae Vitae and its rejection of physical spontaneity in lovemaking when a child would be crippling (for whatever reason) to the fatuous causistry involved in the treatment of ectopic pregnancies are
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Jan 15, 2015 15:48
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It's been mentioned a lot in this thread, so I'm curious about those famed Victor threads. I actually saw one of them when they happened but I can't remember the title or when, so it'd be hard finding them in the archives.
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Jan 15, 2015 18:27
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