Isn't soul just and old fashioned way of saying identity or self perception?

Don't you have to know who you are before you know where you are going and don't we have any say in who we are?

Of course, some people have gifts but they still have to choose to use them.

I do not perceive a self, no. There is a body and brain, but that is not a self.

I challenge you to actually look for this "self" you say you perceive. How do you perceive it? What is it? Where is it?

I challenge you to examine yourself and explain why when someone steals your cookie you get upset about it.

Why the emotion if there's nobody in there?

Not really. I think you're thinking about "explanation" far too mechanistically. In a certain sense, it feels like you're asking me to argue against an axiom, and I will never succeed against that. I've noted in other threads that atheists who require the theist to use naturalistic terms to explain a supernatural event have created an impossible burden of proof, and it seems like you're going down a similar line here. If seems that you are the one who becomes incredulous: "I don't know what it is, but whatever it is it can't be immaterial."

Getting to the immaterial is as easy as recognizing that thoughts are immaterial. The thought that "I exist" or "1+1=2" appears to be immaterial. We have no material accounting for the existence of abstract ideas that appear to be universally true (such as with math -- we have seen that 1+1=2 across cultures and for all times), and there is a very real sense in which the simplest explanations for thoughts are that they have some immaterial quality to them. Math and logic hold this eternal character that seems to stand independent of physical phenomena. It is its own world, and there appears to be nothing physical about it at all.

This quickly gets us to a point where the immaterial seems to exist. The immaterial self ("soul") is whatever it is that has access to these immaterial things. From here, it just kind of cascades across a wide range of things.

How is soul=self perception? Somehow consciousness is now proof of a soul? So because I am self aware that equates to me having a soul that will carry on in to an afterlife? Seems to me there's just a tad bit of a gap in logic there.

Getting mad when my cookie was stolen=emotion=self perception=soul=afterlife=eternal happiness!!!
Sweeeeet! Why didn't someone break it down like that for me before? It's all such a seamless logical explanation.

If they are truly 2 different worlds, without the need for one to be proven by the other or exist without the other. Then why should my soul be accountable for what it did in the other world? Does every living creature have a soul? What about plants and other living organisms? If its dependent on consciousness, how do you define that? Experiencing emotion? Does my doggy's soul then go to the same place as my human soul? What about other living organisms in the infinite universe? Do all souls converge in one big EDC afterlife party? Would probably be a pretty sick time.

OK, fine. I will take that at face value. I do experience a self but I fully understand that if you do not, then I cannot explain it to you. It is just like red. If you were completely color blind and only perceived shades of grey, there would be no mechanism for me to explain red to you.

There is nothing for us to discuss.

Splendour, this is actually pointless. The simple fact is that if Neeeel is committed to denying his self-awareness there is no way to force him into an inconsistency.

The old saying is that this would be like wrestling with a pig. You are both going to get covered in mud and sh*t. The problem is: The pig likes it.

There is no inconsistency. There can be emotions, without anyone doing them. You can see this for yourself, if you actually looked.

All I can say to you is, you are accepting as true, a belief that you havent challenged. The belief that there is a separate self, a you. It only takes a moment of honest looking to see that theres no one here doing anything.

I note that you havent been able to point out how you perceive the self, what it is, or where it is.

If it helps at all, Jesus was talking about exactly the same thing. And Mohammed, And Buddha, and probably every other religious figure.

In what way do you experience a self?

Neeeel has made the claim that he does not perceive or experience a "self". Rather than explain it to him, I am curious how pervasive this situation is.

This question is not related to theism or spiritualism per se. I fully acknowledge that the phenomenon of "self" is at best of arguable origin.

But who will join Neeeel. How many others here honestly maintain that they do not perceive a "self-awareness" and have no idea what I am talking about?

Yeah, a lot of them do roll around in some stupid ideas on here.

Look at that troll kurto challenging me in another thread about grandparents helping parents raise their kids.

Parents always raise children and grandparents have always helped them. It's the only practical idea that works. The alternative is the state raising your kids and we've already seen how that turns out with the Hitler Youth. In the Hitler Youth the kids would throw their own parents under the bus if they disagreed on any point with Hitler. Hitler didn't step into to those kids lives to raise them as Christians. He was raising pagans who'd narc on their own parents.

We are the joyous Hitler youth,
We do not need any Christian virtue
Our leader is our savior
The Pope and Rabbi shall be gone
We want to be pagans once again.”

- Song sung by Hitler youth

http://www.simpletoremember.com/arti...hitler-quotes/

And we're suppose to surrender our kids to the great Atheist Manifesto?

Puhleaze....you'll wake up with your head being axed from your body...

I think this is a point of emphasis, and am curious, how do you think we go about reconciling this issue?

It is certainly valid to say that conceptual statements that 'I exist" or '1+1=2' or 'A=A' are abstracts, and therefore immaterial. However, these semantic statements refer to the physical nature of things that do exist and are material and are absolutely contingent on physical existence.

As humans, we require linguistic signifiers in order to discuss the things and patterns we observe (i.e. the things and patterns signified), therefore the logical absolutes ('A='A) have a conceptual existence insofar as we need words to signify them. This approach entails that logical absolutes are discovered through a process of the mind, rather than constructed. Therefore logical absolutes are not conceptual by nature. Instead, they are a physical property of reality—observed by humans and pointed to with language.

I would really like to see how you reason this cascading process, if possible. Even if we agree that there is a soul, and it is immaterial, how do we get from that to the other qualities attributed to it in the Christian faith? It would seem to me that since a soul is immaterial it would be impossible to justify additional characteristics. Is this incorrect reasoning?

I get the feeling that you have the idea that I am not being honest.

To be clear, there is awareness of sights, sounds, touch etc ( although awareness is maybe the wrong word , as it implies a thing, a space, that is aware, or that sights and sounds arise in).

So, yes, there are sights, sounds and other energies that can be detected by this organism. But there is no self, no you, no separate entity sitting at the end of the causal chain that is experiencing these sights and sounds. The sights and sounds are the experience. I would suggest that this is the case for you too, except that you assume that there is a you , a self, at the end of the chain.

Then why do families exist?

I'm curious RLK, how would you go about reasoning split brain patients that experience two distinct 'selfs'.

Does anyone else not get what this has to do with anything?

My experience indicates that atheists have no response. Since you don't believe it exists in the first place, there's nothing to reconcile.

This is another assumption that you're putting on the system. In particular, as it applies to mathematics and logic, it's a HUGE assumption. As it applies to "me" it's also less clear. If you claim that "I" am my physical body, you would be right. But that simply begs the question.

This is a different topic. As noted above, the claims that I'm making here are merely upon the existence of the soul. I don't claim that Christian theology cascades out from the existence of a soul.

It depends on how you expect one to justify characteristics of an immaterial object. You can certainly choose criteria which make it impossible.

Aren't families causal chains?

neeel said: So, yes, there are sights, sounds and other energies that can be detected by this organism. But there is no self, no you, no separate entity sitting at the end of the causal chain that is experiencing these sights and sounds. The sights and sounds are the experience. I would suggest that this is the case for you too, except that you assume that there is a you , a self, at the end of the chain.

And I challenge you to do the same. Examine and observe what is happening with you.

If the e(nergy in)motion called "upset" arises, what is happening?
When one attaches to it and identifies with it; there is a "self", there is a story.
Yet, note, that you can observe all of this happening.
You, the real you, are observing from your place of being.
And you can control whether or not you attach to it or take identity from it.

In the middle of an arising emotion or thought or judgment, what happens when you focus your attention on your breath? Well, all that arising floats away, it dissipates. You don't have to attach to it or take identity from it. In the Christian language, that simple shift in focus is called being "in the spirit"

Jesus: I can of mine own self do nothing.

This is where I wish I were a better student of the OT because curses had causal effects on family chains.

Humans are still under the causal chain (curse) of death.

Not in any real sense, no.

Would you quit with the emphasis on the end result.

Scripture outlines the gnosis process.

There are beginning and end points to it. Just nobody bothers to know them any more. They're too busy with science and earning a buck and other things...

Dwarf mom and dwarf dad can 'cause' dwarf child.
White mom and white dad can 'cause' white child.

Basically, it's not this:



Neeel is saying that the experience of seeing the car does not involve a second.. er.. experiencer within the mind. Obviously you guys don't literally imagine a little homunculus you call "Self", but hopefully the image demonstrates the concept.