Just a small bit of advise for you:

Dont beleive everything 'Billy Graham' says.

Spiritual maturity is not bound to any particualr religion (and even less to 'organized religion').

Good luck.

Our consciousness comes through our brain. For example those who have mental problems have an actual problem with their brain not their soul.

Very true. Makes me wonder when some people who have 'spiritual experiences' suddenly turn to a particular dogma, religion, or a belief system. Look at someone who is born in, say, Tennessee, they might not be particularly religious, their environment is predominately Christian based, and then one day they have an experience. More times than not, they will then use that experience and attach it to a set of Christian beliefs, not Judaic, Islamic, Ahmadiya, or even some far flung obscure religion in a remote part of the world. Then we contrast that with someone living in an Islamic place, or Hindu, or even Pagan, and they would probably turn to those religions if they had some divine kind of experience.

there are those that do have such experiences, but don't then base it on what their environment, or culture dictates, but that isn't really the norm. Makes you wonder how genuine those moments of so-called enlightenment really are, and if so, then we have one almighty, all-embracing deity working above us, which is cool, and kicks the teeth out of the notion that God wants us to follow a certain code, or religion.

Oh, and Billy Graham is a twisted person, and his entourage. He wanted to set up something in my country by using the Bank of Scotland as a means to it. Most of us here protested, and made the bank to cut off ties with him, or at least his venture. His intentions, background, and actions were wholly unwelcome to us in Scotland. Even while he was wanting to expand his nonsense to here, he was calling most of us Pagans, and other kind words to that effect. Good riddance.

The supposition that something like a "spirit" actually exists seems very ignorant and arrogant to me.

I do not doubt it at all, insofar as I do not understand it, but right now, all that I am is the result of electrochemical reactions and whatnot, and is a direct result of the mechanics of my brain.

Until proven otherwise.

1. why does it seem "very ignorant"?
2. why does it seem arrogant?

-r.

"and whatnot" ? you call that an explanation of intelligence, memory, conscience and emotions ?

electrochemical reactions and 'mechanics' of the brain can explain memory. But how does 'electrochemical reactos' explain a conscience(decision making), emotions(such as happiness, joy, sadness, etc) they cant just be chemical reactions.

And last but not least. if what you claim is just electochemical reactions and mechanics, how on earth do u explain creativity ? those would perhaps be "new combinations of electrochemical reaction", right ? so where do those 'ides' for new combinations come from ?

I am skeptical of a supernatural being, and a bit skeptical about spirits but i cant overlook em completely. after all .... if i was just a heap of matter, how on earth do i know im here ?

(i like this discussion... i encourage ppl to make contributions to it)

1. Because we know nothing that would suggest any such thing as a "spirit" or "soul" exists. There is no evidence for any such thing. Nothing we know, or have ever known, gives us any reason to believe in such a thing. Nothing alludes to its existence at all.

2. Because people have the gall to refer to it as if it's most definately real, despite the aforementioned weaknesses in such a belief. That is arrogant.

1. what kind of knowledge are you referring to when you say "nothing we know, or have ever known, gives us any reason to believe in such a thing"? knowledge is not rationalism.

2. this point is predicated on your first point.

-r.

1. Now I think you're just trying to cause trouble with silly semantic arguments. You know very well what kind of knowledge - any kind. Don't try and mutate my statement into something it was never intended to be.

2. You asked two questions. I gave two answers. Do not blame me for the redundancy.

1. you seem to accept rational knowledge as being the only kind of knowledge. when you used the first-person plural (which is arrogant) to say that we only know this and that you are discarding huge chunks of human experience (all religion, for example) by pretending that rationalism is some kind of litmus test for all knowledge. unsurprisingly, you're left with rationalism. brilliant.

2. here you are basically saying that it's arrogant to be ignorant since this is a judgment of people believing in your first point. this is stupid.

-r.

I'm pretty sure American Pie movies send you to hell.

Memory is not equal to consciousness, so from there the question in invalid. Memory has nothing to do with being a Christian. As, I think it out... If a person got into an accident and lost their memory, they would still be a Christian, just have to go through the maturity process again.

Cipher: Don't forget that physicists discovered that we really only know about 4% of our universe. We are only now starting to discover, let alone understand, dark matter and dark energy.

Be careful to discard something just because we haven't been able to study it yet. That doesn't mean scepticism is stupid, but out-right rejection is not scepticism.

Reductionism has been shown to be dangerous before. The old standby example is what people did with Newtonian physics. Determinism was later debunked when a new understanding came along. Just think what we'll know when we finally harness enough energy to test String Theory....

1. Rational knowledge, as opposed to...? I don't see you coming up with anything. I'd love to discard all that is religion. Religion is, indeed, the scourge of our species, in many respects. But that's not the point. Rational knowledge, as opposed to...?

I'm a rational person. So sue me if I don't believe in a big old man in the sky and call that "knowledge", for some perverted reason. Is that what you're getting at? I doubt it, and I hope not, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

2. Yes. It is indeed arrogant to be ignorant, in its own way. How is it stupid?

As I said before:

"I do not doubt it at all, insofar as I do not understand it".

rjenkinson can be thanked for sidetracking the topic beyond that.

1. look up epistemology, if you're interested.

2. explain to me how someone could exaggerate the importance of something which has no importance and i won't think it's stupid. they can be arrogant with respect to their belief or ignorant or the truth, but not both towards one.

3. you made an epistemological argument about the spirit/soul, i disagreed with you about it, and you now think i'm "sidetracking" the issue? if you don't want to argue about epistemology, don't make epistemological arguments.

-r.

Since when was I setting out to "explain intelligence, memory, conscience and emotions"?

Either way, don't give me that argument, when I can throw back to you: "explain how the soul works". Come on.



If it can explain memory, why can't it explain decision making and emotions? Of course they can be electrical impulses and chemical reactions.

You're willing to accept that those factors can explain memory - so go and apply the science behind that to emotion, and you just gave yourself your answer.

...unless, of course, you don't at all know how they could explain memory, as opposed to consciousness...



You're not serious, are you? Really?



****, as I said, I did not overlook it completely at all!

Read my first post.

Your first post was reductionist, and rjenkins is right, at least in the approach.

1. I know what epistemology is.

2. You lost me with the first part of that statement. Clarify? It's 4am, and I've been drinking, so perhaps I should rest.

Regarding the second part, however, in my opinion (and only my opinion), ignorance is arrogance in this case; ignorance of a topic, and discussion thereof (for example, belief in a soul, and passing on said beliefs), suggests that the discusser is quite confident of the accuracy of their own beliefs - whether with reason or not. This is arrogant. Yes, I know, now you respond with "so that means you're arrogant with respect to your own beliefs" - yes, I am.

3. You did sidetrack the issue beyond the topic of the original post. I never said I didn't want to argue about epistemology. I was responding to boots, who missed my first statement, and (I'm guessing) assumed other than the point it made due to my later posts, which were the result of the aforementioned tangenital discussion.

It was reductionist to a point where I gladly admitted ignorance of the topic. There is no point in my discussion of something of which I know nothing, hence my conclusion.

I'm working with what I have, without disregarding completely what I do not.

The approach is irrelevant. Go ahead and discuss the merits of a "spirit" or "soul" beyond the understanding of anybody on this earth - I guarantee you'll get nowhere.

I am not on Cipher's side of this debate, but please explain how scientists can understand 4% of an infinite object?

To quantify how much is known about anything infinite is ridiculous.

One could argue that the universe is not infinite, for one thing.

Either way, you're right. Giving the level of our knowledge of something uknown a solid figure is very silly. It makes one wonder what figure they'd have given before the topic of dark matter and company came along... if you get my point.

Just stating the obvious, I know.

I guess you've never read about out of body experiences. Or people on the OR table seeing themselves being operated on? Can you explain that with facts?

And yes Cipher there have been such studies. No one can explain what exactly happens here. We have some secular ideas, but we are still perplexed.

So no, it's not odd or irrational to think we have a "spirit"

And yes, there are many things that allude to it being so.

Which gives reason to believe in the idea, but it doesn't really make the idea of a "soul energy" true.

And you do not think our own mind is capable of producing such scenes?

We dream, do we not? In our dreams, we venture where we never have before... do we not? We see things we've never seen... correct?

But as soon as injury comes into it... you call it divine? Or, at least, beyond the realm of our brain?

It's all in the mind. Every little bit of it. You can thank our brain for all of it.

Of course not. Cipher made a statement as to there was no reason to believe this. I never posted it was true because of this, but to rule out us having spirits because there is no reason to believe it, is 100% false.

I knew you weren't implying anything, just reiterating.

Er scenes that actually are happening? Things that actually took place while the patient was under?

That would mean our conscience would have hidden eyes we don't know about.


Again, you don't know what I am referring to then Ciph. And you haven't did any studies about it obviously.

These aren't dreams. These are people actually seeing what went on in the OR room. They repeated back to the surgeon. They saw nurses walk in and out that DID walk in and out. They saw things the doctor did that indeed, the doctor did do.

That isn't our mind making up things in a dream. Sorry.

My mother was run over by a car when she was much younger, she said she could see her body down on the pavement and a crowd developing around her.

It's a strange phenomenon; I haven't read much into it recently, though. Zimph: are you sure there haven't been studies conducted that better explain what's going on? Hooking up anyone that can induce the experiences and monitoring them?