|
U-Know! Forum » God V Science (again) |
Log In to post a reply
|
|
|
|
| Topic View: Flat | Threaded | |
handofdave 3515 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 13:11
|
||
|
Regarding compassion and emotion, these are not qualities that humans have an exclusive claim on. So within the framework of the argument for the soul, we'd have to include the animals there. I think social compassion is just an elaboration, or extension, of what we might call 'protective instinct' in animals... we've just enlarged our sphere of care to include individuals or groups outside of our immediate reproductive concern. I personally don't think our cultural behavior requires a 'soul' tho. I see human beings in the social context exhibiting the same group behavior seen in any animal society (beehives, birds, herds, packs, etc). Science has only very recently stopped seeing us as 'separate' from the 'beasts'. A lot of misconceptions were propagated because we viewed ourselves as being the only tool-using species (wrong!), the only species that killed it's own kind (wrong!), the only species that used intellect and problem-solving (wrong!), etc.
|
|||
Merrick 2148 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 13:23
|
||
|
stray wrote: Emotion = soul, to put it simply...Yes I'm joking, but just showing how not only it's philosophically possible to argue for the existence of the soul No it's not. It's redefining the word so that it fits something we can't deny. Of course there is emotion, so to say 'emotion=soul' means we all have to concede the existence of a soul. I could similarly say that respiration=soul and you'd all have to agree. However, what was being discussed was the soul as commonly described by many Christians. That part of you that survives physical death, the bit that sits before the Lord in the afterlife and receives judgement according to your performance in your worldly life. That definition (which billions of people subscribe to) is incompatible with evolution for the reasons previously given.
|
|||
stray 2057 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 13:24
|
||
|
Yep, yep, totally agree. What I was doing there was constructing an argument, flawed to fuck as you correctly describe, that was an attempt to show that compassion can fulfil an evolutionary goal (using cod evo. psych) and then just leaping to say that compassion is a product of the soul. Ergo, the soul is a product of evolution. Be it that the soul is maybe 12 grams of something inside our brain, a construct of our thoughts, whatever. A shorthand description for why our emotions can more than occasionally act as much against our survival as for them. What I'm saying is dodgy from beginning to end, but I'm just pointing out that you can crowbar the concept of life containg souls into science, albeit giggleworthy instinctively. Thing is, because of the planck limits etc, there are a lot of accepted scientific theories for which there can never be proofs. Whacking the idea of a soul into another one equally unproveable I reckon is just as valid. But then, I'm really, really uncomfortable doing it as evolutionary biology is most definitely not my field. I can only come at things from philosophy and mathematics (the same thing really), which is why I was trying to highlight in my earlier posts just how far away in terms of how these Christians are acting from their accepted text, and likewise how far these rabid anti-faith scientists are from theres also.
|
|||
|
stray 2057 posts |
Edited Sep 17, 2008, 13:29
Sep 17, 2008, 13:26
|
||
|
Merrick wrote: stray wrote: Emotion = soul, to put it simply...Yes I'm joking, but just showing how not only it's philosophically possible to argue for the existence of the soul No it's not. It's redefining the word so that it fits something we can't deny. :rollseyes: Yes, of course, please reread the first paragraph as to what a radical argument is. We do similar things in maths & physics all the time. The fact that we spend a lot more time arguing on a proof from a more mechanical basis doesn't make the conclusions anymore or less when based on subjective axioms. Edit : In short the argument , a soul, is unproveable from any angle, its just a concept. Edit2 : so your definition of the soul is ??
|
|||
|
handofdave 3515 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 13:43
|
||
|
Well, there is the reincarnation interpretation, which implies that souls are not born complete, but are 'seeds' that grow thru the incarnation in many, many cycles of existence as many life forms. It's still very anthrocentric in the way it assumes we humans are the last vessel a soul inhabits before it can free itself of corporeality. If 'souls' are the energy patterns created by our nervous system, and energy cannot be destroyed (as classical physics attests), then souls are eternal, but they do not remain in the same state as we think of them when we die, but become matter which is exploited by other life for the purpose of keeping it's energy pattern stable. Self-aware entities that can exist outside of the body? Perhaps... it's hard to just discard the experiences of people who've 'died'. If it was just 'the tunnel of light' they experienced, I'd chalk that up to a physiological phenomenon. But then you have people 'coming back' with accounts of conversations with dead relatives and such. Just a variation of the dream state? Time is not a fixed constant, so it's possible that 'eternal soul' is a metaphor for a sort of supercondensed point of subjective awareness at death that encompasses our entire lives. I really don't know. The world is full of things we cannot always explain with empirical science. I find using mythology as a substitute for real knowledge a lazy way of filling in the gaps, tho.
|
|||
|
stray 2057 posts |
Edited Sep 17, 2008, 13:49
Sep 17, 2008, 13:47
|
||
|
Yeah, I find it lazy too, but then I also find a lot of the physical sciences assumptions to be lazy. Probably because I'm an arse. Interestingly, I found once what seemed to be a reasonable scientific interpretation of the 'tunnel of light' visions, something to do with the brain short circuting against the retina or something. Sorry though, to Merrick too, with the emotion = soul thing. What I was trying to say is that emotion is produced by the soul, as well as therefore being the soul. My bad. but that mathematical symbol isn't available to me here.
|
|||
|
nigelswift 8112 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 14:04
|
||
|
I regret (sincerely) that I see evolution as 100% cold, nasty and ruthless and compassion as merely one of it's tactics. We survivors are imbued with a capacity for it because social tit-for-tat had a strong survival advantage for our ancestors. I see that as a logical, if unpleasant explanation for our occasional niceness (and for the fact our niceness tends to reduce in extremis! Why else would it?!) and a reason to think that the much more pleasant idea of a God-given kindness lodged in everyone's soul - is an unnecessary speculation.
|
|||
|
handofdave 3515 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 14:04
|
||
|
There are some religions, or people within religions, that don't bother with trying to extrapolate where we came from (genesis, evolution) or where we're 'going', they just concentrate on putting a philosophy into practice here and now. I get so weary of hearing the Xtian right blather on with their insipid constructs. There are some who've even gone so far as to create street maps of the 'heavenly city'. And plenty others who swallow these literalist, wildly speculative inventions as fact. The 'Book' has, for many reasons, outlived it's usefulness. Certainly, the only really important thing faith has to offer anymore is a framework for community. Religion really should quit mucking about with the how's and when's. If it wants to deal with 'why's' that's an intangible that doesn't infringe on science- they're welcome to play in that 'lab' all they like, as long as it's understood that prehistoric metaphors don't have any place in the science classroom or in secular government.
|
|||
|
shanshee_allures 2563 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 14:09
|
||
|
Enter Quantum Physics? From the documentary I saw on the 'Parallel Universe' (and that's as far as my knowledge goes tbh) the theory was mathematically perfect, unless maths needs revising now, or maybe I got the wrong end of it all. x
|
|||
|
handofdave 3515 posts |
Sep 17, 2008, 14:11
|
||
|
Heh heh... it's ironic that many Xtians who don't believe in that cold, ruthless evolutionary model DO believe in Social Darwinism. But so many of them are incapable of discerning their own contradictory beliefs. The only thing that the fundy maniacs REALLY believe is that they are 'tight with the lord', and the rest of us are not. And like with the extremist interpretations of the Koran (it's OK to sin as long as it's against an unbeliever), incredibly self-serving and indefensible from an objective point of view.
|
| Pages: 7 – [ Previous | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | Next ] | Add a reply to this topic |
|
|
|
| U-Know! Forum Index | |
