Like to add one of the best things I ever heard about this was that talking about consciousness without a brain is like talking about digestion without a stomach or intestines.

I think It's a misfiring of the instinctive fear of death everyone has. So even though it's absurd, when thought about logically, it's still understandable... sort of. There's probably more to it (the belief in souls) than that, but hey. Aaaand then again I might be wrong, it won't be the first/last time.

The soul is not such a dumb idea BUT ...

You have to read up on the original conception by the Greeks. They held there were four factors which made up a person, body, mind, soul and spirit.

OK, it was a dumb idea but a lot smarter than the gross simplification the Christians imposed on Greek thought. But it was simple enough for the Jews and the Muslims to adopt in toto. Hell it even gave Jews a life after death and a reward some place other than this earth for following their ritual/taboo, genital mutilating, primitive excuse for a religion. You would think they would show some appreciation.

Speaking of Greek ideas, because of Christianity we lost our spirits and are stuck with only body, mind and soul.

I am not for running down our ancestors who were trying to add something. It was only with high velocity small bullets and brain injuries that it was conclusive the brain is running the show. It was only then that people starting surviving in sufficient numbers that the damaged areas could be connected with specific disabilities. Before that a big lead ball mushed everything and a sword or ax did not have many survivors.

The classic christian teaching is that we will physically die and our soul will go to be with the lord. (But we will not be reunited with our new bodies until jesus comes again and there is the final judgment.) So we will have consciousness but no brain! So what good is the brain for anyway?!?!? (at least mine?)

It sounds crazy but I can picture us having conciousness but no storage or memories after death.  There was a story a while back of a guy who was born without a brain but got a phd in math from harvard. In reality, he just had a very small cerebellum by defect but compensated as the brain does. It was mostly fluid. But he did actually have a brain.

But apparently we will get new bodies eventually which must be necessary so that includes the brain too...

There are some "answers" and there are a lot of imponderables in christianity. Luckily the mind was designed to be able to function with compartmented contradictory beliefs (and I dont mean to start a design argument)

We all have them. We're all working through our irrational beliefs. There are many paradoxes in christianity. A paradox is true even though it "appears" contradictory and impossible. The goal is to better understand what is paradoxical and what is plain not true...or antinomy...its difficult to do

like a simple question that I should be able to answer....but it doesnt seem so simple...

well, its clear the brain evolved so that implies natural selection. In the other thread I was wondering if when hominids became human something "extra" was imparted to the mind...now I mean soul/spirit part of the mind....but I'm not sure I can even get a handle on when hominids became human technically...Maybe thats not a question that is answerable. So the brain was designed by natural forces...but if there is a soul/mind/spirit (somewhat overlapping definitions) or mind that it separate from the brain, then the "spirit" part would be a link to God.

There are 3 words for spirit in the old testament: nephesh (some animals have this type of soul -- they are soulish like cats and dogs), neshama (man has this type of soul too - a conscience ) and rouach (this may be the spirit imparted when born again possibly...)

So the mind (to me) is made up of the heart (desires), soul, spirit, and brain...and they overlap in ways that are hard to explain or understand.

It was in the 60's I think. I actually did see the paper once. My professor dug it out of his stack, and it was pretty yellow. It might have been in some journal like "brain topography". That was one he used to get. Its hard to find articles that old without subscribing to the journal itself, which I don't.

I have heard that one too always assumed it was an urban myth through, cant be arsed to google it at the moment

Umm... I have access to journals, and I looked.  Nothing in the 60s about a man with no brain and a PhD showed up.  I asked a friend of mine in the neurology department, and his reaction was, "Um... seriously?  You know that if that had happened, it wouldn't be one obscure case in the 60s.  That would have been front page news all over the world, and there would be entire branches of science devoted to figuring out how that could happen."

And for the record, if he did have a cerebellum, that would be what we call... a brain... right?  So that kind of puts a damper on your assertion that someone had consciousness without a brain.  So why are we talking about it?

Good catch, watcher.  Damn, I'm bad about looking at what forum things are posted in.

Yeah they robbed our Spirit but we can get it back if we repent and obey (i.e. the holy spirit)

I don't really feel like retyping old posts, so here you go... don't worry, it's a short thread: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/the_rational_response_squad_radio_show/freethinking_anonymous/10469

Interesting. Hadn't really thought of that. We know that in christianity the soul is the means by which we commune with god, and it lives on after our earthly bodies die. I suppose there could just be a world of souls and skip the mortal stage, but souls are eternal and out time on earth is basically to determine if our souls are going to heaven or hell right..

You might as well ask why god even bothered creating us.He knows who will be naughty or nice, might as well send us to heaven or hell before we're born. You won't get a straight answer from theists though.

QuasarX I understand what your saying. I suppose im saying whats the point of the mortal physical world if heaven and hell were to exist? Our souls would go and live in eternal bliss, but not our bodies if religion is to be believed, so why couldn't have God just created a world for souls to spend their lives without bodies before the so called judgement?

Actually magic is saying an invisible man who lives in the sky* Just created the entire universe out of thin air - but somehow needed dirt to create man (Did he run out of the original nothing he created the Universe from?) And he somehow took 6 days to do it and was so tired he had to rest a day afterward. Yet he's all powerful. That's not very logical.

* Thanks to the recently departed Goerge Carlin

Actually all the evidence says that the brain is responsible for all thought. By the way if you are not an atheist you aren't supposed to post in this section.

Let's face it...James Brown Had Soul

The brain is responsible for all thought.

Except of course in the case of those who think through their butt.

Without lending any credibility to IAMJACKSBROKENFAITH's line of reasoning or style of argumentation, I would like to interject that a serious consideration of the idea of a soul wouldn't suggest that it would consist of "nothing".  Anything that exists must consist of something; even energy and forces most consist of something in order to exert influence on matter or otherwise follow natural laws.  The term "immaterial" could sometimes be used to describe that which exists but is not matter, e.g. energy and forces, but "insubstantial" would refer to not consisting of anything at all, therefore by those definitions "immaterial substance" would not be an oxymoron but "insubstantial substance" would.  Also, anything that we have the potential to learn about would logically have to be able to be tested, analyzed, and studied, although we wouldn't necessarily have to have that ability at any given point in time.  For example, quantum mechanics can be studied, but would we have been in a position to do so 2000 years ago?

How did you determine that, exactly?

Even without the discoveries of neuroscience, I wouldn't consider believing in souls based on a "need" for them or a gap in understanding for which they would be used to explain, to be a valid reason.  Also, I consider believing just about anything with "absolute certainty" to be inadvisable.  That said, your point is well taken that there are a lot of people with unjustified belief in souls and other such hypothetical phenomena, and I certainly wouldn't recommend that anyone who hears such testimony should believe those kinds of claims without first finding some good evidence to support them, but just because people have bad reasons for believing something doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusion they arrive at is wrong... and to assume that it does would be an ad hominem fallacy.

Well, there are differences, certainly, but also similarities.  For the purposes of my example, I was only trying to illustrate that something could exist and be inherently studiable, but require more advanced technology or understanding than is available to us at a given point in history (or today) to be able to actually do such studying.

Also, the fact that we may not currently be in a position to study a given phenomena is no reason to justify a belief in such a phenomena... in fact, I would argue that it's actually a reason to justify not believing in a phenomena.  However, I also don't consider it to be justification to believe that a phenomena doesn't exist.  Going back to the quantum mechanics example, imagine that we're intellectuals living 2000 years ago... somehow one of us thinks of the idea that matter, energy, and gravity are all just variations on the same fundamental materials, but we have no idea how to go about investigating that idea.  Would we be justified in believing it was true?  No.  Would we be justified in believing it was false?  No.

Those were exactly the qualities I was looking for in an example, so it sounds like I chose well.

Well, I never advocate looking to religions for answers, and frankly I agree that a lot of what religions have to say about souls doesn't make any sense at all.  However, if we consider just the idea that a soul is a nonthinking entity which subtly influences biochemical bodies, but whose existence does not require biochemical bodies, as per classic reincarnation, it's not obviously implausible.

An idea is just an idea.  Surely you're not suggesting that the fact that an idea is old would be a factor in whether or not that idea is true?  In any case, a lot of people still take it seriously today.  Also, at least some of the classic presentations of reincarnation didn't limit souls to inhabiting human bodies exclusively, and some people (even today) make a point of not killing any insects for this reason.

Oh?  Why is that?  If you're suggesting that someone is not intelligent because they choose to discuss a topic which people commonly make poor arguments for, then your suggestion is fallacious both through ad hominem and through association (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy).

I accept that the brain is the only organ in which thought occurs.  I don't think there's any cause for disagreement about that issue.  (Well... someone might bring up hypothetical alien biologies, but let's not get sidetracked....)

Agreed, provisionally... this conclusions depends on the definition of "life form" meaning a physical body and specifically excluding a soul.

I wouldn't dream of trying to support a position using "crapology".  As for my usage of quantum mechanics, it was just an example to illustrate a point... I could just as well have used relativity or any other scientific discovery that could only have been made with the help of modern technology and scientific understanding.  If the "fact" you're referring to is that "crapology" is not valid justification for forming beliefs, then I can sleep well knowing that the delusionists have no power over me (unless of course your definition of "crapology" is logic and epistemology, in which case I'm screwed).  In any case, buying into dogma and creed would be fallacious, as would accepting claims solely on the basis of self-proclaimed authority.

Then again... it would be fallacious for me to assume that a similar idea would be false solely on the basis of their poorly justified claims, and I don't like believing things on faith, so until I find a solid reason to believe that souls do not exist in some form, intellectual integrity demands that I keep an open mind.

The soul, that part of the human being that presumably carries the personality, memories and identity of the person beyond physical death.

These three attributes of the human psyche can be altered, chemically (drugs, both prescribed and self medicated), electrically (shock and certain other neurological therapies), physically (due to surgery or trauma) and of course, by disease processes... 

Thus, the 'soul' presumably too would be altered. This would seem to negate the concept as a liklihood, at least in as much as it is generally thought of by the theistically inclined.

LC >;-}>

You're splitting hairs.

What you're saying is that anything is possible in the future. Just because we can't discern the truth in an assertion now with the knowledge and tools we have does not mean that someone in the future, better equipped, cannot do so. You're using the great unknown of the future as a convenient bolt-hole to flee to when faced with the demand to apply objective reason over subjective theory. Theists use a similar bolt-hole called "god".

What I'm saying is that, when it comes to "the soul", and given the time and effort already expended on the assertion of its existence, where do we stand now? Or more importantly, where do you stand? Is there a shred of evidence? If not, why not then work on the assumption that there's a good reason for that?

Let's face it - have you even seen a uniform definition of the bloody thing yet? The term is a relic from an unscientific and ignorant understanding of how our bodies function. It is not an "as yet unproven" but observable phenomenon. It is archaic terminology for something that we now understand and have better words to describe.

Get real.

I'm trying to be precise.  Carelessness leads to faulty reasoning.

I'm not saying that at all.  If a phenomenon doesn't exist, it can't be scientifically discovered.  Ideas which are logically inconsistent cannot accurately represent reality.  Therefore, it's not possible for angels and easter bunnies to be scientifically discovered in the future.

Precisely.

No, I'm trying to only use objective reason.  That precludes me from making subjective leaps in logic, for instance, "I'm not aware of any scientific evidence that supports phenomenon X, so phenomenon X doesn't exist," would be logically invalid.

Theists come in many shapes and sizes so to speak, but most theists I've met start with a logically invalid conclusion... that a god exists... and then use that conclusion to justify itself (circular logic) or use logically invalid arguments to try to justify the conclusion that a god exists.  I don't think I'm committing any such fallacy, but if I am, please point it out to me so I can correct it.

Where I stand on the issue is simple... if an idea is logically consistent and logically valid and has not been shown to be based on a false premise, then it's illogical to claim that the idea is false.  It is, however, justified to choose not to investigate such ideas as we have a limited amount of time to work with.  Specifically with regards to souls, I find that some ideas which are given that label are clearly logically inconsistent and therefore false, but that doesn't appear to be the case with all of them. With regards to those which are not logically invalid and haven't been epistemologically falsified, my position is not that they're true and not that they're false... it's that I don't know whether they're true or false and I would like to.

A quick look at wikipedia turned up this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Cases_Suggestive_of_Reincarnation.  Of course, wikipedia is hardly an infallible source, so I'll make a point of tracking down the book and the commentary and criticisms of the book.  It's worth noting that there's a major difference between whether or not a shred of evidence exists and whether or not any given person knows of a shred of evidence.

I used to work on those types of assumptions, but I found that some of my assumptions were incorrect, and that operating on those faulty assumptions had significant negative implications on my life.  Furthermore, it's curiosity about the unknown and a commitment to seeking objective verification or refutation of ideas that drives scientific inquiry, and the more we learn about the world we live in, the better equipped we are to decide how to live.

Are you claiming that if a word is used to mean more than one thing that none of the meanings are valid?  There are an abundance of counterexamples to that line of reasoning.

If you're using the term to mean an explanation for how we're able to think, then yes, I agree with you with respect to that meaning.  That's not how I generally use the term, however.

Is anyone even talking about the same thing?

What is "soul"?