Arguements to use against atheist

[RomanCrusader]

I was debating an atheist online and I was crushing him in matters of history. I pretty much proved Jesus wasn’t a “remake” of old pagan gods. He knew he was being beaten in the historical department so he jumped over to matters of science.

He started talking about the brain and said that everything we are, feel, think, believe, ect. is the result of genes and brain structure. He said that scientists have found genes that determine spirituality and that there are sections of the brain that determine our morality, personality, ect.

He then went on to talk about people with brain damage. He says that often when someone has brain damage their personality completely changes. He cited all kinds of stories where people would become entirely different due to brain alterations or damage.

He claimed that since our personality, beliefs, ect. can be changed with a bit of brain chemistry than that means there is no soul. He said if we had a soul our personality wouldn’t become completely altered and changed due to brain damage.

I really didn’t know what to say. Back in my Junior year we covered neurology in AP Psych and a bit in Bio but I was pretty much defeated in this matter.

How do you explain/defend the soul when situations like this come up?

 

[Loginus]

I was debating an atheist online and I was crushing him in matters of history. I pretty much proved Jesus wasn’t a “remake” of old pagan gods. He knew he was being beaten in the historical department so he jumped over to matters of science.

He started talking about the brain and said that everything we are, feel, think, believe, ect. is the result of genes and brain structure. He said that scientists have found genes that determine spirituality and that there are sections of the brain that determine our morality, personality, ect.

He then went on to talk about people with brain damage. He says that often when someone has brain damage their personality completely changes. He cited all kinds of stories where people would become entirely different due to brain alterations or damage.

He claimed that since our personality, beliefs, ect. can be changed with a bit of brain chemistry than that means there is no soul. He said if we had a soul our personality wouldn’t become completely altered and changed due to brain damage.

I really didn’t know what to say. Back in my Junior year we covered neurology in AP Psych and a bit in Bio but I was pretty much defeated in this matter.

How do you explain/defend the soul when situations like this come up?

Ive heard of that gene as well but I’ve yet to see any data for it. Could you link it plz?

As for the no soul…yaa thats a tough one. It really depends on your interpretation of what a soul is. If you say something simple like memories, personality, emotions, accomplishments…well you’re out of luck, those things are easy to alter.
So yaa…you are on your own

 

[JimG]

He started talking about the brain and said that everything we are, feel, think, believe, ect. is the result of genes and brain structure. He said that scientists have found genes that determine spirituality and that there are sections of the brain that determine our morality, personality, ect.

An atheist is most likely a materialist. I don’t see how he can overcome the problem of determinism if we accept the idea that every thing we think, feel, and do, is determined by brain structure and genetics. (And brain structure and genes are determined by is morphology, neuro-connections, and the materials and laws of physics and biochemistry.)

If that is really the case, then there is not much point in the argument, since both your theism and his atheism are a result of particular brain structure. Even the arguments that you use to try to refute each other are determined by brain structure. So the argument is already pre-determined.

Since a human soul is not material, yet is intimately united with the body, there is no way to scientifically observe its presence.

The only mind which he is capable of observing the workings of is his own. If the workings of his own mind, his own self-reflection, convince him that his thoughts and his choices are pre-determined by physical factors, then I see no way of talking him out of it.

 

[rtconstant]

That may have just been his way of forcing a draw. If you were winning in the historical area (which I believe for some reason athiests seem to be weak in history, of course most people are so there you go) then maybe he figured he could mire you in this subject and nullify the entire argument while still appearing to be in control and intelligent.

Remember the real key to winning an argument, debate or even a fight is to beat your opponent. Being right or better really has nothing to do with it. You started beating him so now he needs to go for the win. I would either try to force him back on target or beat him too the the finish line by noting the nullifying nature of his current argument.

It may not be the victory you want but you will have taken his thunder and made yourself to appear to be the master of his chosen battle.

 

[RomanCrusader]

I guess its just that his statements have been haunting me lately. I really do have no answer whatsoever on how a soul would account for personality changes with brain damage. I fear this may hurt my own level of faith if I don’t clear it up.

(Edited for charity)

 

[JimG]

I guess its just that his statements have been haunting me lately. I really do have no answer whatsoever on how a soul would account for personality changes with brain damage. I fear this may hurt my own level of faith if I don’t clear it up.
(Edited for charity)

Well, this is not a great analogy but it’s all I can think of at the moment:

If your computer’s executable program code is corrupted, it will affect how your computer operates, for the worse. But underlying even the program code is a power source. If it’s not plugged in, nothing happens!

 

[nucatholic]

Um, I don’t think this atheist is “lying” to you per se, but rather just presenting an argument. I am a materialist myself. I don’t know much about the specific areas of the brain, but I do believe that humans have psuedo-spiritual experiences that are directly connected to the functioning of the brain. Psuedo because they aren’t spiritual at all, but rather so much unlike our day-to-day experiences that we label them spiritual. When certain areas of the brain are stimulated, people experience different things. Its obvious to me that what has traditionally been called a soul, is just the functioning of the brain. Many Catholics are still Cartesian dualists meaning they believe in two different substances; the material and the spiritual. I’ve never heard a good argument for dualism and apparently there aren’t any because no modern philosopher (except Catholics) accepts dualism as a plausible theory.

 

[quasimodo]

He claimed that since our personality, beliefs, ect. can be changed with a bit of brain chemistry than that means there is no soul. He said if we had a soul our personality wouldn’t become completely altered and changed due to brain damage.

The soul is not the seat of personality. What’s the problem? A brain damaged person does not become another person. They become a brain damaged person in which the damage is manifested in behavioral changes. Does he think that if you hit someone just right that they might turn into you, for example?

 

[quasimodo]

If everything is genes and brain chemicals then it is all chemistry. We are all just ugly bags of mostly water (to quote Star Trek, as I recall) . His arguments are something over which he has no control because chemical reactions proceed along deterministic paths.

It is like two beakers with very similar reactions occurring in them. There is no difference of opinion in the beakers, neither is more true than the other. Their differences make no difference. It is all predetermined by the laws of chemistry.

Why should this slightly less ugly bag of mostly water (with an interesting chemical reaction occurring in it) be influenced in any way by that other slightly uglier bag of mostly water (with a slightly different and less interesting chemical reaction occurring in it)?

 

[mich2]

I was debating an atheist online and I was crushing him in matters of history. I pretty much proved Jesus wasn’t a “remake” of old pagan gods. He knew he was being beaten in the historical department so he jumped over to matters of science.

He started talking about the brain and said that everything we are, feel, think, believe, ect. is the result of genes and brain structure. He said that scientists have found genes that determine spirituality and that there are sections of the brain that determine our morality, personality, ect.

So far, this gene is speculative at best.However, I, as a christian, would personally find it a potential support for the existance of God. If,as the atheist person mentioned, “everything we are, feel and think, is the result of genes…” well, isn’t this what makes us observers of the universe? Now, is this Universe we observe a lie, or does it exist? Since the genetic materials within the DNA allowed for the development of the eyes, was this not possible “only because light first needed to exist”? If there is indeed a “God gene”, this would mean that humans did not simply invent the notion of God for the use of story telling, but, the need for God is being imbeded deep within our human nature, giving us no choice “but” to ponder on the notion of God. In other words the God gene would “prove” that “natural atheism” is impossible.

He then went on to talk about people with brain damage. He says that often when someone has brain damage their personality completely changes. He cited all kinds of stories where people would become entirely different due to brain alterations or damage.

A person with brain damage experiences a different form of reality than someone with a healthy, normal brain…but so does a 2 month old baby. I agree that some people do have limited access to a full human experience.However, the soul of a 2 year old infant is the same as when he/she become a fully matured person.We do not say that an infant “becomes another person” after he/she has fully matured, do we? So, even if, through life’s experiences, perspectives change, the soul does not, and, so, neither does the person change.

He claimed that since our personality, beliefs, ect. can be changed with a bit of brain chemistry than that means there is no soul. He said if we had a soul our personality wouldn’t become completely altered and changed due to brain damage.

The personality is not the soul itself but it’s expression through the senses. If the motor neurons in my brain are responsible for making me a paranoid schizophrenic, it simply means that my soul will be reacting to a reality different from the reality experienced by normal people. For example, we all have the potential to kill someone at one point or another if a cherished life is being threatened.Within the reality of a paranoid schizophrenic,
such a threat may be continuous, and therefore, such a person becomes a danger to himself and others.This does not mean to say that the person, the soul has become evil or bad, but is reacting to a false reality…in other words if the reality such a person exerienced was indeed real, his/her reactions would be considered normal, and possibly justifiable.

Andre

 

[ChristIsTheWay]

He started talking about the brain and said that everything we are, feel, think, believe, ect. is the result of genes and brain structure. He said that scientists have found genes that determine spirituality and that there are sections of the brain that determine our morality, personality, ect.

He then went on to talk about people with brain damage. He says that often when someone has brain damage their personality completely changes. He cited all kinds of stories where people would become entirely different due to brain alterations or damage.

He claimed that since our personality, beliefs, ect. can be changed with a bit of brain chemistry than that means there is no soul. He said if we had a soul our personality wouldn’t become completely altered and changed due to brain damage.

This is a common atheistic rant. It is also easily explained away. The brain is merely the organ that the soul uses to control the body. They interact together but are not the same. The brain is a lever, in other words. When scientists map the brain and observe that when we are, say angry, a certain area of the brain is activated, what that means is that is the part of the brain that the soul uses to control that emotion. If that lever is damaged, it can alter the function of the brain in a way that might alter the personality. The personality is not the soul nor is the personality the person. It is our experiences in the world and how they shape our view of it. Since your atheist friend lacks a good understanding of history, refer him to the father of modern neurosurgery, Dr. Wilder Penfield. Dr. Penfield started out with your friend’s conclusions, that the brain controls the mind and therefore there is no soul. After operating on more than a thousand epileptic patients, he came to believe that the mind (soul) is seperate from the brain. One thing he observed was when he would stimulate a part of the brain that caused, say, a patient to move their arm, that the patient claimed not to be the one doing this. He concluded that the mind, then, uses the brain to control the body but the mind (soul) is clearly not created by it. Another interesting piece of evidence comes in the form of near death experiences. No, not the light and meeting with dead relatives. But thousands of people have had such experiences when the brain has ceased functioning and they are clinically dead. Now, if the brain were the cause of the mind, then a dying brain with very little activity going on in the neurons would not produce a consciousness capable of supporting such vivid and realisitc experiences, be they actually part of the afterlife or part of the mind’s making. There is plenty of other evidence, of course. I refer you to Lee Strobel’s book, the Case for a Creator, Chapter 10: The Evidence of Consciousness. As for the claims that spirituality is caused by the brain, studies have shown that when praying or meditating certain areas of the brain are stimulated to a very high degree. That does not mean these are the cause of spirituality, the activity does not occur until you choose to pray or meditate. That implies that the brain is a lever being used by the soul when it decides to pray or meditate because the activity is dependent on your choice to engage it, the brain does not tell you to or start doing it by itself. That the brain is “hardwired” for spirituality is strongly indictative of a seperate mind, that is, a soul. Try not to let these atheists bother you. They distort facts and outright lie. For example, he mentions people with brain damage who end up with a different personality. He failed to inform you of the thousands of people with brain damage who have their personality completely unaffected. An example was mentioned in my psych class last spring. One man received damage to a certain area of his brain. Before the damage, he was very honest. After the damage, he became a compulsive liar who simply couldn’t be trusted. Another fellow had a similar accident and received damage in the same area of the brain as our previous fellow. He did not become a compulsive liar.

 

[Maranatha]

First, In our legal system a person who does not understand right from wrong is considered sic - legally insane. These people are not held responsible for their actions. There is an understanding by default that there is something not working properly with the person.

Second, from The Case for Life After Death

A traditional Scholastic argument for an immortal soul is taken from the presence of two operations which are not operations of the body (1) abstract thinking, as distinct from external sensing and internal imagining; and (2) deliberate, rational willing, as distinct from instinctive desiring. My thought is not limited to sense images like pyramids; it can understand abstract universal principles like triangles. And my choices are not limited to my body’s desires and instincts. I fast, therefore I am.
peterkreeft.com/topics-more/case-for-life-after-death.htm

 

[JimG]

It’s quite true that the primary operations of the (human) soul have traditionally considered to be abstract thinking, and the ability to freely choose. These, as traditionally conceived, are non-determinate functions.

Animals, which have been considered to not have immaterial souls, do not engage in such actions as discussing string theory, engaging in internet discussion forums, reflecting on the nature of freedom, or agonizing over decisions.

 

[RyanL]

I posted the following on another thread…I think you could apply it as well…

It might help simply to walk them through the implications of their argument.

First, you might point out that materialism is a self-defeating argument. Let’s be logical about it:

1. Materialism sole claim is that the only things which can be believed are things which can be empirically verified.
2. This statement cannot be empirically verified.
3. Therefore, this statement cannot be believed.

There you go. Simply put, materialism is illogical.

But let’s say that this doesn’t dissuade them. What are the implications of materialist reductionism?

Well…if matter is all there is, we (as living beings) are nothing more than a complex biochemical process. Free will is non-existent. After all, can you choose not to chemically react? Of course not. The brain is the locus of our thought (or rather, what appears to be thought), and the brain is simply biological tissue. Synapses and neurons, protons and electrons, motion and rest. There’s nothing more to it. There’s no room for free will in a biochemical process.

What are the implications of this reductionism? For starters, there’s no good reason to prefer life to death. Life, as I’ve stated, is simply a biochemical process. Is a reacting compound better than a non-reacting compound? Of course not – that’s nonsensical.

If they don’t believe this, ask them to justify why life has any value. They can’t answer this. Life is simply protons and electrons, motion and rest, and there’s nothing special about something observing the laws of physics. Existence is no better than non-existence, as the primacy of existence is a metaphysical concept (see: Aquinas).

So with this rejection of metaphysics, leading to a reductionist materialism, your opponent denies (1) free will, (2) the value of life, (3) the value of understanding/knowledge, and (4) the value of any existence whatsoever. Death is as good as life, there is no morality, reason is artificial and there’s no harm in killing/raping/torturing/stealing/hypocrisy. We should cease “education”, as one cannot educate a biological process - but speaking of shoulds is also nonsensical, as we don’t have the free will to do a should. Make sure they strike that word from their vocabulary, as well as the words ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘better’, ‘worse’, ‘right’, ‘wrong’ and anything having to do with value.

At that point you may ask them if that’s what they were really trying to do.

Hopefully, they’ll say no.

God Bless,
RyanL