No one in heaven or hell

[Gareth]

Hi, Gareth. You asked a similar question over on a different thread, and I just posted a response there before I found this thread. So, with your permission, I’ll just re-post here (I say, not waiting for permission ):

1. Those things which arise out of a purely physical process are neither true nor false; they simply are what they are. Examples: digestion taking place, ice forming, grass growing, rain falling, etc. Digestion is not “true” or “false.”
2. Our thoughts, however, can be true or false.
3. Therefore our thoughts are not the result of a purely physical process (although the process does involve physical organs such as the brain, primarily). If our true thoughts are purely physical in origin, then they are unlike everything else in the universe, and the burden of proof is on the materialist to explain: How can something be TRUE or FALSE and yet also be purely physical in origin?
4. If our thoughts are not the result of a purely physical process, something non-physical is involved in producing them. This non-physical element is variously referred to as a mind, or soul, or intellect, or spiritual nature, etc.
5. Because humanity is aware of this rational, intellective consciousness, the vast majority of humanity has also always been aware of the non-physical side of us.
6. Since this side of us is non-physical, it would not seem to be affected by physical death.
7. This non-physical side of us can also contemplate eternal, unchanging truths. For example: A triangle has three sides. That truth will never change, even if no other triangles are ever instantiated for the rest of the history of humanity.
8. Since the non-physical side of us can contemplate eternal and unchanging truths, and it seems likely could survive physical death, it also seems logical that the mind/soul/spirit itself would also be eternal, and capable of eternal contemplation.
9. This eternal contemplation in theological terms is often called either the Beatific or Miserific Vision.
10. This afterlife was given stronger assurance by the Resurrection of Christ.

By the way, the position you seem to be holding is very similar to Aristotle’s: belief in God and the soul, but belief that the soul perishes with the body, except POSSIBLY insofar as the soul is united to God. He certainly didn’t seem to believe in a personal afterlife. Aquinas took this position and made it more congenial to the Christian vision of death and the afterlife. A lot of this he argues out in the “Treatise on Man” in the Summa Theologica Part I.

I thought about this answer a lot. I know it’s tiresome but Imagine I make a calculator, I write a program it has software and hardware. I could code it poorly and then when it runs it may sometimes produce ‘true’ results sometimes ‘false’ results. If I smash the calculator the program I wrote and encoded into it to solve problems will be gone forever.

It is true that the thing that gave rise to the program in the calculator was created by my mind, so your point stands. But this proves one other thing I think and that is this.

Like the calculator that I made, God also could have made us to be finite. That we could have a soul that is inifinitly connected to our ‘hardware’. and when that is gone we too could be gone.

It seems to me that your argument is effecient in arguing as more a proof of the existence of God, but doesn’t effectivily proof we are imortal.

Most of the arguments, here prove that we could have souls, but only if God was prepared to animate them, keep them ‘synched’ with our ‘best’ (not ill, infirm etc) self, educate them when they seperate and keep them alive.

And that calls for belief in an interventionist God, which I can’t accept for other reasons. I guess the poster who said this isn’t a question that would stop belief was right. This is a secondary issue.

Thats what I think at this point, after having had some time to digest what you’ve all written, is very hard to reply to all. Thanks for your responses.

Thanks
Gareth

 

[trentonzero]

I have some concerns about this logic. Your knowledge of science seems good, so you would also know, that the church has actively supressed truths when they were inconvenient.

Church officials have over stepped their bounds (Galileo)…but can you tell me a doctrine, from any time pronounced in an ecumenical council or under ex cathedra terms by a pope, which expressed a notion which has been pretty conclusively refuted by science?

If souls exist, then they are not outside the realm of science to discover since they exist in reality.

Hmm…no. Science can only know that which can be verified (and falsified) by physical experiment. I don’t think anyone claims the soul is physical. It will be difficult to verify by experiment, perhaps impossible. Science has its limits.

The conclusion that all real things can be discovered and proven by science is not without controversy, even outside of religious circles. Science has limits.

But the higher authorities of religion, make no effort to error check their findings unlike science,

I’m gonna stop you here. The Church has been remarkably, some would say miraculously, constant in what has said about theology and morality, the truths the Holy Spirit protects in her teachings. You make the Popes sound like they are pronouncing as doctrine whatever fancy enters their head, whereas in truth, new doctrines are added slowly and after careful thought.

What really tends to happen is, the Church pronounces a doctrine, and the rest of popular society is sometimes to the left of it (and denouncing it), sometimest to the right of it (and denouncing it), sometimes above, sometimes below, always insisting it is wrong.

The fact that humans have an inate nature has been blasphemy in educated circles for a good while (cause Marxism doesn’t work if greed is inante…so the Catholics were wrong in pronouncing original sin), now you have an evolutionist named Steven Pinker and others saying “Yeah, we do have a human nature that is predisposed towards certain things” (but of course, the Catholics don’t believe our nature ‘evolved’, we believe it, if anything, ‘devolved’, so we are wrong again). Not even a beat is skipped between calling us wrong for declaring the truth of human nature, and then calling us wrong for disagreeing on how that nature came about.

The capitalist says we are wrong because we denounced pure capitalism. Some go so far as to say the the Church has been taken over by the Communist Party International. The communist says we are wrong for denouncing pure socialism, and says we are a tool of the Capitalist oppressors.

A century ago, all the atheists writers said that proof of the beginning of the universe would make them believers. They all believed the laws of science required a stable, eternal universe. The idea of a First Cause smacked of superstition and religion.

Now, all atheists, in those same scoffing tones, forgetting what their forefathers said, mock us because some of us disagree on the date of the First Cause. (I believe in an old universe/old earth.)

See? We are wrong for saying the universe had a beginning. Now, without skipping a beat or even giving us credit for getting such an extraordinary thing right, and sticking to it, some of us are wrong because we disagree with the date attributed to it.

We were wrong for preaching charity. Now we are wrong because we say there are limits to tolerance.

The Pope was wrong for excommunicating African slave traders. Then he was wrong for not excommunicating the entire German people, and reminding them of it every single day during WW2 (Pius gets labeled a nazi-sypathizer, and I don’t know what he could’ve done to be more anti-Nazi other than this). And now we are back to it being wrong to excommunicate ProChoice politicians.

We actually were wrong to arrest and place Galileo under house arrest…but that was a sin of going to far with the provisional scientific evidence of the time! It took hundreds of years to gather the evidence neccessary to make heliocentrism a better theory than geocentrism. And it was done in the height of the Protestant Reformation, and with protestant reformers propagating all sorts of religious heresies…having a mathematician walk around, refering to the Pope as a simpleton and telling people how they ought to interpret certain verses in their Bible that describe the movements of the sun and planets did worry them a little bit.

I’ll believe the Church is oblivious to the truth, when the people who know the “truth” can make up their minds, even vaguely, for so much as a hundred years as to its character!

No one seems able to do that.

 

[Gareth]

Church officials have over stepped their bounds (Galileo)…but can you tell me a doctrine, from any time pronounced in an ecumenical council or under ex cathedra terms by a pope, which expressed a notion which has been pretty conclusively refuted by science?

I cannot. I know this is the great Catholic game and I don’t know how to play it. I only say this; I don’t believe that everything the church believed in and enforced (sometimes with violence), was accurate. These things weren’t ex cathedra or ecumenical councilled but they were ‘official’ in the sense that they were enforced.

Hmm…no. Science can only know that which can be verified (and falsified) by physical experiment. I don’t think anyone claims the soul is physical. It will be difficult to verify by experiment, perhaps impossible. Science has its limits.

Science says all matter is energy. If there is non physical energy I guess it would be outside the realm of science. But investigating wether non physical causes can interact with physical structures that would be within the realm of science. If they can’t then God can’t intervene in any way in physical reality. Unless God is physical, in which case he can be investigated by science. If not he is irrelevant, or essentially non existent on this side of the veil… ( I may have unintentionally set up a straw man there )

I’m gonna stop you here. The Church has been remarkably, some would say miraculously, constant in what has said about theology and morality, the truths the Holy Spirit protects in her teachings. You make the Popes sound like they are pronouncing as doctrine whatever fancy enters their head, whereas in truth, new doctrines are added slowly and after careful thought.

Hmmmm… which is it, careful thought or the Holy spirit?
In any case that’s not the same as revisiting a statement already made, that’s assuming infallibility on the statement made.

A century ago, all the atheists writers said that proof of the beginning of the universe would make them believers. They all believed the laws of science required a stable, eternal universe. The idea of a First Cause smacked of superstition and religion.

I don’t think there would have been many Atheists a 100 years ago, I certainly wouldn’t have been one. I’m not 100% an Athiests now, to deny the existence of any possible creator is a broad statement I wouldn’t make. I just doubt the existence of a creator, and absolutly disbelieve in a creator as represented by any religion. I don’t know if it’s true or not but weren’t most educated non religous people at that time deists?

I’ll believe the Church is oblivious to the truth, when the people who know the “truth” can make up their minds, even vaguely, for so much as a hundred years as to its character!

No one seems able to do that.

Huh? Sorry all respect I’m not sure I follow you these closing words. Thanks for the response.

Gareth

 

[trentonzero]

I cannot. I know this is the great Catholic game and I don’t know how to play it. I only say this; I don’t believe that everything the church believed in and enforced (sometimes with violence), was accurate. These things weren’t ex cathedra or ecumenical councilled but they were ‘official’ in the sense that they were enforced.

Give examples. Galileo was wronged. But there was no official doctrine against Galileo’s theories.

The base fact of it is…Galileo was causing trouble. And right or wrong, alot of people in the church at the time were more politician than holy man, and politicians don’t like people causing trouble.

So they put him under house arrest, and told him to stop writing about the theory he was causing trouble with. They never declared the theory itself heretical.

If the Church had actually declared the theory itself heretical, then you’d have something to say.

Science says all matter is energy. If there is non physical energy I guess it would be outside the realm of science. But investigating wether non physical causes can interact with physical structures that would be within the realm of science. If they can’t then God can’t intervene in any way in physical reality.

Not really, because science, by definition, can never confess a non physical cause. I mean, think about it. Current science believes in the Big Bang. Their is absolutely NOTHING in modern science to explain that event. Nothing. There never was. Maybe someday there will be, but at the moment, there’s nothing. The period before 10^-43 secs. is a giant question mark.

Yet, we are committing a fallacy if we try to suggest God did it.

Never will there be direct physical evidence for an event so miraculous and inexplicable as the Big Bang…and despite a near scientific certainty that it happened, and a near complete lack of scientific speculation on how it happened…its still not evidence of God. God is still a forbidden topic.

Unless God is physical, in which case he can be investigated by science. If not he is irrelevant, or essentially non existent on this side of the veil… ( I may have unintentionally set up a straw man there )

We don’t say these things. We say God is outside the universe, but he can intervene in it whenever he likes. And he does.

Which is it, careful thought or the Holy spirit?
In any case that’s not the same as revisiting a statement already made, that’s assuming infallibility on the statement made.

Both. Others may correct what I’m about to say, but the Holy Spirit ensures that what is said is free of error.

And yeah, when the Church makes an infallible statement, we stick by it. Some refinements can be made within it, but the statement is never reversed.

But there are plenty of people that aren’t Catholic. So where’s the fallsifications of Catholic doctrine? Some people believe they have them on different terms, and we think they are wrong. If you want to discuss a specific refutation of doctrine, go for it.

I don’t think there would have been many Atheists a 100 years ago, I certainly wouldn’t have been one.

There have always been atheists.

I’m not 100% an Athiests now, to deny the existence of any possible creator is a broad statement I wouldn’t make. I just doubt the existence of a creator, and absolutly disbelieve in a creator as represented by any religion. I don’t know if it’s true or not but weren’t most educated non religous people at that time deists?

I was an atheist until not so long ago, so I’d like to talk about that for a minute, cause it was naturally the first step I went through.

I don’t think theistic agnosticism makes sense. If a creator created the universe, and doesn’t care what happens in it…specifically, doesn’t care about us…then there is no point talking about it. He might as well not exist. His motives are inexplicable to us (I’ve never created something I didn’t care about.)

However, if he does care about us…specifically, if he cares about Good and Evil, then He should be making an effort to let us know about Good and Evil.

And indeed, He has. And we should expect different people to disagree with different parts of his thoughts…and indeed, they do.

Huh? Sorry all respect I’m not sure I follow you these closing words. Thanks for the response.

You said theologians make no effort to check their findings. Yet, it seems that the rest of society is constantly questioning their findings, but always in different ways. There is no consistent criticue, dating back even a hundred years, saying the Church is too much X. Now they say it is too much X, but you go back a few hundred years, and they said it is too much not X.

 

[Sarpedon]

There kind of is physical evidence for the rational mind. Under surgery parts of the brain can be livened up with electricity and the patient will expereince different things, memories, sounds, smells, etc.

These things are responses to the physical world. I would think that non-concious animal brains can interpret sounds and smells, as well as store recollections of previous experiences (like dogs doing tricks for treats). I think the real question would be whether we could we could give an animal the ability to compose, say, epic poetry using electricity and manipulation.

 

[ricmat]

A good book for you to read is by the physicist Anthony Rizzi entitled The Science before Science. He gives proofs for the existence of the soul using philosophy.

I agree. A good book which proves the existence of the soul, angels, and God, amongst other things

BTW - the author is a PHD physicist who solved an 80 year old problem left by Einstein. So he’s good at science in addition to “philosophy.”

 

[Contrabass101]

You said theologians make no effort to check their findings. Yet, it seems that the rest of society is constantly questioning their findings, but always in different ways. There is no consistent criticue, dating back even a hundred years, saying the Church is too much X. Now they say it is too much X, but you go back a few hundred years, and they said it is too much not X.

So true… Favourite example:

Nietzsche: “The church is the dictatorship of the weak supressing the strong, the slaves holding down the masters”

Marx: “The church is the dictatorship of the strong supressing the weak, the masters holding down the slaves”

Guess it depends on the point of view

I say the church sits the fence in a very nice way…

• CB

 

[Gareth]

I appreciate the Roman Catholic Church is careful when it makes statements and has skillfully elaborated on and explained some of it’s earlier teachings in such as way as to dispell confusion that may have arisen.

but to focus on the issue of souls again.

Would it be fair to say that:

if we have souls God intelligently works on these souls ito maintain some form of link between our minds and our souls. That when we die, become sick, or for example have brain problems, God ensures that the identity we hold in our souls is still us?

Would you agree that this could not occur if God was an impersonal force which acted according to principles or laws of its own, like the eastern notion of karma?

Interested to hear, no trap, just a statement of why I think the eastern view is much less likely from a skeptical point of view.

Thanks
Gareth

 

[trentonzero]

I appreciate the Roman Catholic Church is careful when it makes statements and has skillfully elaborated on and explained some of it’s earlier teachings in such as way as to dispell confusion that may have arisen.

You are rolling your eyes. But that paragraph you just said is a complete reversal of what you said about the Church just a few posts ago.

But the higher authorities of religion, make no effort to error check their findings unlike science, and as a consequence held very odd and extremely inaccurate views about reality, that unltimatly were turned on their heads. They have a poor track record, think earth centered universe, think young earth, think evolution etc. etc.

Would it be fair to say that:

if we have souls God intelligently works on these souls ito maintain some form of link between our minds and our souls. That when we die, become sick, or for example have brain problems, God ensures that the identity we hold in our souls is still us?

I think we can fairly assume something like that. I wouldn’t venture myself to say I knew anything of this matter. But, I think its a very reasonable assumption.

Would you agree that this could not occur if God was an impersonal force which acted according to principles or laws of its own, like the eastern notion of karma?

Maybe or maybe not. A broken radio has no effect whatsoever on a radio wave.

Interested to hear, no trap, just a statement of why I think the eastern view is much less likely from a skeptical point of view.

Thanks
Gareth

I’m not sure if its more likely or less likely. And I’m not sure why what you just said makes eastern view more likely.

I don’t follow the eastern views because I don’t think they are really religions. Buddhism doesn’t claim to have a revelation of truth…it claims that Buddha sat under a tree until he came up with a good self-help philosophy. The Hindus are too diverse to speak about…the only Hindu sect I know much about are the Hare Krishnas…and they seem too vague to really be saying much. (Jesus really was Son of God…and affirmed the truth of the Hebrew scriptures…but never got around to mentioning that God really DID live in statues in India…More like: I’ll say any vague, feel good idea to get converts. Americans say Jesus was Son of God…fine, he’s son of God. Our religion is so vague that we can say anything that suits us).

I think GK Chesteron in “Orthodoxy” gives a good defense of Christianity versus Buddhism. The book is public domain and less than 100 pages long, if you wish to read it. I think you can get it from ccel.org/ .

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

“The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.”

So saith Milton.

**Not kee-rect - that is from a speech of satan in Paradise Lost; Book four, I think. It is not Milton’s own belief - anything but: far from being the hero (it was William Blake who started that hare running) satan is constantly undercut by the things Milton gives him to do & say. That line is an example of the self-delusion into which the poem shows him falling, from Book One to his last appearance, in Book Ten. Basically, this is satan as falsely heroic - over against Messiah, who is heroic in the true sense.​

It is a superb poem - *almost *as great as Dante’s Commedia

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I firmly believe there is nobody in hell… or heaven. Why?

Because we don’t have souls and when electricity stops moving throught our brains we are gone forever.

There is no demonstratable evidence that we do have souls. I pose the following as fuel for thought:

Lets say, you are right now a devout believer, everything is in order, you are assured of salvation. Later in your life you develop Althziemers desease. At first you forget things. Later you become nasty and hateful. (sadly it happens). You forget God. After this your brain forgets about your personality but your body remains. Still later your brain forgets about your body and it dies. when did your soul leave your body? is your soul in your body? if so where?

OK ​

1. The soul has no location - it would be as true to say we are “in” our souls, as that our souls are “in” us.
2. As for the objection from Alzheimer’s Disease - where there is no consciousness, there is no moral responsibility, so there would be no moral culpability. There is no sin, where there is no intention; sin is so voluntary, that it cannot be committed by mistake. Which is why epileptics are not responsible during seizures, or sleep-walkers while asleep.

Besides, nothing - at all - can happen outside the Providence of God. We may forget Him - but He forgets, & can forget, nothing that He has created, as nothing is hidden from Him.

Which deals with the question following

Will you go to hell if not why not? (invincable ignorance?)

Second question:

A child is born. It dies on the second day of it’s life. Where does it go?

To hell? (unbaptized?)
To heaven?(invinceable ignorance) Can it now think, and speak, does it know things or is it still like a baby? if not where did it’s knowledge come from? how is this knowledge connected to it’s soul.
to limbo? (the too hard basket?)

What happens when a person is in a coma, and then dies. when does the soul depart? Is there a link between the soul and the mind? or are the two totally seperate?

Will there be memories in the afterlife? if so how will they be stored / carried accross without the Brain?

I’m truly interested to know, your thoughts. These are the questions which caused me to cease to believe. I appreciate there are a lot of questions in this post, and I don’t expect anyone to answer them all I just used them as a conversation starter. A basic overview of how the soul - mind - relationship is thought to occur would be appreciated.

Please when you answer if you want me to read the bible please give references rather than pasting in vs after vs after vs. I will read these in any version you suggest if your post is coherrant and courteous.

Kind regards
Gareth

As for these - they could only be answered if we knew what the mode of life of the Blessed was; nor is much known - not enough to answer your questions - (though much has been suggested) about the glorified body which the Blessed will receive when they are raised from the dead by Christ.​

According to the Bible & Tradition, Heaven is anything but empty

 

[Gareth]

Maybe or maybe not. A broken radio has no effect whatsoever on a radio wave.

If the brain acts as an aerial, then transfer would be one way only. I guess this is possible, but why are memories stored in our brains? Whether memories could 'pass over / back is crucial I think to questions of punishment and reward.

I’m not sure if its more likely or less likely. And I’m not sure why what you just said makes eastern view more likely.

No I believe the eastern view is much LESS likely. Bhuddism teaches that there is no permenant soul in an individual, something I currently believe, but to me this renders reincarnation impossible one of Bhuddism’s core beliefs.

Hinduism as you said is diverse, but believes in souls in a way which I think is even less likely that they have virtually no connection to the bodies they are housed in except temporarily. This being the case, why is any data stored in the brain at all? A single life theory is in my opinion far more probable.

I think GK Chesteron in “Orthodoxy” gives a good defense of Christianity versus Buddhism. The book is public domain and less than 100 pages long, if you wish to read it. I think you can get it from ccel.org/ .

I will read this, ccel was one of my favourite sites.

 

[trentonzero]

If the brain acts as an aerial, then transfer would be one way only. I guess this is possible, but why are memories stored in our brains? Whether memories could 'pass over / back is crucial I think to questions of punishment and reward.

Gareth:
That when we die, become sick, or for example have brain problems, God ensures that the identity we hold in our souls is still us? Would you agree that this could not occur if God was an impersonal force which acted according to principles or laws of its own, like the eastern notion of karma?

Trent:
Maybe or maybe not. A broken radio has no effect whatsoever on a radio wave.

According to karma, we DON’T keep our memories. But also according to karma, we can’t make any judgements about whether this is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ either. Complaining that karma goes about enforcing ‘good’ in a ‘bad’ way is like complaining that gravity ought to make things go up.

God, on the other hand, is intelligent. If things like actively working to preserve the soul during brain disease is necessary…he can do it.

If karma actually exists, then the best advice is more or less what Buddha gave: Deal with it. That may be a slight mis-statement of his meaning, but its a very easy one to make.

Christianity most certainly does not teach “deal with it” though.

No I believe the eastern view is much LESS likely. Bhuddism teaches that there is no permenant soul in an individual, something I currently believe, but to me this renders reincarnation impossible one of Bhuddism’s core beliefs.

I’m sorry I misunderstood.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Gareth:

I have some concerns about this logic. Your knowledge of science seems good, so you would also know, that the church has actively supressed truths when they were inconvenient.

trentonzero:

Church officials have over stepped their bounds (Galileo)…

It was Galileo who overstepped his bounds.

If he had stuck to science only, then he would only have been guilty of not having proven a theory which Copernicus originated. Galileo’s attempt at proof rested on wave theory. It was not until 200 years later that Copernicus’s idea was finally proven by means of parallax.

However, not only was Galileo guilty of bad science, he went further and claimed that his bad science was actually theology. That’s where he got into trouble with the Church.

 

[Gareth]

It was Galileo who overstepped his bounds. …snip…] However, not only was Galileo guilty of bad science, he went further and claimed that his bad science was actually theology. That’s where he got into trouble with the Church.

Utter Rubbish. It was the chruch who overstepped it’s bounds and admits it.Here’s part of the CC response to Galileo.

“denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by many, that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves,”

“…having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the sun is the centre of the world and does not move from east to west, and that the earth moves and is not the centre of the world”

The Church has never made a mistake eh.

"According to the Catholic Encyclopedia the Church is only infallible in matters of religious dogma, and its current definition of religious dogma extends only to matters of faith and morals. Thus the Catholic Church made a “mistake” with Galileo because the Church confused religious dogma with a matter of science. However the Church’s claim of papal infallibility is still intact because the pope never invoked his infallibility and explicitly claimed that the universe was geocentric, and even if he did it wouldn’t count because according to the Church the pope’s infallibility only extends to matters of religious dogma and not to matters of science. " acknowledged in 1993.

That’s a pretty clever way of being infallible.

check these out:
home1.gte.net/deleyd/religion/galileo/sciencevsreligion.html
home1.gte.net/deleyd/religion/galileo/

 

[Renton405]

I firmly believe there is nobody in hell… or heaven. Why?

Because we don’t have souls and when electricity stops moving throught our brains we are gone forever.

There is no demonstratable evidence that we do have souls. I pose the following as fuel for thought:

Lets say, you are right now a devout believer, everything is in order, you are assured of salvation. Later in your life you develop Althziemers desease. At first you forget things. Later you become nasty and hateful. (sadly it happens). You forget God. After this your brain forgets about your personality but your body remains. Still later your brain forgets about your body and it dies. when did your soul leave your body? is your soul in your body? if so where?

Will you go to hell if not why not? (invincable ignorance?)

Second question:

A child is born. It dies on the second day of it’s life. Where does it go?

To hell? (unbaptized?)
To heaven?(invinceable ignorance) Can it now think, and speak, does it know things or is it still like a baby? if not where did it’s knowledge come from? how is this knowledge connected to it’s soul.
to limbo? (the too hard basket?)

What happens when a person is in a coma, and then dies. when does the soul depart? Is there a link between the soul and the mind? or are the two totally seperate?

Will there be memories in the afterlife? if so how will they be stored / carried accross without the Brain?

I’m truly interested to know, your thoughts. These are the questions which caused me to cease to believe. I appreciate there are a lot of questions in this post, and I don’t expect anyone to answer them all I just used them as a conversation starter. A basic overview of how the soul - mind - relationship is thought to occur would be appreciated.

Please when you answer if you want me to read the bible please give references rather than pasting in vs after vs after vs. I will read these in any version you suggest if your post is coherrant and courteous.

Kind regards
Gareth

If it really were just electricity we would be robots… Even with all the electricity that is in our brains there is still a first cause and uncaused cause that cannot be explained… the brain currents and electricity is just a reaction of that first cause in the human body…

In order to make a machine work and cause electric currents in the first place a person must first turn it on first(first cause)…

Maybe the day when technology could create a brain out of physical parts that acts just like a human brain… but it won’t happen because our brains are an impossible organ…

I somehow believe God would probably pay more attention to how the person was before his alztimers(or coma) came…So how he led his life before his alztimers came would probably decide whether he goes to heaven or hell… All of us right now could drop dead at any time, so its apparent that we not take our lives for granted and come to repentance with Christ… There will be many in hell who took time for granted and now it is too late for them…

 

[trentonzero]

It was Galileo who overstepped his bounds.

If he had stuck to science only, then he would only have been guilty of not having proven a theory which Copernicus originated. Galileo’s attempt at proof rested on wave theory. It was not until 200 years later that Copernicus’s idea was finally proven by means of parallax.

However, not only was Galileo guilty of bad science, he went further and claimed that his bad science was actually theology. That’s where he got into trouble with the Church.

Outside of pure mathematics, you don’t prove theories.

You never prove theories.

You only disprove them.

For example, the theory you say we proved is that the “sun is at the center of the solar system”.

But the sun isn’t at the center of the solar system. The solar system is made up of a series of ovals, and the sun is at one
focus of those ovals (definaately not the center).

If you think about that, you’ll understand why Galileo’s science was perfectly okay (if we waited for an idea to be proven, it would never be ‘proven’, because, outside of pure math, ideas never get proven).

Though he should’ve known better than to talk about theology without Church approval, especially at the time, we agree about that.

 

[trentonzero]

That’s a pretty clever way of being infallible.

check these out:
home1.gte.net/deleyd/religion/galileo/sciencevsreligion.html
home1.gte.net/deleyd/religion/galileo/

I read the webpage.

Quote a different one. This one is offensive.

I mean something very specific by that.

I mean, instead of arguing, it just insults…without evidence…some of the things it says are preposterous.

Lets’ go through a few:

How much grander a concept it gives of the infinite knowledge and glory of Gawd in His wonderful process of Nature"! Oh, Hypocrisy! Thou art the Church of God! “Semper eadem” (always the same) – lying and shameless!

The website cites one source…only one source for its information…and its an unsubstantiated insult.

However it is quite clear that at the time of Galileo the Church’s infallible religious dogma did extend to all matters of science including astronomy, biology, geology, geography, and archaeology.

Great. Give me a papal bull…a catechism…a writing by a Church Father…a letter by a bishop…a sermon by a priest…a poem written by a nun or a monk…a drunk Catholic giving a rant in a tavern…???

Even today religious fundamentalists still insist the Bible is the literal infallible Word of God, inerrant, without contradiction, correct in all matters of Faith and all matters of science.

They also tend to the think the Pope is the anti-Christ. What on earth makes one think we are one and the same?

The priestly principle of the subordination of scientific fact to dogmatic faith is thus naïvely posed by the Catholic Encyclopedia itself which I quote, “When a clearly defined dogma contradicts a scientific assertion, the latter has to be revised.” A more palpable and ridiculous untruth has never been uttered by those who still insist on Biblical literalness.

Yes, I will agree with that statement, and so would anyone that understood science. Science makes absolutely no claims on absolute truth. It only claims access to what is not true.

So, Galileo said the sun was at the center of the solar system. Galileo was wrong, the sun, in releation to the planets, is located at one focus of an ellipse that forms the planets orbits. If the focus of an ellipse is located in the center, we don’t call it an ellipse, we call it a circle. The orbits of the planets are most definately not circles.

Religion, on the other hand, claims the truth itself. It may do so and be wrong. But that is where we find ourselves: with a doctrine that says “I know I’m wrong, but in a few billion years, after your dead, I’ll be less wrong (but still wrong).” and a doctrine that says “I am either completely right, or completely wrong. Make your choice.”

So, the quote is valid…all things being equal, if there is a conflict between a current scientific theory and your religion…you should believe the religion. The scientific theory is certain to be inaccurate. The religion has a chance of being right.

It’s not an untruth…and I propose this: that from now on, all so called defenders of reason and ‘truth’ as known by mathematics and science should start giving us syllogisms from now on every single time that declared something ‘truth’ or ‘untruth’.

No single scientific fact ever discovered and proclaimed, in all the struggling history of Science in defiance of Church, has ever been “revised,” altered or withdrawn in deference to religious Dogma.

A true statement (science has never rejected an idea cause the pope told them to), and a false one. The Big Bang was considered ridiculous for its religious implications at first.

Now look hwo the tables have turned…we are ridiculous because some of us question the date. A hundred years ago, Einstein was so sure of the stablity of the universe that he put a meaningless constant into his own equations of relativity to keep the universe stable.

 

[trentonzero]

Every fact of science has proudly and triumphantly defied and refuted Dogma and Church… The Church, True Church, and Protestant, has screamed and reviled at every truth of Science which was ever discovered;

You know…I’ve never read the part where the Church denounced the inverse square law for the propagation of light. Could you give me citation for that?

Did Pope Leo write a bull declaring that light propagates according to an inverse cube law? I’d love to read it.

What about the discovery that light is influenced by gravity…which ecumenical council was it that said that light was impervious to gravity?

Hmm??

Well, those are a little, obscure…I know!!

Probably the most influential discovery in modern science is the discovery that small amounts of matter can be converted into large amounts of energy (e=mc^2) under the proper conditions.

Surely, if science has, in its every discovery, refuted Church dogma, you can show me the Church statement declaring this idea heretical???

with high priestly anathema, the curse of God, with prison, rack, and stake,

Name a single scientist who the Church has tortured for his theories.

Galileo got house arrest in an Italian villa.

Bruno was burned…but Bruno was by no means a scientist, he was a mystic. It’s often reported that he “believed” in life on other planets…Carl Sagan himself said so in Cosmos…thats a lie. Bruno didn’t believe in life on other planets…he believed the planets themselves were alive.

Even today there are those trying to prevent the teaching of Evolution in our schools, not for any scientific reason, but simply because Darwin’s theory of Evolution conflicts with their current religious dogma. But I do not believe the science of Evolution will be the last nail in the coffin of Biblical literalness, just as the undeniable proof of a heliocentric universe did not end it hundreds of years ago.****

…

…

…
The undeniable proof of the heliocentric “universe”?

Excuse me?

You…You…You’re quoting a webpage that does nothing but call us stupid and anti scientific for being Catholic…and claims that the sun is at the center of the universe?!?

It’s not even at the center of the solar system! It’s at the focus of an ellipse, which is most definately removed from the center!

You’re wasting my time by quoting a webpage at me, calling me antiscientific, while getting basic astronomy wrong!?!?

I don’t need to read anymore.

Quote a different webpage.

One with sources.

One that isn’t stupid.

 

[Gareth]

I read the webpage.

Quote a different one. This one is offensive.

I mean something very specific by that.

I mean, instead of arguing, it just insults…without evidence…some of the things it says are preposterous.

The website cites one source…only one source for its information…and its an unsubstantiated insult.

Great. Give me a papal bull…a catechism…a writing by a Church Father…a letter by a bishop…a sermon by a priest…a poem written by a nun or a monk…a drunk Catholic giving a rant in a tavern…???
They also tend to the think the Pope is the anti-Christ. What on earth makes one think we are one and the same?

I apologise unreservedly. I did not read all the page, only the sections I posted. My views are not represented by this and I retract those references. Apologies for any offence caused it was not my intention. Lesson learned.