Soul, or no soul.

originally posted by: wantsome
I believe our minds are what give us consciousnesses through a process of complex chemical reactions in our brains. When we die our minds quit working the end.

I've reached this conclusion from having paranoid schizophrenia. Every night I take chemicals in the form of a pill that keeps my mind and consciousnesses loosing touch with reality. Because of this I've come to my own conclusions on what the mind is capable of. I didn't always had schizophrenia. I was normal until age 17 when the illness struck. I was extremely sick for 3 years after I came down with it. It's been 15 years and to a degree I've recovered from it. I've been to the furthest reaches of insanity and back. One thing I came away from it all with is a better understanding of my psyche. Everything we perceive think and emotionally feel is nothing more then a chemical reaction and can be altered through medications or illegal drugs. I've experienced it first hand.

I think the reason people believe in a soul is they don't want to except the fact when they die it's the end.

OK....... BUT have you been declared legally dead by a medical doctor and then come back from the dead?

Have you ever died before and been on the other side of mortal life?

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Try that thought out the other way around for a bit and see how it rhetorically feels.

CF

a reply to: BestinShow

Sorry but how much critical thinking can even be done on the topic? Is it all not mere speculation and beliefs to begin with? Unless you have found ways to provide real evidence? Not trying to be a d1ck just asking

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

I'd like to share my opinion on something you said. I'm sure everyone's opinion is different but here it is. You said some people might think there is no soul, and that life and what it had to offer were all completely worthless. I was just thinking to myself about how I would feel if I came to find out there was no soul, no eternal life after death. I was thinking then that I would not drop every single care I had and just live life like crazy with some stupid YOLO thought process...I think the things I have in life would mean even more to me and I would try even better to be a good person. Life is so fragile and it was a complete miracle that I (me personally) am here typing this now to you. There are billions of variables to life and they all led me here. Now I'm getting side tracked a little sorry, I love thinking about all kinds of topics like this.

a reply to: wantsome

If I'm driving on the highway, and lose pressure in my break-line and therefore lose control, does that make me a reckless driver? No.

I am not my car. I am the operator of a machine that can break down.

The same goes with the mind. Schizophrenia distorts your outlook and over stimulates emotion, but it does not control your logical response to those distortions. And emotions do not have to dictate thought.

a reply to: OpenMindedPhilosopher

You said some people might think there is no soul, and that life and what it had to offer were all completely worthless. I was just thinking to myself about how I would feel if I came to find out there was no soul, no eternal life after death. I was thinking then that I would not drop every single care I had and just live life like crazy with some stupid YOLO thought process...I think the things I have in life would mean even more to me and I would try even better to be a good person

I think the OP was referring to an actual intrinsic moral worth to life. Life compared to a rock becomes nothing more than looking at two objects one of which is a more complex arrangement of molecules. Does that mean you have to change the way you live? No, but it does mean that your choice to live a good life is just as valid of a purpose in life as living the life of Ted Bundy.

This is simple. Come on guys.

Anything that lasts forever requires infinite energy. E=MC^2. We exist, thus the Universe isn't one giant blackhole, thus there isn't infinite energy. Thus, there is no soul.

originally posted by: DeathSlayer

originally posted by: wantsome
I believe our minds are what give us consciousnesses through a process of complex chemical reactions in our brains. When we die our minds quit working the end.

I've reached this conclusion from having paranoid schizophrenia. Every night I take chemicals in the form of a pill that keeps my mind and consciousnesses loosing touch with reality. Because of this I've come to my own conclusions on what the mind is capable of. I didn't always had schizophrenia. I was normal until age 17 when the illness struck. I was extremely sick for 3 years after I came down with it. It's been 15 years and to a degree I've recovered from it. I've been to the furthest reaches of insanity and back. One thing I came away from it all with is a better understanding of my psyche. Everything we perceive think and emotionally feel is nothing more then a chemical reaction and can be altered through medications or illegal drugs. I've experienced it first hand.

I think the reason people believe in a soul is they don't want to except the fact when they die it's the end.

OK....... BUT have you been declared legally dead by a medical doctor and then come back from the dead?

Have you ever died before and been on the other side of mortal life?

I've reached the other side of mortal life before without dying. What does that tell you about what NDEs actually are?

They're hallucinations that can be induced, as that guy medicating his schizophrenia said, with cocktails of chemicals. Just like your brain releases when synapses and everything are going crazy while you're dying.

My grandmother was dead on our living room floor before being revived. You know what she saw? Nothing. Does that mean that my grandmother doesn't have a soul?

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

I emphasize the ugliness of it, because machinery has no free will. How is it beautiful to admire beauty if you MUST admire beauty as a result of programing. I don't understand how you are satisfied with your position.

Programming requires a programmer. Machines require an engineer. If there is no programmer nor engineer, we are not programmed nor are we machines. We are not even analogous to machines. Why even use or think in such terms? Because a view that postulates a soul or homunculus requires them.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I don't think that this is true at all. You make a lot of claims but you fail to offer any justification for them.

Machines require engineers. If there is no engineer, there are no need nor reason to pretend the world is a machine. I didn’t realize my statement would require justification, especially in a conversation regarding souls, where justification is specious at best.

Again I don't see how you can draw a difference between the intrinsic value of a rock and the intrinsic value of a human on a souless view. You may be able to provide some form of extrinsic value to these things but I think you'll be hard pressed to apply a worth that is inherent to humans solely on a naturalistic view of the world.

Postulating a soul is providing an extrinsic, unnatural and abstract value. Worth and value is given or acquired, never inherent. You value a rock different than a human not because the rock lacks a soul, but by the simple fact that a rock is not a human being.

Beauty is a subjective concept it doesn't apply any type of intrinsic value to anything but again you could say it extrinsically valuable in that it could be used to produce a desired effect.

Soul is a subjective concept. In my opinion, postulating a soul is desecration and negation. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but it is a universal experience.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

If consciousness is pure bio-chemistry, then nature is the programmer.

It could also be 3% of one 48% of the other, 49% something else again.

We have portions of "us" that seem sentient, yet most don't have conscious access to... sub-conscience, autonomic systems, digestive biomes, organ systems, etc.

Egyptians and myriad other systems have us as composite critters (though spirit and sentience are separate, sorta), too.

Some "ghosts" I think I've encountered just didn't seem like a "whole person" yet others assert evidence that they have encountered such.

That there is an immaterial (as we now know it) portion to our sentience, I don't doubt (much), but it's likely a bit more complex than one personality/info system that stays as is for "eternity"... and that sounds dreary, anyway.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

If consciousness is pure bio-chemistry, then nature is the programmer.

Too anthropomorphic for my liking. Maybe attributing human traits to non human things has been our problem all along.

I don't believe in consciousness either, which turns out to be just another word like "soul".

If there would be no soul we could be like robots. Like some ETs are. Soul is the only valuable thing we have, the only thing that stays, which learns, and knows where we are going. Meditation and the stories about afterlife and messages that mediums give from souls on the other side, are in my opinion the best way to understand the soul. Here is one article; www.disclose.tv...

I think it is true why we live here is that we can experience our karmic pains only in physical existence as seems like on the other side there is no sensations, no hell also. Our memories has to be blacked out on earth in order to learn lessons, I don't know why is that.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

If consciousness is pure bio-chemistry, then nature is the programmer.

Too anthropomorphic for my liking. Maybe attributing human traits to non human things has been our problem all along.

I don't believe in consciousness either, which turns out to be just another word like "soul".

Too non-confrontational for my liking. You're side stepping major issues. You are either a bio-mechanical robot with no freedom at all, and your opinions are empty.

Or you are a consciousness/soul, and you are responsible for your own thoughts. You cant have them both ways.

The fact that you are arguing with me on this actually contradicts your assumptions.


If we are a product of nature, then anthropomorphism is as well.

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

We are not physical bodies and brain chemistry we ARE soul not do we have a soul. I never understood why people call it 'having a soul'. You can't have what you are...it just IS your essence.

Also, some people remember their past lives. I remember many of mine which I have discussed in other threads on ATS. I don't have to guess. Past lives coupled with karma are what creates our opportunities and purpose in our current life. Taken as a whole life makes sense. It is our limited perspective that restricts our understanding.

People look at a tiny length of thread and can't see the tapestry that it came from. One life is insignificant. It is the totality of our experience that is important.

Amazing, I actually agree with you on the soul. That’s put very well that "we are soul"


It’s our essence and the root of our being


I believe the quest of this life is to repair something in us that will lead to the perfect immortal soul


Its there we just have to find it...its very close


We don’t get along in politics but we agree here