Discussion of heaven, hell, & immortal soul

[Mick]

Makes it difficult to believe...this does not prove there is no soul. (you are also reaching out of the area of religious studies)

I'll play devils advocate for a moment if I may. Here's a good clip from James Randi on why you can't prove a negative.

Or a quick summary as it pertains to this discussion, a scientist will accept something as true when evidence shown proves it is so or isn't so, you couldn't prove ghosts don't exist (for example), only that evidence we have doesn't indicate that they do, but that is not proof they don't exist, nor can it be proven a soul doesn't exist, as this might be another example of trying to prove a negative.

So the question should be to those making the claim, what evidence do you have that a soul does exist, what makes you believe such a statement is true. Shouldn't the onus be on those who make the claim to back it up with evidence to support their claim?

[Fortigurn]

Look through my posts...I actually never argued that point. (ya need to pay more attention it seems)

I don't think you read my posts. I said there was a scholarly consensus that the Bible does not teach an immortal soul, and that there isn't an immortal soul. You promptly attacked this, claiming 'If you are talking about Christian theologians who are also scholars, I'd say about 99% believe in an immortal soul'. To date you have failed to provide any evidence for your claim.

I did, wasn't too impressed. (see below)

I saw below. You don't address any of the reference sources I quoted. You attempted character assassination of Hebblethwaite, and attempted to deny that 19th century science had reached a consensus that there was no immortal soul. You failed to substantiate either point with evidence, and you failed to address the content of what was presented.

This is what you are basing your argument on?

No. I have already provided abundant evidence for the scholarly consensus on the subject.

That book was not well received by the scholarly community. Here is a quote from just one negative review:

So you quickly Googled for a review, chose one which made some negative comments about the work, cherrypicked a few of those comments, and now claim without evidence that 'he's a biased hack'. That is intellectually dishonest. It's what Fundamentalist Christians do. Nothing in the review you quoted contradicts the statement Hebblethwaite made concerning the consensus to which he referred. If you have any evidence that his statement is untrue, please present it.

Makes it difficult to believe...this does not prove there is no soul. (you are also reaching out of the area of religious studies)

I did not say this proves there is no soul. I pointed out that this was a scientific consensus even in the late 19th century, which is precisely why I quoted scientists. The quotations I provided are just a sample of that consensus. I note you failed to do anything with 'It is a universal induction of science that modification of brain is accompanied by modification of consciousness, and that the destruction of brain results in destruction of consciousness. No exception to this law has ever been observed'.

Once more, do you have any evidence for your claims?

[Confuzius]

Once more, do you have any evidence for your claims?

My only claims (regarding this exact back and forth) have been 1. the majority of Christian theologians believe in a soul 2. the majority of Christians in America believe in an immortal soul 3. there is no 'scholarly concensus' among Christian scholars that there is no such thing as a soul and 4. the existence of a soul has not been disproven.

I have provided ample evidence for that. You keep having to misrepresent my arguments to keep the discussion going.

(and btw-you provide one book on religious studies and I'll provide one scholarly review...tit for tat. Don't expect me to provide three reviews for your one book...just don't have the time for that. If you want to provide more, I will do so as well).

[sulavaca]

[bigduke6]

Pity season 8 is the last season of house.

[sulavaca]

Sorry. I've never seen it. I just liked the straight to the point quote as it rings so true.

[Fortigurn]

My only claims (regarding this exact back and forth) have been 1. the majority of Christian theologians believe in a soul 2. the majority of Christians in America believe in an immortal soul 3. there is no 'scholarly concensus' among Christian scholars that there is no such thing as a soul and 4. the existence of a soul has not been disproven.

I have provided ample evidence for that.

I did not challenge the second of these claims since it was not in dispute (that was a point which you raised as a shifting of the goal posts), but I did ask you to provide evidence for the other three. To date, you haven't provided any evidence for claims 1, 3, or 4; not a single sentence from any of the relevant scholarly literature, or indeed from any other source.

(and btw-you provide one book on religious studies and I'll provide one scholarly review...

I provided about a dozen standard reference sources. You didn't provide a single item of scholarly literature which contradicted anything they said. In fact you didn't cite a word of scholarship in response to any of them.

[Charlie Phillips]

Heaven or hell is what you make it, here on earth and in your lifetime. It's a choice.

Love one another and go in peace, amen.

[bob]

Two thousand years ago a guy was walking around claiming to be God's son. He probably spoke arameic much of the time, but also greek and hebrew. Nothing of what he said was written down at the time, and we don't know who eventually wrote the gospels (the story of the life of jesus) but we do know that they didn't start until (lets be generous) about sixty years after he died, and we do know that it was written in Greek. Some three hundred or so years after that it was finally decided what would be included in the "Bible" and the text was translated again, this time into Latin. The church held on to that version until the middle ages when it was finally translated into English, and then eventually into hundreds of different languages. All of this supposedly happened as a result of inspiration from God, but what we now appear to be discovering is that it was VERY badly translated.

So here is the kicker, if you believe that the original versions were inspired by god (and there are literally THOUSANDS of reasons you would NOT believe that) how is that God suddenly got so lazy that he allowed versions to exist that have been steering people down the garden path for the following seventeen hundred years? It isn't as though the impact has been insubstantial.

There are only two ways out of this mess. One is to believe that God is a lazy, sinister bastard and the other is to admit that likely NONE of it is the actual word of God.

What is truly extraordinary is that it is still neccessary to even make these arguments.

[Fortigurn]

Two thousand years ago a guy was walking around claiming to be God's son. He probably spoke arameic much of the time, but also greek and hebrew. Nothing of what he said was written down at the time, and we don't know who eventually wrote the gospels (the story of the life of jesus) but we do know that they didn't start until (lets be generous) about sixty years after he died, and we do know that it was written in Greek. Some three hundred or so years after that it was finally decided what would be included in the "Bible" and the text was translated again, this time into Latin. The church held on to that version until the middle ages when it was finally translated into English, and then eventually into hundreds of different languages. All of this supposedly happened as a result of inspiration from God, but what we now appear to be discovering is that it was VERY badly translated.

So here is the kicker, if you believe that the original versions were inspired by god (and there are literally THOUSANDS of reasons you would NOT believe that) how is that God suddenly got so lazy that he allowed versions to exist that have been steering people down the garden path for the following seventeen hundred years? It isn't as though the impact has been insubstantial.

There are only two ways out of this mess. One is to believe that God is a lazy, sinister bastard and the other is to admit that NONE of it is inspired.

And bob will be back with more false dichotomies and logical fallacies, after the break.