I always have one theory.

I think there's very likely there is a god/supreme entity, one that has the power to perform large scale miracles, foresee the future etc but never all powerful (since it's logically impossible), and it did in human history planted the seeds for various religions, leaving scattered clues and artifacts for potential religious followers to put together their believes.


It's a test for everyone, to see how much we trust our own intelligence and our ability to have a free will, how we manage to merge faith and logic into one and have a broader view of our world. How we stood up with something so powerful and so real with self believe and value, without turning into a blind follower or someone who blindly disbelieve. And most importantly, how we can look beyond the various bibles in their face values and figure out ways to accomodate different faith and opinion.

So there's no hell, no afterlife, no need to freak out if someone really discover Noah's ark and put it in the British Museum, and you don't need to listen to those butthead christian fundamentalists, because although individual thought is not perfect/sinless, it's how we are ought to be, and we are never expected to be perfect, or play to one straight value that even our little mind can see won't accommodate most of us.

Quote from lizardfolk :

Good response Woz. What you describe is actually how most Christians sees God. They dont see God as a puppet master, because Christians believe humans have the free will to make decisions. Based on the Christian ideology, this enables us to love and be loved by God. This also gives us responsibilities when we sin.

That's along the right lines, but i'll try to sharpen it up for ya'

The bible actually says that the free will it offers is, you have a choice to do what god says or not. When you give your life to Jesus, you're supposed to do exactly that. Give him your life, complete control, your opinion, desires, needs, wants, feelings, thoughts, emotions, time, body, money, indeed everything you are, everything you were, everything you'll ever be, is now HIS. You have no say in it at all. It's up to God what he does with you and your life. BUT, he gives the believer the 'free will', or the choice, whether to accept this or not, and the choice of how much of one's life they give to God.

However, it's made very apparent that if you do hold back on him and choose not to accept his will in your life then you have to pay the consequences. It's not so much a case of you having responsibilities when you sin, rather you will reap punishment whether you like it or not, or to put it another way, have to face the consequences of that sin in your life regardless. The bible very clearly states "The consequences of sin is death", now that's a way to keep the flock obedient if there ever was one ! Tough love indeed !

N.B. The biblical definition of sin is "anything that grieves the Spirit" i.e the Holy Spirit, i.e. The Spirit of God, i.e God and anything that goes against his will.

Many christians believe that the 'free will' thing means God will cover their backs and they won't have to face any punishment when they choose to ignore him and go their own way, i.e grace. But it don't mean that at all, not at all...Grace only comes into operation when you confess that sin, ask for forgiveness and repent from that sin (repent is a verb, it requires an action to be of any value) plus that repentance must be sincere, otherwise it don't mean a thing, not to an all knowing all seeing god. Apparently you can't pull the wool over Gods eyes Although many multimillionaire TV evangelists seem to think they can !

Quote from wien :

Why? What's rational about believing god just stepped in and made use think and feel? That's more or less the polar opposite of rational. How do you reason your way to such a conclusion when there's absolutely no evidence to support it. You're taking it on faith alone. That's not rational.

umm actually why can't the notion of god and darwinism go hand in hand. On Darwin's side we can see traces of evolution takes place, and on god's side we see a mostly intelligent selection process. Surely a single cell bacteria can't figure out how to grow a leg by itself, and god won't grab a handful of dirt and mass produce organisms in every level of the foodchain in one go. So maybe god is just a self learning being with a sandbox of genetic materials, which he doesn't 100% understand himself, or even, he is himself a result from the sandbox from a different dimension.

Feel free to combine religion with Darwinism, but then it's no longer science, and for me worthless. For me to accept the concept of "God", you'll have to provide me with proof that there is such a thing. If you can't I'd rather leave the question unanswered and instead focus on things we can prove or disprove. I'm not going to take something on faith just because it's handy when explaining certain aspects of our own existence. That's just not rational behaviour.

I think faith is very logical, it's just a mechanism to stop us going nuts when we can't explain stuff with logic alone, so we can continue life instead of breaking into a terminal BSOD.

Quote from Woz :

First you shout me down for saying there could be "Little green men" (Your words not mine BTW) and now you do a complete backtrack and admit that given the size of the universe there could be life on other planets.

Sorry I didn't mean to shout you down for your comment. LOL in fact, i may have spun it out of context a little.
You wouldn't believe how many people out there that believe in ghosts and witchcraft, and UFOs and in the same sentence stating their beliefs will say there is no proof of God - based on Scientific reasoning.

And I was playing Devil's advocate when I said there could be life elsewhere You know, because there actually could be. I just seriously doubt it. at least not yet.
You talked about the universe being so old. In a relative sense - is it really? Is it so hard to think that our planet could be one of the firsts to develop a successful bioshpere?

And yeah, If we ran out of electricity, a lot of people would die out, but that would fall under catastrophies, wouldn't it?
plus even if that were to happen, there would be those out there that wouldn't know how to hunt or make fire, but they would be able to force the ones that do to do it for them.
Those greedy, corrupt and violent members of our race Hankstar pointed out would play a vital part in it's survival if shit was to hit the fan. (LOL sociopaths are evolutionary "fail safe" devices)
But I prefer to think optimistically, that every cloud has a silver lining. And that those types of people or that line of thought would become obsolete and they would fade out.

Uhhh I'm in the process of Moving (outta the hood yaayy!!!) I gotta go

Quote from JJ72 :

I think faith is very logical, it's just a mechanism to stop us going nuts when we can't explain stuff with logic alone, so we can continue life instead of breaking into a terminal BSOD.

Heh, I seem to be doing all right with the concept. I'm fine with having a few unknowns out there, and I don't even think my chip has fried as a result. To me the lack of an apparent logical explanation is an invite to investigate, to find out more, not to invent explanations to keep your existing world-view intact. I know that's human nature, and it may have served us well through our development as a species, but I'd rather like for us to move on now.

Quote from somasleep :

I never said God controls us. Like you, I believe in "free will." But I recognize that free will MUST be supernatural for it to be truly free. If a man's choice to pull a trigger and murder is just the same sort of complex physics that causes a tornado to destroy a home then why get angry? Everything is physics and we are, I guess, observers of murders and tornados--totally helpless to change any of it.

So just because the absolute truth is that we are completely material then we are helpless to choose and do as we wish? This doesn't even make sense. In fact, if the absolute truth is that there are supernatural beings out there then there's a better chance of us being powerless, not the other way around. If a evil spirit possessed you, then we will be "observers of murders". But if everything's physics it's all the more reason to intervene and live out the most in life which means you have a better chance of having free will in a pure material world because there's no chance that something external or hidden will be controlling you. How you manage to flip flop this is beyond me.

Quote from somasleep :

Like you I believe I am a free being. Which necessarily means that there is something about me that is supernatural.

There's a difference between having free will and having the power of God (in other words doing what you wish). You have free will but you ARE NOT supernatural because you cant do what you wish and you are bound by responsibilities.

Quote from somasleep :

The overwhelming majority of human beings believe that there is something supernatural about man. Call it a soul or a spirit or whatever. So, it makes sense to believe that these supernatural qualities have always existed. It makes sense that we came from something that is very much like us. Something that can make free choices, something conscious--God.

Ya, it's called an egocentricism...and based on psychology if you are egocentric there's a high chance you will have biased views which means any opinion you have on yourself is not 100% valid unless you start considering alternatives to your views. (unfortunately most humans follow this tendency). I admit I'm guilty of this myself, but that doesn't mean we cant reflect on our own views.

Let me put it this way. If a crazy man keeps saying to himself that he can teleport. Will it become true just because he tells himself that?

Quote from somasleep :

Most people spend so much energy criticizing the idea of God--and there are many valid questions and criticism--but they spend little time questioning materialism.

Because materialism makes sense and religion doesn't always makes sense.

Quote from somasleep :

The alternative is to believe that we are puppets and physics (quantum mechanics, chemistry, biology, chaos theory, etc...) is the puppet master.

Let me ask you one thing....can you fly? No I dont think so. Regardless we are bound by the laws of physics and until we start defying nature (which I doubt will happen anytime soon) then I'm willing to say that there's nothing too special about us except that we are the most developed in the noggin.

Quote from somasleep :

...and please don't respond by criticizing the idea of God without first explaining how free beings can exist in a world view without god(s).

Think of a world like ours except with no religion. That's basically it.

Quote from somasleep :

But I find that most atheistic intellectuals would rather jump down the rabbit hole by denying that they are free agents. To which I respond, "What is the point of you trying to convince me that we have no free will if I don't have the free will to change my mind and agree with you?"

Umm ya....idk what kind of intellectuals you talk to. But I have yet to meet an intellectual (who's an athiest) who thinks that we do not have free will....

It's normally religious fanatics similar to Calvinism that always try to convince me that we do not have free will because there's something supernatural that controls us. Not the other way around

[OT]

This thread reminds me of those people who knock on your door and try to talk you into joining their faith, or stand in town with bible in hand, shouting sins at you when you walk past.

[/OT]

Quote from somasleep :

I never said God controls us. Like you, I believe in "free will." But I recognize that free will MUST be supernatural for it to be truly free. If a man's choice to pull a trigger and murder is just the same sort of complex physics that causes a tornado to destroy a home then why get angry? Everything is physics and we are, I guess, observers of murders and tornados--totally helpless to change any of it.

Like you I believe I am a free being. Which necessarily means that there is something about me that is supernatural.

The overwhelming majority of human beings believe that there is something supernatural about man. Call it a soul or a spirit or whatever. So, it makes sense to believe that these supernatural qualities have always existed. It makes sense that we came from something that is very much like us. Something that can make free choices, something conscious--God.

Most people spend so much energy criticizing the idea of God--and there are many valid questions and criticism--but they spend little time questioning materialism.

Of course you can believe that a number of free beings have always existed. But to me the idea of a single free being from wich all other free beings came to be makes more sense.

The alternative is to believe that we are puppets and physics (quantum mechanics, chemistry, biology, chaos theory, etc...) is the puppet master.

...and please don't respond by criticizing the idea of God without first explaining how free beings can exist in a world view without god(s).

But I find that most atheistic intellectuals would rather jump down the rabbit hole by denying that they are free agents. To which I respond, "What is the point of you trying to convince me that we have no free will if I don't have the free will to change my mind and agree with you?"

I take it the "lower" animals have no soul then? Only man is supernatural, not animals? Strange because I have seen all the same emotions, fears and joys in the eyes of animals as I do in humans.

It is simple to underdtand there is no supernatural when you look at the brain. It is a super computer that can process complex problems and can re-wire and change its own structures to route past damaged areas of the body etc.

I almost lost a finger 20 years ago that required micro surgery. The finger has never "felt" the same since as they just reconnect any old nerves together but the brain re-wires around this and on the whole it now functions as any other finger I have. The strange feel comes from the fact the brain had compiled 20 years of experience about the finger before the damage so it always digs up a little confilt in results when it comes to that finger, it has some bad data

The brain also runs complex what if scenarios (thought) and has huge array of storage. Whenever you approach a situation it is pulling in all the required info from storage and playing what if to deal with possible problems etc. Your free will is what of those options you decide to act on.

As experience programs the brain that explains why we are all different, nobody has lived the same life.

I would argue that the number of people that believe in supernatural is nowhere near as high as you believe and is falling as time passes. And as for not questioning, I alway question.

Now we get to your supernatural view, lets call it a soul. Lets explore this a little

Is there a finite number of souls? If they are finite does that mean once they are all used up no more humans can be created. Does that mean humans can no longer get pregnent or does it just result in the birth of still born human bodies without the soul to make them work.

If there is not a finite number how are they created and when does heaven become full? Heaven will feel less and less heaven like as it starts to fill up and overcrowd. Or is that why the universe is expanding so make more space for heaven so over crowding is no longer a problem?

Then we get to the fact that people in cold environments can be revived from death hours after death because the cooling of the body halts the instant decay that starts at the pointof death. So does the soul wait around a bit to see if it might get thouwn back into the body or does it just leave and then get dragged back from heaven and hell if revived?

BTW: We react to murder because as we have free will (Our choice of actions) then most of thee time we have the choice not to kill. I say most of the time because anybody that has ever felt the full force of the fight flight response will know that you will kill given the right stimuli.

The way our society is configured though is such that we have decided killing is wrong (apart from some situations) and so people should use their free will not to kill if they want to live in the society. This is the same as the commandments from the bible. Its just the bible uses the fear of god to control while our laws use prison or death penalty etc to control.

The bible is just from a time when our current form of law and society would not operate so other "controls" were required.



BTW: As a side note. It is good this topic has not fallen into a slagging match but has kept a good tone on all sides. Something that is rare on subjects like

Quote from Woz :

The brain also runs complex what if scenarios (thought) and has huge array of storage. Whenever you approach a situation it is pulling in all the required info from storage and playing what if to deal with possible problems etc. Your free will is what of those options you decide to act on.

If all matter behaves according to natural law and if human beings are purely material it follows that our choices are also a result of natural laws.

You cannot have free will if everything is matter and all matter behaves according to natural law.

And no, I cannot fly. I cannot violate the laws of gravity. I am not free to fly, but that's not what free WILL is about. I can will to fly. I want to fly. I can even close my eyes and day dream about flying at will. That's what free will is.

The freedom of the human will doesn't fit into the materialistic world view.

So, what do you do? The intellectual who does not want to admit that there are things that cannot be explained will choose to deny free will. However, most human beings do what makes sense, they reject materialism.

They reject the idea that EVERYTHING is material and behaves according to natural law. They believe that human beings have a supernatural aspect that cannot be explained.

My point is not convince anyone that there is a God. If you want to believe you're a giant biological supercomputer then that's fine with me--compute away. I only wanted to show that there are very rational reasons to believe in God.

Quote from somasleep :

If all matter behaves according to natural law and if human beings are purely material it follows that our choices are also a result of natural laws.

You cannot have free will if everything is matter and all matter behaves according to natural law.

And no, I cannot fly. I cannot violate the laws of gravity. I am not free to fly, but that's not what free WILL is about. I can will to fly. I want to fly. I can even close my eyes and day dream about flying at will. That's what free will is.

The freedom of the human will doesn't fit into the materialistic world view.

So, what do you do? The intellectual who does not want to admit that there are things that cannot be explained will choose to deny free will. However, most human beings do what makes sense, they reject materialism.

They reject the idea that EVERYTHING is material and behaves according to natural law. They believe that human beings have a supernatural aspect that cannot be explained.

My point is not convince anyone that there is a God. If you want to believe you're a giant biological supercomputer then that's fine with me--compute away. I only wanted to show that there are very rational reasons to believe in God.

Based on you description sciences such as chemistry, physics and especially psychology cannot exist. Sure, we all have basic tendencies that follow the law of nature. However, materialism never said we had to cooperate with them. People feel stage fear and yet they go on stage anyway. Our chemical balances determine our mood but we CAN choose to act against it. This is free will and this is hardly supernatural. It is merely something that comes with intelligence.

Also, people are more willing to believe science than religion if you haven't noticed and if you do pay close attention to the responses from this thread people have gave ample valid reasons for this.

Quote from somasleep :

If all matter behaves according to natural law and if human beings are purely material it follows that our choices are also a result of natural laws.

You cannot have free will if everything is matter and all matter behaves according to natural law.

The brain is a chemical based device that drives the body but why does that stop free will?

So if humans have this "soul" you talk about what about other animals? Something like a dog must have? Mouse? Snake? What is the cutoff point and if a snake does have a soul does a snake go to heaven?

Quote from lizardfolk :

Sure, we all have basic tendencies that follow the law of nature. However, materialism never said we had to cooperate with them.

Of course it does. Anything that defies (does not cooperate) with the laws of nature is supernatural by definition.

You are right that if we always behaved according to natural law there would be no free will.

Quote from Woz :

The brain is a chemical based device that drives the body but why does that stop free will?

Because you're saying that your brain behaves according to the laws of chemistry. So, when you make a choice it's because of chemistry. It's not really because one choice is better or more reasonable than another. It's just chemistry.

There was a lawyer who used to argue that his clients shouldn't be held responsible for their crimes because we all behave according to biological and physical laws. So, the only difference between the Jury members and the criminal was luck.

Quote from somasleep :

How do you measure how you felt the moment you first kissed a girl? How do you scientifically prove you are in love? What equations of quantum mechanics explain the way a mother with a son in Iraq feels when she sees two somber looking soldiers at her doorstep?

current lack of explanations can never and will never disprove science as the very basis of science is that its theories can change, evolve, or be disproven at any time if something new is discovered

Quote :

When you insist on only believing only in what can be proven scientifically, then not only does God not exist but human beings don't exist either.

afaik there are ~6.000.000.000 of us... surely that will hold up to any standard of rigour

Quote :

If everything is the laws of physics then people are just puppets controlled by the same puppet master (natural laws).

determinism has been discounted when the randomness of quantum physics and chaos theory came around... keep up

Quote from Woz :

Or is that why the universe is expanding so make more space for heaven so over crowding is no longer a problem?

interesting... i guess at this stage the exponential rise of population is just as good of an explanation as dark energy
to quote pratchett "nowadays only cosmologists and particle physicists are allowed to invent new kinds of matter when they want to explain why their theories fail to match observed reality


on a side note:
admitedly i havent followed that conjecture much so it might be discounted by now but a while ago a few people reserching brain activity found that the higher up concious bits of our brain start working only after we do something
chances are our conciousness soul whatever is only rationalizing what we do instead of deciding to do it

Quote from somasleep :

Of course it does. Anything that defies (does not cooperate) with the laws of nature is supernatural by definition.

You are right that if we always behaved according to natural law there would be no free will.

Because you're saying that your brain behaves according to the laws of chemistry. So, when you make a choice it's because of chemistry. It's not really because one choice is better or more reasonable than another. It's just chemistry.

There was a lawyer who used to argue that his clients shouldn't be held responsible for their crimes because we all behave according to biological and physical laws. So, the only difference between the Jury members and the criminal was luck.

You see, the difference between you and me is that you appear to think that free will is some product of a supernatural state. I completely disagree and I say that free will is the result of a complex and developed intelligence.

If reptiles developed instead of mammals, I'm willing to bet that they would be here discussing this while we'd be in zoos. Thus there is no "reserved divine right" for humans. Does this mean having a certain amount of intelligence equate to supernatural status? I personally believe no.

Also, the difference between a jury and a criminal is that the criminal used his intelligence to harm others instead of using it for other productive means. Since he COULD have used his intelligence for better conduct, he is responsible for his actions. The fact that we have enough intelligence to critically analyze a situation and access a solution is free will and should not be considered as some random anomaly that's attributed to God.

Emotion is not an intelligence, it is a personal instinct that our genes map out (therefore different between everyone). Animals have emotion but most animals do not the the intelligence to go against their instinct (the few exceptions are dolphin, monkeys and monitor lizards). We have the ability to go against our instincts because our instincts do not always accurately assess our situation. We now use our intelligence to do this (which is free will) and the fact that our intelligence is great enough for us to make critical choices is within the law of nature and hardly defies it

If something, lets say a dog, suddenly stands up and speaks english, then I would say that would be supernatural because this is something that defies the law of nature (in which the dog's brain scientifically isn't sophisticated enough to process human activities). But we as humans have advanced to the stage where we have the ability of free will. The fact that we have free will is not the result of some God given talent, but more rather the result of our "advance" stage of development compared to other creatures here on Earth

There's a rule in psychology in which: the more advance a being is the more chance of deviation that being has. I dont know if free will is considered a deviation, but it is something that only we as humans have. Therefore it is accurate to say that free will (the ability to think for ourselves) is more likely the result of physical evolution. It is not something that just randomly happened, but progressed over time. We didn't "defy" nature and suddenly became smart. In fact, we're kinda forced into it.

Quote from Woz :

The brain is a chemical based device that drives the body but why does that stop free will?

So if humans have this "soul" you talk about what about other animals? Something like a dog must have? Mouse? Snake? What is the cutoff point and if a snake does have a soul does a snake go to heaven?

Exactly, everything we do has a physical consequence. Just think of the chemicals as the result of your thinking.

By Christian theory animals are properties of God and thus should be treated with respect. There is blatant contradiction between this and animal sacrifice and the Bibles puts the blame on snakes for all the evil in the world. A church where I live next to in Hawaii here makes a good stand against it arguing that Satan TOOK the form of a snake and was only ONE snake. While snakes and reptiles in general are not evil minions of Satan. Reptiles are generally enemies of mammals, but that's just evolution. (This is one church I respect)

you're all going to hell

Quote from Shotglass :

current lack of explanations can never and will never disprove science as the very basis of science is that its theories can change, evolve, or be disproven at any time if something new is discovered

If science explains why you chose to not believe in God then your choice wasn't free was it? It's contradictory to say that one day science will "explain" free will.

Quote from Shotglass :

determinism has been discounted when the randomness of quantum physics and chaos theory came around... keep up

That's true but saying we behave randomly doesn't help. So we make decisions based on a coin flips?

Quote :

Also, the difference between a jury and a criminal is that the criminal used his intelligence to harm others instead of using it for other productive means.

The brain is a neural network. It has memory. It is trained by reward and success. Your brain is trained by your environment. Your environment is controlled by the laws of physics.

You do not have any choice of the brain you were born with and you do not have any choice about the environment your brain was trained in.

Clearly, you have no control over your intelligence so when did the criminal have a choice? Intelligence and free will are completely different things.

Anyway, I think we are at an impass.

Soma... ANSWER THE QUESTION...

Are there a finite number of souls? If yes what happens when they are all used up and if not how does heaven not fill up and what keeps making them?

Also do animals go to heaven and at what level is they cutoff. If there is no cutoff then even the most simple "lifeform" gets to heaven?

If animals have a soul then are they not equal beings apart from just form?

Looking back on the question on whether religion causes wars or not, I think this thread is a quite interesting example in showing how fierce and passionate the discussion about it can get. It's hard to find any other topic that causes so many circular arguments and ignoring of an other person's statements than religion. Now, what is pretty civil in a small circle between intelligent people, seems to have mainly one result when the mob mentality is added: conflict. Granted, conflict is always an issue in an ours vs. theirs topic (LFS vs. rFactor :tilt, but religion for some reason is so deeply indoctrinated into the people's lives and the mob sizes are so big that the result is more often than not a rather ugly one.


On the question of free will as a supernatural gift, I think the combination of what has created free will - sentience & high intelligence - is just another asset in life's ultimate goal: survival. For us it might have created lots of questions about for example the reason of existence and similar, but viewed on a larger scale it was an ingenious step on nature's behalf of increasing survivability of a species. Suddenly we have no natural enemies left, besides maybe diseases and ourselves. And if we make proper use of our intelligence, even those should be no problem.

As to why there is life and why its goal is supposedly survival, the latter is just a logical conclusion on what we can see in our environment. Every form of life on our dear planet seems to in some way or another develop strategies and put as much effort as possible into survival, so I think we can safely assume that survival is the "goal." Asking for a reason is merely a by product of our sentience, nothing more than a man made problem of wanting to know a reason for everything.
The former is maybe a point where you could insert something like a god or external influence, though we're coming closer and closer to creating synthetic life ourselves, meaning that god will probably fall flat on that one rather soon and be replaced with the right chemicals being at the right place in the right conditions. IMO the only place where you can legitimately insert or assume something like a divine being is the creation of existence itself - why is there a universe and why does it work like it works. However, asserting that this 'whatever' has a direct influence on humanity or even on our day to day life is extremely egoistical and considering scientific observations extremely irrational.

Personally I can accept not knowing how or why something is like it is, or at least I'd rather admit to not knowing than making up an entirely fictitious explanation like a god. Once there is scientific evidence for a god I'm open to it, but as of now there's no reason to actively believe in one. And to why I believe in the scientific method - it's because when I rationally and reasonably examine the options I have, science is the one that returns by far the universally most accurate results and explanations while at the same time having no fear of correcting itself once new evidence is found, as compared to religion which has been proven wrong countless times in the past and is more or less stuck on one outdated explanation that doesn't actually explain anything.

This is one of the best discussion in the off-topic section so far, in my opinion. I've been reading this thread since the beginning (pardon the pun), and so far I agree the most with Android.

I regularly think about this subject, and to me his explanation seems the most logical. Especially this line : Personally I can accept not knowing how or why something is like it is, or at least I'd rather admit to not knowing than making up an entirely fictitious explanation like a god.

That pretty much sums it up for me. Keep it up guys, I enjoy reading this thread

That is a very interesting video, Android. I had no idea Biology was that far in already, thanks for that! Amazing...

Quote from Woz :

I take it the "lower" animals have no soul then? Only man is supernatural, not animals? Strange because I have seen all the same emotions, fears and joys in the eyes of animals as I do in humans.

It is simple to underdtand there is no supernatural when you look at the brain. It is a super computer that can process complex problems and can re-wire and change its own structures to route past damaged areas of the body etc.

I almost lost a finger 20 years ago that required micro surgery. The finger has never "felt" the same since as they just reconnect any old nerves together but the brain re-wires around this and on the whole it now functions as any other finger I have. The strange feel comes from the fact the brain had compiled 20 years of experience about the finger before the damage so it always digs up a little confilt in results when it comes to that finger, it has some bad data

The brain also runs complex what if scenarios (thought) and has huge array of storage. Whenever you approach a situation it is pulling in all the required info from storage and playing what if to deal with possible problems etc. Your free will is what of those options you decide to act on.

As experience programs the brain that explains why we are all different, nobody has lived the same life.

I would argue that the number of people that believe in supernatural is nowhere near as high as you believe and is falling as time passes. And as for not questioning, I alway question.

Now we get to your supernatural view, lets call it a soul. Lets explore this a little

Is there a finite number of souls? If they are finite does that mean once they are all used up no more humans can be created. Does that mean humans can no longer get pregnent or does it just result in the birth of still born human bodies without the soul to make them work.

If there is not a finite number how are they created and when does heaven become full? Heaven will feel less and less heaven like as it starts to fill up and overcrowd. Or is that why the universe is expanding so make more space for heaven so over crowding is no longer a problem?

Then we get to the fact that people in cold environments can be revived from death hours after death because the cooling of the body halts the instant decay that starts at the pointof death. So does the soul wait around a bit to see if it might get thouwn back into the body or does it just leave and then get dragged back from heaven and hell if revived?

BTW: We react to murder because as we have free will (Our choice of actions) then most of thee time we have the choice not to kill. I say most of the time because anybody that has ever felt the full force of the fight flight response will know that you will kill given the right stimuli.

The way our society is configured though is such that we have decided killing is wrong (apart from some situations) and so people should use their free will not to kill if they want to live in the society. This is the same as the commandments from the bible. Its just the bible uses the fear of god to control while our laws use prison or death penalty etc to control.

The bible is just from a time when our current form of law and society would not operate so other "controls" were required.



BTW: As a side note. It is good this topic has not fallen into a slagging match but has kept a good tone on all sides. Something that is rare on subjects like

Religion is the topic of drunkards and fools....
A soul, You know, that's a weird concept when you think about it. I don't think there's a standard for what a soul actually is. I mean apart from that it lives on after the body dies or something like that (remember, playing devil's advocate here).
Could a soul be a collection of an individual's experiences and memories and that somehow retains some sort of cohesion in a way we just don't know how to measure yet? And could this be the result of certain people's genetic coding with regards of how the brain chemistry actually works (the "elect")? Yeah, I know it's reaching, but I read one of the posts above that thought mixing science with religion was not a good thing to do. Really? Aside from "Intelligent Design Theory", I disagree. Should something that has bonded society so strongly be dismissed as just an advanced form of superstition and mixed up interpretations of the human psyche?

Like those friends of mine when experiencing something that they can't provide an immediate justification of it based on practical means will simply decide it's supernatural or whatever. And simply writing off something as non existent just because you can't measure it in the ways you have isn't too good either.
Sorta like walking up to a bolt and you have to loosen it, only you have a hammer. You can't loosen the bolt with the hammer, so you instantly conclude that there is no way to loosen the bolt. Period.
But in all honesty, apart from this thread, I really don't have time to ponder this. I'm moving!

Quote from somasleep :

If science explains why you chose to not believe in God then your choice wasn't free was it? It's contradictory to say that one day science will "explain" free will.

free will is your conjecture... i never claimed that it existed did i?
so unless you can give me some solid proof that it exists at all there no point in arguing whether or not science could find an explanation for it

Quote :

That's true but saying we behave randomly doesn't help. So we make decisions based on a coin flips?

how exactly does inventing an entitiy whos existance can neither be prover nor disproven help?

either way science has so far done a much better job at finding (semi) predictable patterns than thor mars aphrodite and the lot so i am inclined to choose the former when it comes to figuring out what the hell is going on

Quote from AndroidXP :

The former is maybe a point where you could insert something like a god or external influence, though we're coming closer and closer to creating synthetic life ourselves, meaning that god will probably fall flat on that one rather soon and be replaced with the right chemicals being at the right place in the right conditions.

bah especially the last question shows exactly why ted is just a bunch of egomaniacs smelling their own farts

Quote from AndroidXP :

On the question of free will as a supernatural gift, I think the combination of what has created free will - sentience & high intelligence - is just another asset in life's ultimate goal: survival. For us it might have created lots of questions about for example the reason of existence and similar, but viewed on a larger scale it was an ingenious step on nature's behalf of increasing survivability of a species. Suddenly we have no natural enemies left, besides maybe diseases and ourselves. And if we make proper use of our intelligence, even those should be no problem.

Yep, the most vital drives in human nature are...

1) Reproduce.
2) Make sure you stay alive to reproduce no matter what.

Once you have these coupled with the "super computer" that is the brain all things are possible.

Quote from Racer Y :

Like those friends of mine when experiencing something that they can't provide an immediate justification of it based on practical means will simply decide it's supernatural or whatever. And simply writing off something as non existent just because you can't measure it in the ways you have isn't too good either.
Sorta like walking up to a bolt and you have to loosen it, only you have a hammer. You can't loosen the bolt with the hammer, so you instantly conclude that there is no way to loosen the bolt. Period.
But in all honesty, apart from this thread, I really don't have time to ponder this. I'm moving!

I never write anything off but always look for what it is. Which is why I have been pushing Soma to expand on his beliefs so I can understand them. I want to understand his belief on souls and heaven to see what I make of them and so I can understand them.

Hence what might appear narky "Do animals have souls and what is the cutoff?". You see if animals have souls do they get to heaven and if they do does a main lion go to hell if he kills loads of animals. Remember we have the commandment "Thall shalt not kill". A male lion will kill all the cubs in a prode if it takes over so that all offspring is from him for example. That should be straight to hell no?

But in my 40 years of life I have not expereineced or found anything that is supernatural. Also nobody has proven there is anything supernatural.

There is even a guy in the States (Can't remember his name) that has $1mil up for grabs for anyone that can prove a whole range of stuff. He still has all his cash. This is NO proof for anything supernatural to date and it is not for people wanting to find it