Hill Giant's page

While I believe that the physical act of lying, to use an example, affects the soul, I do not believe that this affect is measurable with instruments.

Everything is measurable. Perhaps not to mathematical levels, but anything that exists can be said to either be there or not there. Take love, for example, a thing often described as intangible. But in truth, it's a set of action, and whether or not someone says 'I love you', you can tell where love is based on the action taken by the people involved, even if you can't measure "how much" love is there. If the soul exists, you can show me where it exists and where it doesn't, and how you know that. If lying affects the soul, you can show me the effects lying has on the soul.

However, I think the reason you say the soul is immaterial is because you can't find it. And the reason you can't find it is because you are begging the question. You're assuming the soul exists as a separate thing from the body. In my experience, the mind/body/soul trichotomy is an artifact. They are in fact one and the same. Everything that people describe as the soul has clear physical origins, without resorting to the influence of an alternate dimension.

If a soul affects and is affected by physical reality (and if you can say that it is, then that is measurable, even if its just a binary measurement), then it can be said to be physical. If you want me to believe in a soul, you're going to have to start at the beginning: What is the nature of this alternate universe wherein the souls reside? And don't give me this line about it being immeasurable, because that's hogwash.

Personal believes aside, I must admit I am intrigued to know what evidence you have experienced that convinces you of the absence of a soul. Death? Meditation? Bad Drug Trip?

Gah, no. What's convinced me? Science. I accept the existence of irrational ratios (the apparent oxymoron here is an artifact of the English language), which although they cannot physically exist in and of themselves (being infinite) do exert influence on on the physical world (viz the many reoccurances of pi and phi in nature).

If the soul is, as you say, immaterial, if it can be said to exist it must exert influence on physical reality, results that can be measured (much as pi can be approximated). I was going to ask if you can show such evidence, but first I have two questions to clarify your position before I continue:

1) Do physical actions affect the soul?

2) Is each person's soul unique?

The resurrection of the dead is the central message of the gospel. There is a hereafter and you need to prepare for it properly. One of the things needed to prepare is faith.

There's the rub. The evidence I've experienced points against there being a personal afterlife. So, "be excellent to each other" seems to me a message of supreme importance. And while I would like to leave a respectable subjective afterlife, I have no spirit independent of this world, so why should I worry about it?

But my point was that every religion feels it has a handle on the truth more than the others, whether they are similar or not. Even your belief (or non-belief) subtly maintains that claim. After all, if you believe I am wrong in my theology, you are making the claim that you know something I don't. In that exchange, we might be good friends, but one of us is incorrect. One of us has a monopoly on truth over the other.

I do think you're absolutely wrong about certain subjects. It think everyone is wrong about something. I can state for a fact that I have the wrong idea about one or more things. I just don't know what those things are. And I can never rid myself of ignorance, because I am just one person. So, we can always learn more. Observation can only take one so far. If we're to really approach the truth, we have to compare notes. That's what we're doing here. That's why sciences demands peer review. And that's why I say no one has a monopoly on truth. But they might have an expertise in one area.

I am curious, why would you reject the notion that anyone has a grasp on the truth. Is it because you don't believe there is a truth? Or because you don't consider its pursuit worthwhile?

No, quite the opposite. Concepts like truth and perfection are irrational, but not in the everyday meaning of that word. I mean irrational in the mathematical sense, like pi. Nothing can every match the ratio of pi, because pi is infinite and the observable universe is finite. But many, many things approach pi, from circles to circuitry to winding rivers. We can estimate these irrational numbers because they are, as the chaoticians call them, strange attractors.

We can never be omniscient or omnibenevelont, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to to approach these ideals. These too are strange attractors. And just as in mathematics there are many equally valid (or differently flawed) ways to approach them.

This is also why I've suggested previously in this thread that God wanted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge and, as his agent Lucifer says, become like unto God, because striving to be ominscient and omnibenevelent (though it is ultimately impossible) is the goal of any worthwhile religion.

Any religion, including having no religion, feels it has a monopoly on truth.

I don't think there's such as thing as 'no religion', but given that everyone either has a religion or no religion, your assertion here is basically that people are inherently hubristic. I disagree. My own personal religion (secular, doubt-based, pluralistic, syncretism) rejects the notion that anyone, anywhere has a monopoly on truth. (That which could be described as being omniscient can't rightly be called an "anyone".)

Some of my best friends are clones.

What I am saying is that a person can make up their mind, but that a self reinforcing group will have trouble coming to a different conclusion than that which they've already decided.

Ah, agreed. Every world view has its orthodoxy.

I just don't get why you have to restrict your self to one (set of) book(s). :-)

He religiously takes to the idea that mankind can think for itself, however.

Are you saying that mankind can't think for itself? That's a rather depressing view.

Sure, The Jade claims to be a vegan, but just check out his profile page: The Jade

How is urination any more indecent than say to men kissing in public? Urination is a natural process, just like for example breast feeding, you aren't going to say that breast feeding indecent are you? No, if we accept that men kissing in public is not indecent because it is natural, why not allow urination in public as well or defecation, it is all just natural stuff. You don't like it, don't look, nobody is making you. Stupid puritans.

Public urination is unhygienic. I'm OK with public displays of affection, but it your PDA also results in bodily fluids on the street, it's probably indecent. :-)

Science is based on evidence, while religion is based on faith, which are two opposing concepts.

I wouldn't say opposing, just applicable in different situations. :-)

You can't always rely on science, because some things are unknowable. And you can't always rely on faith, because what is known is changing.

I don't want science in my religion, and I don't want religion in my science.

Hmm, I'm the opposite. I want my morality informed by observation and analysis; and I want my science applied with morality (which I believe was what Einstein was getting at).

(As for politics, I would like to see it informed by observation, analysis, and morality, but certainly not the other way around.)