Thread: God is Absolute

^^ Good points, including the one about drifting off topic. But as long as we're still at sea:

I'm not sure we would even need to agree on what a soul is to discuss it...the idea of a soul seems so embedded in our collective memory that, even if we have different personal definitions of what it is, we would still understand what we are denying or believing, and our arguments would very likely be understood (that sounded a lot better in my head).

Also:

Originally Posted by Hunter491

... however still there is no scientific evidence of this "soul"... So we can logically rule this out until some real, concrete evidence shows up.

Yes, by its nature science must have empirical evidence before it can call something real. But do the rest of us? If that were the case, then, say, LD'ing would have gone the route of the soul until the 1980's. There are plenty of things, I think, that exist just fine in spite of the fact that science has yet to add them to the list of the things it can explain; the soul might just be one of them.

Originally Posted by TheApprentice

And isn't it dangerous to rule stuff out just because there's no proof? I'm not a scientist but isn't having an open mind the only way science can expand? Adamant denial without proof is just as dangerous as adamant belief without proof. You hypothesise that something is true and then you go and prove it. Maybe I mistook what you meant though.

I agree that it isn't appropriate to rule something out just because there isn't any proof for it. If someone claims something doesn't exist or can't because there isn't evidence for it, they are guilty of making an argument from ignorance. The same can be said for anyone that claims something does exist and because the other side's party can't provide evidence that it doesn't, it must exist--they're two sides of the same coin. A lot of people who claim to be atheist and are proponents of science and the scientific method are actually guilty of this as often as religious or anti-evolution proponents are. In this case, it seems like Hunter491 is one of those people, but it's apparent that English isn't his first language so that could be the problem. For instance, his opening statement in the thread was:

Originally Posted by Hunter491

Sorry to break it to you, but there are no gods.
No Alllah, no YAHWE and no Zeus.

Nobody can actually know if that's true or not, and to be an atheist and make that claim only gives the religious more ammunition. It gives them the mistaken impression that atheists believe that God or gods in any form cannot and do not exist. Atheists simply have a disbelief in God or gods in any form. They do not make a positive claim that gods do not exist. The moment somebody does, the burden of proof is on them. In which case, both the religious have the burden of proof when it comes to proving God exists, and "atheists" have the burden of proof to prove that he doesn't. The only way somebody can be making a negative claim is to simply not believe in Gods (as a personal choice), not to assert that they can't and don't. This is why so many religious people form strawmen arguments, it's because half the time somebody is going around being that strawman. It aggravates me more when I see people on the side of science that do this kind of stuff, and not just on the topic of God. It gives a bad impression of the scientific community, and it means they don't even fully know what they believe or why they believe in it. The necessary skepticism is just left behind and you're left with somebody babbling and repeating buzzwords and buzztopics in cheap imitation of the real thing. Unfortunately these people are the most verbose and it's who people who are against science or are very religious see and hear, even though these people don't make up the majority of the scientifically literate community (of course, this kind of thing happens in literally every community).

I know I've gotten really, really off-topic here now, but I had to get that out. If we look at the idea of souls and seeing spirits objectively, it's possible. It's just there isn't really any evidence for it at all, and there's a lengthy history humans have of mistaking things for the supernatural and giving what they saw and experienced more significance than it should have gotten. There are all kinds of ways to explain what happened with Dreamwalkwr. There are so many factors at play and everything... the idea that it really was a spirit/supernatural phenomenon just isn't very likely. I know you feel it's 100% real, and I don't mean to undermine your experience, but there are so, so many things that people experience that they believe are 100% real, and they are utterly convinced of it, and it turns out to not be what it seemed.

I would love to know what you think may have happened to explain my experience because I wasn't drinking or doing drugs and so far I don't have any explanations. There is as you say the possibility it is exactly what I believe it was. That's the problem though, until someone personally experiences these sort of things they will never be able to believe in them.

God is within you and the "church" temple is your body.

Hunter,
How is your search progressing?
Much Love