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Another reader raised the issue about the evidence or rather the lack there of, of a human soul. I would like to share this small portion of “Does Science contradict Religion?”
From: Does Science contradict Religion?
By: Philip Vander Elst, Areopagus Ministries
The evidence for the soul and its link to God
(a) Even if there is no distinction between our ‘minds’ and our brains (as philosophical materialists believe), it does not prove the case for atheism since the human brain is far too complex a structure to have arisen by chance.
As Dr Michael Denton points out in his critique of evolution, the human brain, weighing just three pounds, has ten billion nerve cells, each sending out enough fibres to create a thousand million million connections.
That is equal to the number of leaves in a dense forest covering a million square miles. Is it credible that this extraordinarily complex biological and electro-chemical apparatus emerged by accident rather than as a result of intelligent design?
(b) The very nature of consciousness suggests that there is a difference between the mind and the brain. To begin with, mental states are not identical with brain states since neuroscientists cannot identify the emotions or attitudes of their patients simply by examining the physical events going on in their brains.
They can only discover whether these patients are happy or afraid, pessimistic or in love, by asking them what they are feeling. In other words, unlike physical phenomena, the world of thought and emotion can only be reached from the inside.
Secondly, our thoughts have an immaterial and transcendent quality which suggests that they are not simply physical entities or events inside our heads. My knowledge that 2 plus 2 equals 4, for instance, or that murder is wrong, does not have any particular shape, weight, or colour. Similarly, my ability to imagine that I am in Devon, sixteenth century London, or some mythical world of my own creation, is not hindered by the fact that my brain actually inhabits my body which at that particular moment is stuck in a lecture room in 21st century Oxford. Consequently, since our thought-life is invisible and not limited by space and time, there is every reason to believe that our minds are independent of our brains.
(c) Another metaphysically significant fact about human consciousness is our consciousness of our own identity. Our thought-life has a unified focus in the sense that we are aware of ourselves as the subjects of our own internal mental experience.
We see, hear, think, and feel. We are not simply a jumble of separate and unrelated thoughts, emotions, and perceptions. How then can our self-consciousness be simply the product of a mass of separate electro-chemical events in our brains?
To quote American scientist and philosopher, Professor J.P. Moreland:
“When you look around room, you see many things at the same time. You see a table, a couch, a wall, a painting in a frame. Every individual thing has light waves bouncing off it and they’re striking a different location in your eyeball and sparking electrical activity in a different region of the brain. That means there is no single part of the brain that is activated by all these experiences. Consequently, if I were simply my physical brain, I would be a crowd of different parts, each having its own awareness of a different piece of my visual field. But that’s not what happens. I’m a unified ‘I’ that has all of these experiences at the same time. There is something that binds all of these experiences and unifies them into the experience of oneself – me – even though there is no region of the brain that has all these activation sites. That’s because my consciousness and my ‘self’ are separate entities from the brain.”
(d) Philosophical and scientific materialists (or ‘physicalists’) typically argue that since death destroys and brain damage impairs mental function, our minds cannot be separate from our brains and therefore there is no reason to believe that we have souls.
But this is a very question-begging argument. If human beings are a composite of body and soul, it is obvious that death or disease will dissolve or injure this union of matter and spirit, but that still does not prove the truth of materialism (or physicalism). To believe that it does, is like saying that newsreaders and the human voice don’t exist because our ability to receive televised news bulletins is inevitably disrupted if our television set breaks down.
Furthermore, there is plenty of scientific evidence that there is a two-way ‘traffic’ between mind and brain. Our conscious attitudes and activities can alter our brain chemistry as well as being affected by it.
As Professor J.P. Moreland points out:
“For example, scientists have done studies of the brains of people who worried a lot, and found that this mental state of worry changed their brain chemistry. They’ve done studies of the brain patterns of little children who were not nurtured and loved, and their patterns are different from those of children who have warm experiences of love and nurture. So it’s not just the brain that causes things to happen in our conscious life; conscious states can also cause things to happen to the brain.”
(e) Another powerful argument against the physicalist view that minds are reducible to brains, concerns our ability to think. When we do so, for example, we inhabit a mental world of truths and falsehoods, but no brain state can be ‘true’ or ‘false’ since our brain states are not about anything. They are merely physical phenomena. This in turn raises a further difficulty for atheists and physicalists.
How can they explain our ability to reason and obtain knowledge, if our mental activity is solely determined by the physical structure of our brains? We do not, in ordinary conversation, accept the truth of any argument, if it can be shown to rely solely on whim, prejudice, self-interest, or any other non-rational factor. Similarly, we would not trust a print-out from a randomly programmed computer with no mind behind it.
But if atheism and physicalism are true, human beings are merely biochemical machines that have emerged by accident within a purposeless and impersonal material universe. This means that all our beliefs and reasonings are simply the inevitable and accidental by-product of a long chain of random, non-rational physical and chemical events.
How then can we attach any validity or significance to our thinking processes and values, including the arguments supporting atheism and physicalism?
As Professor J.B.S. Haldane, a famous British atheist and scientist, admitted as long ago as 1927:
“If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of the atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true…”
A similar and more recent comment has been made by Darwinist philosopher, Michael Ruse:
“Why should a bunch of atoms have thinking ability? Why should I, even as I write now, be able to reflect on what I am doing and why should you, even as you read now, be able to ponder my points, agreeing or disagreeing, with pleasure or pain, deciding to refute me or deciding that I am just not worth the effort? No one, certainly not the Darwinian as such, seems to have any answer to this…The point is that there is no scientific answer.”
(Can a Darwinian be a Christian? Oxford University Press, 2001, p.73).
(f) Our ability to think and know is not the only feature of human consciousness which cannot be explained by atheists and physicalists. They are equally unable to account for our possession of free will. Although free will may be limited or influenced by heredity and environment, we obviously do possess it since it is self-contradictory to deny its existence. Just as we cannot ‘know’ that we know nothing, so we cannot be ‘free’ to decide that we are not free agents.
In addition, our freedom to weigh options and choose between alternatives, whether we are job-hunting or selecting food in a supermarket, is constantly confirmed by our own internal experience. But if the reality of free will is undeniable, how can it be reconciled with the physical determinism implicit in the worldview of atheism and physicalism?
How can we be free to shape our lives and be creative, if all our thoughts and choices are solely determined by our biochemistry and what C.S. Lewis described as “the meaningless flux of atoms” ?
The only adequate explanation of our ability to think, act, discover, and create, is that our minds are ultimately independent of our bodies and illuminated by the eternal and self-existent Intelligence which brought us into existence and gave us a will; namely, God the Creator.
(g) If the human mind is not reducible to the brain, and therefore has a spiritual origin, it is obviously not a product of evolution. There is, however, a wider reason for doubting the possibility that human consciousness could have arisen by some naturalistic Darwinian process of physical development.
If something cannot come from nothing, which is the principle behind the cosmological argument for God, it follows as a corollary that the greater cannot arise from the lesser, since a lesser being or process cannot call into existence a superior power or attribute it does not already possess.
This in turn has multiple ramifications. It means that existence cannot spring from non-existence; life cannot emerge from non-life; animal life cannot emerge from plant life; and, finally, self-conscious and rational human beings cannot emerge from unselfconscious animals.
To believe otherwise, because oaks develop from acorns, and embryos grow into babies, is to be a victim of an evolutionist’s optical illusion. It is to forget that acorns are dropped by pre-existing oaks, and babies are conceived by pre-existing adult human beings. Above all, it is to forget that the whole natural order has a supernatural origin because it is the product of a Divine Intelligence.
The lack of any convincing Darwinian explanation for the existence of human consciousness is fully recognised by some atheist scientists and philosophers.
To quote one of them, Colin McGinn:
“How can mere matter originate consciousness? How did evolution convert the water of biological tissue into the wine of consciousness? Consciousness seems like a radical novelty in the universe, not prefigured by the after-effects of the Big Bang. So how did it contrive to spring into being from what preceded it?” Christian philosopher and scientist, J.P. Moreland, summarises the challenge facing atheists and physicalists even more starkly: “How, then, do you get something totally different – conscious, living, thinking, feeling, believing creatures – from materials that don’t have that? That’s getting something from nothing! And that’s the main problem.”
(h) The philosophical case for rejecting physicalism and accepting the reality of the human soul is exceedingly strong in itself, but it is also supported by recent scientific research which indicates that our minds are indeed independent of our brains. An example of this is the work of the father of modern neurosurgery, Wilder Penfield.
“Through my own scientific career, I, like other scientists, have struggled to prove that the brain accounts for the mind,” he writes, but he has had to change his mind after performing surgery on more than a thousand epileptic patients.
In the course of this, he encountered concrete evidence that the brain and mind are actually distinct from each other, though they clearly interact.
To quote another neuroscientist, Lee Edward Travis:
“Penfield would stimulate electrically the proper motor cortex of conscious patients and challenge them to keep one hand from moving when the current was applied. The patient would seize this hand with the other hand and struggle to hold it still. Thus one hand under the control of the electric current and the other hand under the control of the patient’s mind fought against each other. Penfield risked the explanation that the patient had not only a physical brain that was stimulated to action but also a non-physical reality that interacted with the brain.”
To quote Penfield’s own summary of his findings:
“To expect the highest brain mechanism or any set of reflexes, however complicated, to carry out what the mind does, and thus perform all the functions of the mind, is quite absurd…What a thrill it is, then, to discover that the scientist, too, can legitimately believe in the existence of the spirit.”
(The Mystery of the Mind, Princeton University Press, 1975, pp.79 & 85).
Penfield’s conviction that the mind is not reducible to the brain and points to the existence of the soul is shared by two Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientists. One of them, Sir Charles Sherrington, described by the British Medical Journal in 1952 as the “genius who laid the foundations of our knowledge of the functioning of the brain and spinal cord,” declared five days before his death:
“For me now, the only reality is the human soul.”
The other Nobel laureate, his former student, John C. Eccles, confessed:
“I am constrained to believe that there is what we might call a supernatural origin of my unique self-conscious mind or my unique selfhood or soul.”
(Both quotes are from The Self and Its Brain, by Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles, New York: Springer-Verlag, 1977, pp. 558 & 559-60).
A final summary:
Philosophy and science both support the teaching of Christian theology that humans are spiritual as well as material beings, created by God. As American philosopher, Stuart C. Hackett, puts it:
“Selfhood…is not explicable in material or physical terms. The essential spiritual selfhood of man has its only adequate ground in the transcendent spiritual Self-hood of God as Absolute Mind.”
His conclusion is echoed by two other scholars who have explored the depths of the mind/body controversy: philosopher, Robert Augros, and physicist, George Stanciu:
“…physics, neuroscience, and humanistic psychology all converge on the same principle: mind is not reducible to matter.”
Does Science contradict Religion? >> LINK
The writer may not agree 100% with all of Philip Vander Elst's words.
Comments
The link below had an essay at Ebon Musings and is the best argument I've ever read for mind/brain unity. It's a tad long but well worth the read and the case studies it examples are very fascinating.
www ebonmusings org/atheism/ghost.html
Philip Vander Elst is a freelance writer and lecturer. He is not a neuroscientist or a scientist at all and does not have the education to make an informed argument against evolution or about what we know about the brain which is far more than he understands about it and what you've put here on this blog is evidence of that fact. His ideas are riddled with inaccuracies and misinformation which has already been refuted over and over again elsewhere in various places on the net. For example he says: "the human brain is far too complex a structure to have arisen by chance."
This is typical ill informed, yet often regurgitated, misinformation used to describe many parts of the human body like the eye for instance. I do not have the desire to educate you on such a vast and somewhat complicated study of evolution here, but there are links you can go to that can teach you about it such as this one.
www talkorigins org/faqs/comdesc/
Learn about evolution from evolutionary scientists and learn about what we know about the brain from neuroscientists not creationists and philosophers or scientists from 50 years ago with outdated information, most of what we know about the brain we've only obtained in the last 25 years. My suggestion to Philip Vander Elst would be to catch-up, the world is leaving you behind.
Hello Soulless,
Thanks for your reply.
Frankly , I am very disappointed. I read nearly half of this essay from “your expert” and found it riddled with arguments based on emotion. I hate to do this to you, but I feel compelled after reading the link to point out these many emotions mingled among the logic, but clearly driven by the former. Or maybe. its because it was so long, and to you, this was your proof, ...what won you over...so to speak...and the disappointment after reading it.....well..
Who knows why? :)
At any rate, I have just started, but I'm about to hit the bed, so I will post something in the morning.
Thanks again, but please read my next post.
Peace...james
BTW.I'm not going to read that whole "talkorigin" site. I have read a few things on there before. Pick one you feel is your best argument and I will look at it.
@Calvinism Examiner
As for the essay, that's what it was, an essay not a scientific paper from a scientific journal. You probably didn't even make it to the case studies. So dismiss it if you like. I have no interest in "converting" you, yet that never seems to be the case with theists. They just aren't happy it seems unless everyone agrees with them. "Faith" apparently requires lots of propping up by others to support the delusion. You will either take the time to learn on your own initiative, or you will not. Either way, I'm not going to point to a particular thing about evolution only so you can dismiss it for whatever reason, and that's what will happen I have no doubt. Creationists do not want to know what the scientific evidence says to us, they only want to believe their narrative.
@Calvinism Examiner
One can not take a conclusion and look for evidence to support it while ignoring all contrary evidence but that's the crux of the creationist problem. That's also why creationist and those creationist in a lab coat called "Intelligent Design proponents" just look silly. It's not science, and it will never compare to actual science. However, you're welcome to remain in the dark ages. There is no god going to punish you if you do, and you're welcome to waste your life living as if you have come deity to please. That's your business.
But my point about Philip Vander Elst still stands.
Your article began with a question, i.e. "Does Science contradict Religion?" So, I have a rather simply question for you.
Where is your falsifiable test?
Everything that you present in your arguments relies on a circular speculation (i.e. a logical fallacy known as "begging the question"). If you REALLY want to discuss this subject in terms of scientific EVIDENCE, then you need to come up with a falsifiable test which wouly prove that "the mind" or "human consciousness" actually exists outside of a living, human brain. Nothing that you presented does that in any OBJECTIVE fashion, and thus your explanations cannot be considered to be consistent with the scientific method.
Try Sea monkeys. Their eggs clearly show that life can emerge from "dead" matter. All it takes is some water to loosen it up a bit. That’s because Life is energy, water and matter are no different. Everything evolved from the energy released at the Big Bang and so did life and so did consciousness. "Man has become as one of Us.” Ge 3:22. It is all evolution and it’s going according to plan. Big Bang theory says that the Universe expanded to almost its current size within a fraction of a second. As if a god spoke a word and at the same time it became reality. Anthropic Principle theory states that the very fact that we are here, implies that it was meant to be so. Chaos theory says that even in the primordial world the present world already was detectable. Imagine the Big Bang, in which, according to this theory, the entire universe was already predetermined, us included, and Tell me again you don't believe in God. For more info, visit; www matter-of-spirit.com/EGG_OF_BRAHMA.htm
@Life = soul
Sea monkeys are just brine shrimp. They aren't dead. They are dormant in what is called cryptobiosis. Kind of like the seed of a plant. Plant seeds which can germinate are not dead either. Seeds that are dead do not germinate. Brine shrimp that do not come out of dormancy when they are exposed to water can then be assumed to be dead.
Life does spontaneously come from non-life which we call chemistry at that point through abiogenesis. It is a natural process in which life first came about.
@ Soulless,
I need to run out this morning and will not be able to reply to your link at this time. I will address it later.
I wanted to say I have finished reading it, and the report I will give you will not like. Now, you have now stepped back, claiming this only a "essay". maybe because you reread it yourself. Whatever the case, you know the big hole I will point out. That again is coming.
What i want to ask you now...do you have any scientific EVIDENCE for this claim, or is this just your faith? It is clear that the link has no scientific EVIDENCE, but emotion.
If so...NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO POST EVIDENCE OF SUPPORT.
Peace...Jim
Hello Blackout, Thanks for your reply.
You said...(((Your article began with a question, i.e. "Does Science contradict Religion?" Where is your falsifiable test?)))
Maybe you need to read the article again. The quote you have about is the name of a work done by Philip Vander Elst I gave the link.
What this article addresses is the human soul, which my views were backed with good logic and scientific method given by professions (their quotes)in their field of study. You deny they are true. But do you have scientific method to prove your own logic? My guess is no.
YOU SAID...(i.e. a logical fallacy known as "begging the question")
It was ask to me to give logic, this was done. Now, do you have any EVIDENCE OF SUPPORT for your views???? maybe you can help out Soulless on this one.
Peace...Jim
@Calvinism Examiner
Part 1
I never said it was written by an "expert", you said that. It clearly says on the site that it's an essay. I just said that it exampled case studies that were very interesting and they do have they are referenced, but to me, it is compelling.
I'm not the one trying to claim that the "soul" exists. You are. The person with the positive claim has the burden of proof when it comes to claims of existence otherwise we should have to disprove all manner of absurd mythical creatures. Someone says that fairies exist they should have the burden of proof, not the one who says they don't believe it. What this essay says to me is that there is no reason to believe that there is such a thing as "the soul".
@Calvinism Examiner
Part 2
I accepted that the soul existed without any evidence that such a thing were real when I was a theist because culturally we don't question it. My mind was changed when I saw there was no reason to believe such a thing existed when the brain alone could just as easily explain it all. So with Occam's razor I shaved off the unnecessary part I couldn't prove. It's that simple. So don't try shoving the burden of proof onto me. It's squarely in your corner.
Hi Jim,
I re-read your article, and I don't see how you have addressed any of my counter-points.
For example, you say that "my views were backed with good logic and scientific method," but I can't see either of those things in your presentation. In order for an argument to be considered LOGICAL, it must abide by the rules of informal logic. Your conclusions are not based on an objectively demonstrable premise, and are thus your conclusions are both unsound and invalid. Your demand for "EVIDENCE OF SUPPORT" to negate your assertions is also a logical fallacy, since the burden of proof lies with YOU to support YOUR assertions, and not with your opponents.
And finally, you really can't claim that your arguments are consistent with the scientific method, since the method requires you to perform a falsifiable test that demonstrates the truth (or falsity) of your hypothesis. There is a lot of hypothesizing in your article, and not much else.
TTFN,
Blackout
Hello Blackout,
I believe I did, but we could go back on forth saying YES I DID...NO YOU DIDN"T ..for days.
But I have seen a deliberate pattern to dodge all replies, by the atheist debater (not just you blackout), when the Christian ask the atheist share their logic, with a stubborn>>> “I don’t have to reply” <<< that causes me to want to write out and develop this into what I see as a system that lacks in willingness to declare their side.
What do they fear?
It’s almost as if they have conceded the win to the believer.
I think I’ll work on that to show others what I mean.
Peace...jim
Soulless,
I meant to reply to this..
(((Philip Vander Elst is a freelance writer and lecturer. He is not a neuroscientist or a scientist at all and does not have the education to make an informed argument against evolution or about what we know about the brain which is far more than he understands about it and what you've put here on this blog is evidence of that fact.))))
If we are to believe you, this would mean, that we need not listen to most of what Dawkins writes, being that he writes apart from his field of study.
Philip Vander Elst has given a report, for he knows how to report the facts, and has backed his logic with those from the fields of study. BTW...This is what Dawkins does...and I bet you as well.
Peace...Jim
Hello Soulless, this is a reply to your other post where you said....(((essay not a scientific paper from a scientific journal.))))
Then what is the point of you giving a link that has no scientific support for your views? Its not as if you "trumped" any of my words, when you don't even have a expert. At least I had experts with quotes, you have by your own words a non expert.
Is it my guess that you have nothing to offer, or you would produce it.
Peace...Jim
@Calvinism Examiner
Part 1
There is a rather important difference. Philip Vander Elst is speaking against actual sciences. Sciences that require a great deal of education and study of empirical evidence to have enough information to make an informed argument either for or against it. This is very different than what Dawkins does. That's because theology isn't a science. It's repackaged and culturally approved mysticism. It's wooly-minded pretentions of knowledge where such "knowledge" is untestable, unfalsifiable, and frankly a load of guesswork. It is not science in the least therefore you don't have much to go on. Both Philip Vander Elst and Professor Richard Dawkins have a right to make comments about anything they like just as anyone else does. However, since Philip doesn't have the education in the actual science he is making comment about why should anyone take him seriously? I know I don't.
@Calvinism Examiner
Part 2
I posted it because it contains verifiable knowledge in the form of the referenced case studies, and it is sufficient enough to generate doubt about the assumption that a soul exists. And that is indeed what it is, an assumption. There has never been any scientifically testable hypothesis presented about the concept known as the "soul" which could indicate that it actually existed. In fact, the case studies in the essay I linked to contains a great deal of contrary evidence. There is simply no reason to believe the soul exists. The "soul" is unquestioned wishful thinking on the part of believers, and nothing more. Did you miss the part where you have the burden of proof?
@ Soulless,
You said...((study of empirical evidence))
Yes, you keep saying this, but you will not produce the evidence. Me thinks you don't have any to show.
((( This is very different than what Dawkins does. That's because theology isn't a science. )))
Lets take this logic across the board. Dawkins has never had a degree in theology. Therefore Dawkins cannot speak of God???
((It's repackaged and culturally approved mysticism.))
Again you have moved from a person that has not information to make a call, to one that has stated a argument. With that argument you must provide proof, or move back to the space that says.."I DON"T KNOW". And also do you have a theology degree to state God as "cultyrally approved mysticism"???
You see you can't hold to your own standards. You just hate God.
The truth is, you can have your say in the matter as well as Elst. One does not have to be a degree in the field to follow a argument, nor to state it.
If not, you need to produce that
@Calvinism Examiner
The onus is not upon me to educate you. That's what college is for. If you do not have the initiative to seek an education in the sciences in question then that's your business, your right, and your loss. Both Philip Vander Elst and yourself can wallow in the delusion that you know more than a college graduate who has taken the time and done the work necessary to obtain a Masters Degree or Doctorate about the actual science you decry.
Theology is one of the most absurd Doctorates one can receive. Like I said, it's not science, because one can't falsify it because it can't be tested, so to be a doctor of theology is really no better than being a doctor of astrology.
I'm not the one stating that theology is valid, it appears that you are. You have the burden of proof. I just see no reason to believe it.
@Calvinism Examiner
As far as "hating God" is concerned. One must believe that a deity exists before one can hate it. However, when it comes to the claims about the Christian god I can make a determination about the one proposed. I can't find anything to like about it.
Others have put together logical fallacies found by many atheist. Not all atheist use such fallacies, but I would say most do. The list is growing high.
ARGUMENT FROM INTELLIGENCE
1. Look, there's really no point in me trying to explain the whole thing to you stupid theists -- it's too complicated for you to understand. God doesn’t exist whether you like it or not.
2. Therefore, doesn’t God exist.
ARGUMENT FROM INTERNET AUTHORITY
1. There is a website that successfully argues for the non-existence of God.
2. Here is the URL.
3. Therefore, God doesn’t exist.
Part 1
No this is the thought process as they occurred within myself (I stopped believing in the Christian god before I stopped believing in the soul):
1. I was theist. I was surrounded by theists while growing up. The idea that god exists is unquestioned in society. I myself didn't question it, and didn't realize I "could" question it.
2. After much study, including reading the Bible entirely, I realized that there was a great deal of problems in the Bible. I began to question whether the god I was raised to believe existed.
3. I looked at the arguments in favor of the deity of my upbringing. As an adult, I found them to be incoherent, full of assumptions, and circular reasoning.
4. I realized there was no valid arguments in favor of a deity.
Part 2
5. I stopped having a belief that a deity existed. (I was atheist at this point)
6. I read many arguments against the existence of a deity. They were coherent and made sense, and the more I read the more I understood what religion really is. (a control device.)
7. I was not indoctrinated to believe that other gods existed, only the god of the Bible, which I no longer believe to exist.
The crux of my becoming atheist had to do with a lack of any real argument in favor of the deity I was raised to believe existed. My "faith" was in trouble and no one could help to reconcile my doubts with my "Faith" with a real argument in favor of believing.
"No valid argument in favor" = "No reason to believe"
What part of that do you not understand?
Jim said, "I have seen a deliberate pattern to dodge all replies, by the atheist debater."
I would suggest that you seem to lack the necessary skills in the discipline of informal logic to correctly interpret what you are seeing. Suffice to say in a LOGICAL discussion, the burden of proof almost always lies with the person who is making a claim and NOT with the person who hears the claim but does not (at least initially) believe it. Trying to shift the burden of proof away from your claim, and demanding that your opponents "prove" that you are wrong is a classic logical fallacy. Your opponents don't need to respond more deeply to your position, becuase your argument fails to rise to the level which would require an actual rebuttal. Claiming that your opponents "fear" what you have to say, and claiming by fiat that they have "conceded the win" only further demonstrates your utter lack of familiarity with the conventions of rational argumentation.
TTFN,
Blackout
Hello Blackout,
You said>>(Suffice to say in a LOGICAL discussion, the burden of proof almost always lies with the person who is making a claim and NOT with the person who hears the claim but does not (at least initially) believe it.)))
The burden of proof does lie on one that makes the positive statement. Therefore I reject the proof as non-supporting of the argument. This article was a reply to "man has no soul" with the proof given in the essay. The essay failed the test.
Even if you go with a simple statement.." There is no God".
In this statement you give a sort of "litotes argument" that must be supported with a positive affirmation. The only response that you can give that does not demand a positive affirmation is “I don’t know” (agnostic). Once you have stated you know, it is a positive statement even if its expressed in an negative manner.
This was done when the statement was .."Man has no soul"..but the logic failed to support the statement.
Peace...Jim
Jim said, "The burden of proof does lie on one that makes the positive statement. Therefore I reject the proof as non-supporting of the argument. This article was a reply to "man has no soul" with the proof given in the essay. The essay failed the test."
One of the most difficult things in logically dissecting an argument can be the determination of the original premise on which the subsequent layers of point and counter-point are based. It is not impossible to begin a logical argument with a negative assertion, but in most cases such a statement is actually premised on some sort of a priori assumption that must be addressed first. Remember...the default assumption in any logical argument that all assertions are false until they are proved to be true. This basic assumption governs logical discussions, because it only possible to "prove" a negative assertion through the process of "negation."
For example...you said, "Even if you go with a simple statement.." There is no God"."
Now, from a LOGICAL point-of-view, this statement is not a properly phrased premise. Rather, the proper logical construction would be to assert that "There IS a God," which we would then assume to be false unless the subsequent arguments were sufficient to validate the original proposition.
You also said that, "In this statement you give a sort of "litotes argument"..."
And, I disagree. Rather, I would propose that you are engaging in a logical fallacy known as an "argument from ignorance," or rather, "because a thing has not been proved to be false, then it must be true." In order to advance a logical argument, ALL of the premises of that argument must be known to be true. Simply asserting their truth is not sufficient, nor is demanding that your opponents prove your premises wrong.
And, let's not pretend that this is a new argument. ALL religious arguments...without exception...rely on the basic assertion that "supernatural forces and being exist" as a governing premise. Before you can logically argue ANYTHING that is even REMOTELY religious, you have a burden to first prove that this underlying premise is true. If you can't do that, then EVERYTHING else that you speculate relating to ANY religous argument is unsound. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're WRONG, but it does mean that you can't legitimately claim that beliefs that are based on that premise are logical. This is particularly true when the "God" you are speaking of is unique to a particular religon (which since you captialized the term, we can safely assume that you are referring to the Abrahamic religions' conceptualization since no other group of world religions capitalize the generic term "god," but rather refer to their concepts of deity with a capitalized proper name.)
Jim said, "This was done when the statement was .."Man has no soul"..but the logic failed to support the statement."
Logically, one doesn't have to do anything to support this statement. Since the default assumption in logic is that the positive assertion is false, it once again falls to those who assert that "souls exist" to prove their premise.
I suspect that you will resist abiding by this convention, but you will have to if you want to be taken seriously when you describe your position as "logical." And, you still haven't provided us with any falsifiable tests that would allow us to examine your ideas, which you will likewise have to provide if you wish to be taken seriously when you claim that your ideas are supported by the scientific method.
TTFN,
Blackout
Hello Blackout,
((Since the default assumption in logic is that the positive assertion is false, it once again falls to those who assert that "souls exist" to prove their premise.}}
The default is set any way you desire to set it. As a believer what the default assumption is. Moreover argumentum ad ignorantiam can go both ways, which I just about pulled on this argument a few lines back. Further, you act is if it is >>>>YOU<<<< that has set the argument stage when it is not.
Case in point..if we go with Pragma-dialectics
Under PD the Burden of proof rule states...
A party that advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if asked by the other party to do so.
Now defend your statement. :)
Peace...Jim
As a believer what the default assumption is.
should read..
Ask a believer what the default assumption is.
You're right, Jim. I didn't "set the argument stage." >>>>YOU<<<< did that when you said, "my views were backed with good LOGIC and [the] SCIENTIFIC METHOD." It is interesting now that you have been challenged to substantiate that claim by providing us with the valid logical arguments and the falsifiable empirical tests that would be necessary to make that claim TRUE, you want to move the goal-posts into a different argumentative framework. That alone is enough to make me question your honestly and crediblity.
But, in the interests of moving the conversation forward, I will accept your challenge (along with the implicit admission on your part that you are retracting your claim that your opinions are based on "good logic and [the] scientific method"...c.f. von Eemeren's 9th rule for critical discussions, i.e. "The Closure Rule"). Of course, I will also point out that your arguments thus far have violated von Eemeren's 8th rule (i.e "The Validity Rule," which states that, "A party may only use arguments in its argumentation that are logically valid or capable of being made logically valid by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises.") Its really kind of funny, since this rule is based on the concept of logical validity which you were no doubt hoping to avoid by switching frameworks, lol.
So, to follow von Eemeren's pragma-dialectical theory, we need to establish a few base-line assumptions.
There are a lot of assertions in your article, but it all really boils down to ONE question, which is...
Does 'god' exist?
...or more basically...
Do supernatural forces and beings exist?
Our answers to these two questions represent the core implicit assumption which further informs every aspect of this debate. If one believes that a "god" exists, then your article's assertions have a meanignful basis. If one does not believe, then there is no rational basis for anything which you assert. There is also a third possible answer, of course, which is "there MIGHT be a 'god', but the absense of positive evidence one way or the other renders the question moot." In other words, we have theism, atheism, and (roughly) agnosticism.
Now...von Eemermen's 2nd rule (as you so rightly pointed out) is, "A party that advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if asked by the other party to do so." And since YOU are the one who wrote the article that started this debate, I really SHOULD ask you to defend the most basic implicit assertion on which your entire article was based, i.e. the belief that "'God' exists" BEFORE we move on. But as you have already refused to accept responsiblity for satisfying your burden of proof, I will go ahead and provide you with my arguments.
Personally, my position vacillates between agnosticism and atheism. I am prone to assert that the whole question of "'god's' existence" is meaningless, due to the lack of positive evidence all the way around. However, because I also tend to pursue my beliefs from an empirical perspecitve, I tend to reject the notion of supernatural beings due to the lack of any objective evidence which would suggest that such a being acutally exists. Of course, the universe (and beyond?) is a BIG place, and we've only explored a tiny portion of it. So, there is certainly a POSSIBILITY that supernatural beings, forces and even "gods" exist somewhere "out there." But, I also think that it is intellectually irresponsible, and frankly dishonest, to assert with any degree of certainty that such a being DOES exist, until such time as at least SOME acutal, objective evidence is discovered that would support that assertion.
That's my position in a nutshell. Now, its your turn.
TTFN,
Blackout
Hello Blackout,
I hate to laugh, but I do believe you will find time to laugh once you read your reply. Am I wasting my time??
I like this line maybe the best..
(((That alone is enough to make me question your honestly and crediblity.)))
1st you keep wanting to change the standpoint.
Starting point rule
A party may not falsely present a premise as an accepted starting point nor deny a premise representing an accepted starting point.
Have you not read the article that we have talked about for what?...3 days?
My article was an attack on a standpoint by a reader.
(please read the 1st line in the article and the 1st replies)
Closure rule
A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the party that put forward the standpoint retracting it and a conclusive defense of the standpoint must result in the other party retracting its doubt about the standpoint.
If your choice is to defend the standpoint, you must know the subject.
In short, the standpoint put forth was a essay that gave good reason that man does not have a soul.
Again the article was a attack on that essay. To defend the standpoint you must prove the essay can PROVE man has no soul, because this was what the reader felt the essay did.
Therefore my attack.
If you wish to have a debate, please stay focused.
I still love this line...
(((That alone is enough to make me question your honestly and crediblity.)))
Peace..Jim
Blackout,
It is clear you don't understand the point behind Pragma-dialectics. You need not defend your standpoint unless I ask you to defend it. I'll just believe you have proof.
So this going on and on before one "calls you out" is a waste of words. You are free to do as you wish, but Pragma-dialectics is becoming the preferred stage by many. If we agree, we don't move to the argumentation stage.
I can tell you have debated before, but you may want to move to this stage, because issues can be coved much faster.
Peace...Jim
Jim said, "Am I wasting my time??"
Well, I would say that you are wasting EVERYONE'S time with all this irrational religious blather, but I choose to make lemonade from lemons, and will happily use this discussion as a way to demonstrate the fundamental (if you'll pardon the pun) flaws in your point-of-view.
Jim, said, "I like this line maybe the best..(((That alone is enough to make me question your honestly and crediblity.)))"
I like it, too. The fact is that you made a specific claim about how your opionions are based on "logic" and the "scientific method," but when you were challenged on that point, you proved yourself incapable of acutally meeting either one of those standards. Instead, you decided to play the shell game by trying to change the rules of engagement after someone called you out. In a moderated debate, you would have already lost due to this behavior.
Jim said, "1st you keep wanting to change the standpoint."
Factually incorrect. YOU sat the standpoint when you claimed that your opinions were based on "logic" and the "scientific method." And now, YOU are then one who has insisted that we abandon the framework that YOU insisted was the basis for your opinion.
Jim said, "My article was an attack on a standpoint by a reader."
Irrelevant. I was not a party to your discussions with any other readers. YOU wrote the article that I responded to. I am not responsible for defending someone else's arguments who isn't even involved in THIS discussion. As an Examiner (blogger), YOU are responsible as the point-of-origin for the articles YOU post.
Jim said, "To defend the standpoint you must prove the essay can PROVE man has no soul, because this was what the reader felt the essay did."
Actually, no I don't, because I didn't write the article to which you were responding.
Also, please refer to van Eemeren's rule #5, i.e the "Unexpressed Premise Rule," which states that, "A party may not deny premise that he or she has left implicit or falsely present something as a premise that has been left unexpressed by the other party."
The belief in supernatural beings and forces is the IMPLICIT core of all arguments that posit the existence of "souls." One cannot provide a cogent rebuttal to the proposed existence of thing without first defining that thing, and you can't define a thing without proposing its existence (at least conceptually). Pragma-dialectic theory doesn't excuse you from satisfying the burden of proof of associated with the implicit premises of your argruments.
Jim said, "It is clear you don't understand the point behind Pragma-dialectics. You need not defend your standpoint unless I ask you to defend it."
Ummm...and I quote...Jim said, "Now defend your statement."
Now, it is possible that I defended a different statement than the one you wanted, but you were rather vague and so I was forced to assume. If you want me to defend something else, please be specific.
Jim said, "Pragma-dialectics is becoming the preferred stage by many."
Are you suggesting that pragma-dialectic theory (which was only first proposed, really, in the mid-1980's) is preferred by a majority (or even a significant minority) of modern argumenative theorists? Are you suggesting that a majority (or even a signficicant minority) of modern philosophers prefer this method over the classical discipline of informal logic, or that scientists prefer it to the scientific method (to both of which you appealed, but whose requirements you were unable to satisfy)?
Jim said, "I can tell you have debated before..."
Unfortunately, I can't offer you the same compliment. I have attempted to engage you in both the original framework upon which you insisted your opinons were based, as well as the fall-back framework to which you retreated when you found yourself unable to support your initial claims. I have provided specific counter-arguments in BOTH frameworks, and yet you are STILL trying to avoid answering even the SIMPLESTS challenges to your position. At this point, I have a very low confidence that you are truly willing to engage (or even capable of engaging) in any meaningful discussion. But, I suppose we shall see...
TTFN,
Blackout
Thanks for your reply.
Peace...Jim
And thank you, Jim, for acting so predictably in your refusal to actually back up your claims.
TTFN,
Blackout
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