₦airaland Forum

toneyb:
The "soul" uses the brain to apprehend the world?

Here is a post from the link that was provide which shows how flawed your hypothesis is.

"The soul, apparently, must be somehow separate from the brain. There are a number of gaping flaws in this idea (as is often the case with religious pseudo-science). The most obvious one is this: If a person has a major physical change to their brain (due to injury, surgery, disease or oxygen starvation), it will often bring about a major change to their personality. Many people who suffer accidents that cause brain injury also undergo a personality change. It used to be common practice to lobotomise (surgically remove the frontal lobes of the brain) dangerously violent people as this brought about a dramatic change in their personality - they became much more subdued and docile.

There have been several cases where a person went into hospital for an operation, something went tragically wrong, perhaps with the anaesthetic, and the person suffered massive brain-damage as a result. Healthy, thinking, reasoning person before the operation, and a vegetable afterwards. What happened to the soul? Did the material drugs damage the immaterial soul?"

Pastor AIO:
No it doesn't work and I'll break it down for you with an analogy.

I am quite capable of parasiting off my brother.

I am also quite capable of parasiting of my wife.

I can even parasite of my co-workers.

Does that mean that I can sustain myself without parasiting of anybody?  Does that mean that I can exist independent of parasiting of someone just because I have a variety of means of doing so?

KunleOshob:
What if the information on this micro chip or mechanical device is copy or downloaded to say ten different mechanical brians? would we have ten Toms in that regard?

Pastor AIO:
No it doesn't!!!!

Would you care to spell out the steps of your deductive reasoning that affirms it.

Pastor AIO:
If absolutely every aspect of human behaviour can be caused by the brain then what does the Soul do?

Pastor AIO:
The question now is, can pure information exist without it being encoded on some sort of material or the other. I mean, the mechanical brain, the microchip etc are all material and so the information exists in some material form still. What about purely abstract information?

toneyb:
Are you basing your entire conclusion on a hypothetical scenario?

ROSSIKE:
sarmy said:

Absolutely.

The highlighted is what I wanted to explain to the guy who posted the image of a starving kid. At our level, it's a starving kid, and it looks terrible, but at the ''God level'', it's similar to God hypothetically scratching his left wrist.

As he scratches, the cells under the His 'skin' get battered as one cell smashes into another, knocking it out. The other cells recoil in horror. 'What an evil world we live in', they'd lament. 'What did that poor cell do to deserve this horrible fate?'

Yet to God, nothing at all has happened!!

He only scratched his wrist for a couple seconds!!

lol

NB I know this analogy is a bit of a simplification, but not by a lot to be honest.

And philosophically, it must collapse; for its suggestion, I hope you realize, is that the only purpose of creation was the formation of evil.

This is the direct implication of your surmise: because creation involved bringing into existence “individualized” parts of consciousness – thus “separating” infinite consciousness into parts. You yourself stated that “separation” is the basis of evil, whereas “oneness” is the basis of good.

Thus, if God wanted all things to be good, then he would never have created any “individuals.” All would have remained one, indivisible great oneness.

I hope you can see that your surmise leads irrevocably to the conclusion that creation was only done for the purpose of introducing “divisions” and thereby evil.

On this ground, your summation must fail in its entirety.

toneyb:
This is not a reason at all but, You are simply begging the question.

One minute you are a pantheist and claim that everything we see around is god

You even assert that the garden of Eden did not exist on earth

Deep Sight:
Modern science CANNOT EXPLAIN IT.

The reason is simple:

Since the origin by natural implication rests before (i.e: precedes) the universe and since we cannot move beyond a singularity, then any analysis (i.e: science) based on physical laws within this universe cannot apprehend the realities preceding it as such must per force be said to rest in a preceding dimension absolutely unknown to this dimension.

viaro:
^[edited.]

I didn't say that you argued evolution as dealing with the origin of living things. In my previous post, I had a parenthesis for what I was referring to - "(as in your initial post)" - where you had indicated that modern science can explain "all of these phenomena" such as . .
* the origin of the universe,
* the design of the universe,
* and the origin of living things.
What discipline in 'modern science' can explain the origin of living things, toneyb?

Abiogenesis does not even come close to 'trying' - that is the point. If anything in abiogenesis could be put forward as possibly able to explain the origin of life, we should have seen some of these - but what has emerged from abiogenesis is mere speculation that continue to embarrass us all.

The 'beginning' of the Universe is not to be confused for the 'ORIGIN' of the Universe. The BB does not say anything about the 'origin' of the singularity from which the Universe emerged - that is why it is important to know where we are starting our discussion, and for that reason I mentioned Plank Time.

Modern science could explain a lot of things; but the particular things you have indicated is not what modern science has shown itself capable of doing, to wit: 'the origin of the Universe' and 'the origin of living things'. One may not need to invoke deities or atheistic materialism in these things; but the atheist who make such huge assumptions about what modern science 'can' do, still himself has to show us the most basic of all things: how 'nature' came into existence completely on its own to produce an ordered and orderly Universe. The moment one asks questions like this, the typical response from the atheistic naturalist is to flag a disclaimer that his worldview does not deal with such kinds of 'origins'.

No, it is the other way round. No one here is begging to discard the scientific processes involved in any explanations; rather, you seem to be the one making claims about what modern science 'can' do and yet completely discarding the processes involved in science!

Mavenb0x:
Good job, guys

I got tired of making long posts that no one understands, so I do most of my own discussions in reality nowadays, I may quit Nairaland in another one or two days. But I'm glad the Word is accurately divided with more grace.

Shalom

Deep Sight:
Modern science CANNOT EXPLAIN IT.

The reason is simple:

Since the origin by natural implication rests before (i.e: precedes) the universe and since we cannot move beyond a singularity, then any analysis (i.e: science) based on physical laws within this universe cannot apprehend the realities preceding it as such must per force be said to rest in a preceding dimension absolutely unknown to this dimension.

mazaje:
I just revealed to a new Nigerian friend that just came here recently that I am an atheist and he was stunned , He asked my why I was an atheist and I told him, We began discussing about the stories he has been made to accept as the basis for his existence since childhood and he was very uncomfortable and began throwing and the normal mantra at me. . . Jesus loves you bla bla bla. . .When we get to heaven we will ask god those question. . .believe and save yourself from hell. . .bla bla bla. . .He got so uncomfortable with my questions and left feeling scared and believing he meet the mythical satan . . . That really got me thinking abou religious beliefs and its endless stories and this my own conclusion. . .To control people and make them believe and hold unto what you want them to believe you instill fear into them. You give them a loophole and show them that they are nothing without your stories, You don't have to fear anything if you worship a story. If you question the story, the story will hurt you by sending you to the most awful place imaginable for eternity. Everything good you see is because of this story. Everything bad you see is merely a test from the story. So, no matter how badly your life goes, as long as you worship the story, your SALVATION will come from the story. Hence we have people believing in all these stories and trying to rationalize them by all means possible even if it means lying to themselves. . .

Just see what is happening in the world today, we have people blowing themselves up because they live according to stories they were told were true. . .People denying themselves medication because some story tells them that some people prayed and they were healed. . .People hating others because some story told them not to associate with them or hate them. . .Why do Nigerians give too much credence to Jewish and Arabian mythologies and stories and discard their own stories and myths?. . . .

viaro:
. . . it only reveals that the speaker has left the domain of science and is tending to atheistic materialism and naturalism.

toneyb:
The God hypothesis is a theoretical entity that is postulated by theists to explain various phenomena, such as the origin of the universe, the design of the universe, and the origin of living things. Modern science, however can explain all of these phenomena without postulating the existence of a God.

nuclearboy:
@DeepSight:

There was a conception without copulation.

Those who are opposed to the interpretation of Isaiah 7:14 as a prophetic passage referring to a virgin birth claim that ‘ almâ does not mean “virgin,” and that the word used exclusively for “ virgin” is the Hebrew word betûlâ. Both of these claims, however, are inaccurate.

According to John Walton, one of the translations of ‘almâ is “young woman,” but there are certain nuances to the Hebrew term. After examining all occurrences of the word, and looking briefly at its etymology, Walton gave the lexicographical definition of ‘almâ as “one who has not yet borne a child and as an abstraction refers to the adolescent expectation of motherhood.”

In application to Isaiah 7:14, he admitted that virginity seemed to be implied (1997a, 3:415-418).

The Septuagint renders ‘almâ in Isaiah 7:14 as parthenos, which means “a female of marriageable age with focus on virginity” (Danker, 2000, p. 777). Concerning the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew, Dohmen noted:

It is unlikely that the LXX [Septuagint] tried to import the concept of a virgin birth, a familiar idea in many religious traditions, into Isa. 7:14.

The translators of the Greek Septuagint rendered ‘almâ as parthenos, which generally means “virgin,” instead of neanis, which generally means “young woman” (Danker, p. 667).

It is interesting that the translators of the Septuagint took the thought of the Hebrew passage and translated it into a Greek word for “virgin.” Since they worked about two hundred years before Christ was born, then the translators of the Septuagint could not have been trying to “fit” scripture to a Christian viewpoint,

. . .but instead were merely giving the correct translation for the passage.

The renderation “virgin” has the support of the best modern Hebraists, as Lowth, Gesenius, Ewald, Delitzsch, Kay. It is observed with reason that unless ’almah is translated “virgin,” there is no announcement made worth of the grand prelude: “[b]The Lord himself shall give you a sign—Behold!” The Hebrew, however, has not “a virgin” but “the virgin” (and so the Septuagint, h parthenos), which points to some special virgin, preeminent above all others (1962, 10:128, emp. in orig., italicized Greek words transliterated from Greek characters in orig.).[/b]

Besides Isaiah 7:14, ‘almâ is used in Genesis 24:43, Exodus 2:8, Psalm 68:25, Proverbs 30:19, Song of Solomon 1:3 and 6:8. In an examination of the passages using the word ‘almâ, H.C. Leupold concluded that it “cannot be denied that such a one is to be classified as a virgin” (1988, 1:156). James Coffman drew an identical conclusion in his Commentary on Isaiah, citing Homer Hailey’s conclusion that the word ‘almâ , as used in the Old Testament, must be referring to a virgin (1990, p. 75). J. Gresham Machen, in his classic book, The Virgin Birth of Christ, indicated that “there is no place among the seven occurrences of ‘almah in the Old Testament where the word is clearly used of a woman who was not a virgin” (1980, p. 288).

In Genesis 24:43, the word ‘almâ refers to Rebekah, who we know from Genesis 24:16 was a virgin (which, incidentally, is designated by the term betûlâ). So here both betûlâ and ‘almâ are used to refer to a virgin girl. In Exodus 2:8, ‘almâ refers to Miriam, the elder sister of Moses. There is nothing in scripture to indicate that his sister was married at that time. In fact, it appears that she was not married and still living at home; therefore, ‘almâ likely is referring to her virgin condition. The Psalm 68:25 reference uses ‘almâ to designate young girls who were playing timbrels in what appears to be a religious parade or ceremony. It is highly unlikely that these girls were not virgins, since it would be uncommon for either a married woman or an unchaste girl to be involved in such a procession. Proverbs 30:19 is a little harder to decipher, but it appears that it is referring to intercourse between a man and a woman. [“There are three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maiden.”] However, it is impossible to ascertain from the verse whether or not the woman was a virgin. From the context of Song of Solomon 1:3 (“Thine oils have a goodly fragrance; thy name is as oil poured forth; therefore do the virgins love thee”), ‘almâ can refer only to a virgin. Song of Solomon 6:8 (“There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number”) also is obviously referring to virgins, as opposed to the queens and concubines who have lost their virginity.

In Matthew 1:18-25, the apostle Matthew provided a divinely inspired commentary, citing Isaiah 7:14 as a prophecy fulfilled by the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, ‘Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us’ ” (Matthew 1:22-23, emp. added).

Therefore, the only conclusion that one can draw respecting the available evidence is that the Hebrew word ‘almâ, as used in Isaiah 7:14 and elsewhere in the Bible, is properly rendered “virgin.” The term does not always mean virgin in non-biblical writings, nor do analogous terms of other Semitic languages necessitate this translation. Nevertheless, in biblical usage, the only example that can be found is of a young woman whose virginity is intact.

olabowale:
Muhammad said "I am the best of MankinD." Ane he said it, it was not as a means of arrogance, but a fact of the reality of what God created.