For Atheists

[Eudaimonist]

(Edited to add: I just noticed that this thread was raised from the dead and I had replied to it before, but I'll leave this reply anyway.)

How can you believe in no god if there is proof of some spirit out there.

The reason is there is wege boards.

Do you mean Ouija boards? It's not spirits.

Scientific tests by the English scientist Michael Faraday, Manchester surgeon James Braid,[8] the French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, and the American psychologists William James and Ray Hyman have demonstrated that many phenomena attributed to spiritual or paranormal forces, or to mysterious "energies," are actually due to ideomotor action. Furthermore, these tests demonstrate that "honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is consistent with their expectations".[9] They also show that suggestions that can guide behavior can be given by subtle clues (Hyman 1977).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon

What do athiests think of the soul? How do you account for it?

What is it that I'm supposed to account for? There is no good evidence for life after death (no, NDEs aren't good evidence), so no "soul" to account for in that sense.

I agree that human beings have a psyche, but I account for that with the human brain.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[MehGuy]

(Edited to add: I just noticed that this thread was raised from the dead and I had replied to it before, but I'll leave this reply anyway.)



Do you mean Ouija boards? It's not spirits.

Scientific tests by the English scientist Michael Faraday, Manchester surgeon James Braid,[8] the French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, and the American psychologists William James and Ray Hyman have demonstrated that many phenomena attributed to spiritual or paranormal forces, or to mysterious "energies," are actually due to ideomotor action. Furthermore, these tests demonstrate that "honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is consistent with their expectations".[9] They also show that suggestions that can guide behavior can be given by subtle clues (Hyman 1977).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_phenomenon



What is it that I'm supposed to account for? There is no good evidence for life after death (no, NDEs aren't good evidence), so no "soul" to account for in that sense.

I agree that human beings have a psyche, but I account for that with the human brain.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Penn and Teller did a hilarious episode on contacting the dead with one segment focusing on Ouija boards. They actually went to the hotel where Fred Murtz (lol) died and tried to contact his spirit. They blind folded the participants who used to the Ouija board to contact Fred, and while it worked for the most part, someone unbeknown to the blind folded participants flipped the board upside down and the messages turned into complete gibberish, lol.

 

[Darren K Wimbleton]

Hi,

Greetings.

 

[MehGuy]

Hi,

Greetings.

Hi.

 

[jacknife]

Hi,

Greetings.

hello

 

[Chesterton]

 

[Cearbhall]

yo

 

[MehGuy]

Hi again.

 

[Zoness]

ayyyy

 

[HitchSlap]

Ok how do you like these views.




How can you believe in no god if there is proof of some spirit out there.

The reason is there is wege boards. I don't know if i spelled it right, but i think yall know what i am talking about. Idk if you guys believe in those. but I have heard some pretty convincing stories. IF there was no God then there would probaly not be life after death

I don't "believe" in Ouija boards. It's a game which primes it's participants to "experience supernatural phenomena." It only works if the players hold supernatural beliefs.

 

[Uber Genius]

Yes, I have a similar question, but I didn't want to make a thread about it.

What do athiests think of the soul? How do you account for it?

Most are physicalists. They would say that he soulish features: qualia( our 5 senses), intentionality, rationality, are all illusory just like light can present color but no atom has the property of color. So too these soulish attributes just "appear" when a certain level of brain complexity arises.

Of coarse many atheist philosophers of mind reject that idea. Especially since it comes its the concomitant idea that we don't have free will at all. Not even to for rationality. Think about how self-refuting that position is.

Theist - "so on atheism, you think we have no free will and that all your actions are a combination of the laws of physics and predecessor conditions such as what You had for lunch today?

Atheist - "Yes."

Theist - "is your description rational or were you predetermined to say those words independent of meaning."

 

[Uber Genius]

I don't "believe" in Ouija boards.

This is going to be common. My atheist friends are consistent in that they reject all non-physical entities whatsoever.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Most are physicalists. They would say that he soulish features: qualia( our 5 senses), intentionality, rationality, are all illusory just like light can present color but no atom has the property of color. So too these soulish attributes just "appear" when a certain level of brain complexity arises.

Trying to answer for others is rarely a good idea.
Since my spirituality is atheistic, strictly speaking (since I see no reason to believe in the existence of literal, personal deities), my answer would be as follows:

the "soul" is synonymous with our psyche - an emergent property of our nervous and endocrinal system. Memory, emotions, consciousness, mind - all properties organism. Not an "illusion", more like the software to our "hardware" - and very much depending on it. Brain damage can "kill" us even while we're still alive, erasing the personality or its memories.

And while we're at it: identity is not an unchanging essence, but an activity.

 

[TheOldWays]

Not an "illusion", more like the software to our "hardware"

I like how you put that.

 

[Jack of Spades]

the "soul" is synonymous with our psyche - an emergent property of our nervous and endocrinal system. Memory, emotions, consciousness, mind - all properties organism. Not an "illusion", more like the software to our "hardware" - and very much depending on it. Brain damage can "kill" us even while we're still alive, erasing the personality or its memories.

Do you believe in some version of collective consciousness that is not physically dependent of any particular persons (or animals or natures, or w/e) biological hardware?

I'm asking because I have gotten that impression from previous threads.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Do you believe in some version of collective consciousness that is not physically dependent of any particular persons (or animals or natures, or w/e) biological hardware?

I'm asking because I have gotten that impression from previous threads.

Well, I'm a Jungian at heart, as well as a monist, and I do believe consciousness is not separated from the rest of reality. That does not make our individual identities any more eternal or unchanging (since change is the very nature of reality), but on the other hand, eternity manifests in each moment.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I guess in order to understand my stance on the topic, we need to look at consciousness, life, and reality in a way that is not really accounted for by our language(s):

See, we like to think of ourselves as "I" - a monolithic, self-contained, single entity. Yet more than half of the cells in ourselves do not even carry our DNA. We are not so much isolated individuals as sprawling arcologies inhabited by symbiotic, cooperating species working in unison to sustain our system.
And that observation does not even end at the point where we draw the line between "self" and "other": the very air we breathe is the product of such a cooperative process. A human being in isolation is as unfit to live as a single specialized cell cut loose from an organism. And our artifacts (clothing, houses, roads, grain fields) are as much part of being human as an anthill is part of being an ant.
Our consciousness has evolved to create an illusion of separation. That illusion is necessary for the kind of inquisitive introspection that we need in order to better understand ourselves and the rest of the world, but it also creates the kind of dynamic that has us on the verge of ecological collapse right now. We are to the current era what the freaking meteor was to the Cretaceous - and I think the only way we can change that is by making a leap forward in our consciousness. Otherwise, we'll end up unsuccessfully trying to create artificial crutches to compensate for the habitats we destroyed, eventually eliminating ourselves as surely as a locust swarm that has gone through a field of grain and ends up starving after everything's gone.

 

[Jack of Spades]

I guess in order to understand my stance on the topic, we need to look at consciousness, life, and reality in a way that is not really accounted for by our language(s):

See, we like to think of ourselves as "I" - a monolithic, self-contained, single entity. Yet more than half of the cells in ourselves do not even carry our DNA. We are not so much isolated individuals as sprawling arcologies inhabited by symbiotic, cooperating species working in unison to sustain our system.
And that observation does not even end at the point where we draw the line between "self" and "other": the very air we breathe is the product of such a cooperative process. A human being in isolation is as unfit to live as a single specialized cell cut loose from an organism. And our artifacts (clothing, houses, roads, grain fields) are as much part of being human as an anthill is part of being an ant.
Our consciousness has evolved to create an illusion of separation. That illusion is necessary for the kind of inquisitive introspection that we need in order to better understand ourselves and the rest of the world, but it also creates the kind of dynamic that has us on the verge of ecological collapse right now. We are to the current era what the freaking meteor was to the Cretaceous - and I think the only way we can change that is by making a leap forward in our consciousness. Otherwise, we'll end up unsuccessfully trying to create artificial crutches to compensate for the habitats we destroyed, eventually eliminating ourselves as surely as a locust swarm that has gone through a field of grain and ends up starving after everything's gone.

Do you mean that since on atom level, we don't have any exact line where "me" ends and some other entity starts, it's only natural the same would be true for consciousness?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Do you mean that since on atom level, we don't have any exact line where "me" ends and some other entity starts, it's only natural the same would be true for consciousness?

Something along those lines, yes.

 

[JustHereToTalk]

Ok how do you like these views.




How can you believe in no god if there is proof of some spirit out there.

What is "some spirit," what does it have to do with God, and where is the proof?

The reason is there is wege boards. I don't know if i spelled it right,

Is ouija the word you're looking for?

...but i think yall know what i am talking about. Idk if you guys believe in those. but I have heard some pretty convincing stories. IF there was no God then there would probaly not be life after death

I have observed no activity from a ouija board that defies anything that we have observed from the natural world. There are lots of stories about lots of things, but I apply the unicorn rule: if you're an honest person and you say that you saw a horse, I'll probably believe you. If you say you saw a unicorn, I'll need better evidence than simply your word. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Do you have any? And if you did, what would that have to do with God?