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What make us who we are?

GrayAngel

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Hold on. I think I messed up a quote box somewhere.

...Nope. It's just being weird.

Removing the youtube from the quote seems to have fixed it.


Okay, okay. I'll try not to be so sensitive (and ignore everything 3sigma says).


That's interesting. I don't believe I've ever heard anyone say the brain could be the receiver rather than the producer of thought. Although, this probably would have been a decent way to summarize the way I used to think about human thinking.

I watched the first part, but I'll have to watch the rest sometime.

Personally, I don't believe in near death experiences. I'm of the opinion that the brain, for whatever reason, begins to function differently after the rest of the body dies, causing people to experience these strange sensations.

Of course, I'm no expert, and none of this is provable. But I've heard multiple accounts of near death experiences, and each one is inconsistent with one another.

People of all religions experience things consistent with their own beliefs. It's not any single religion that reports having near death experiences where they visited their own version of Heaven.

Even taking Christian accounts alone, they seem to contradict each other. How can their experiences be real, if they're not all experiencing the same Heaven?

I'm not sure if this documentary covers this, but some people report not so pleasant experiences of what they believe to be Hell. These definitely do not fall under the NDE criteria, but I wonder about them. Some people chose to become Christians because of what they report to be a Hellish kind of NDE, so I doubt they're completely making up their stories.


Actually, at first I was just pointing out the fact that only one Christian besides myself has posted in this posted in this forum. Everyone else seems to be against me.

This is okay, as long the group as a whole is interested in hearing my opinions, rather than just trying to change my mind. I'll just have to ignore those few individuals who are not worth the effort.



Okay. I think I understand your point of view.

According to the ancient Egyptians. I was speaking for them, because you were trying to judge them from a modern perspective. It's best to see their beliefs from their own perspective, so that you can keep context.

Okay then. But are these beliefs still reasonable today, taking into account our current biological knowledge? Can someone still argue for them?

Not to me. Is sunlight immaterial? No, it exists physically. So does the ka.

I see. So the ka is made up of physical energies, but they just aren't able to be experienced through the senses?

I still have to wonder what they'd need from water and food. They seem to be claiming that these invisible people need some other invisible energy source which attaches itself, for whatever reason, to the same things they consumed during their lifetime.

It seems unusual and strange to me, but that might just be because of my upbringing.


I think it get it.

I have thought it kind of strange, though convenient, that our minds just automatically know the beginning and ends of certain objects. It's really bizarre, but wonderful, programming. I can't even begin to understand how it works.


We seem to agree at this point. There really is no way to say for certain which view is "most reasonable." All we can do is consider the countless possibilities.

Is there any way to demonstrate or verify this idea?

I think quatona put it quite nicely. There is no way to prove or disprove any of these ideas.

You see, science is limited to the senses. We can only study what we can see, feel, hear, taste, or smell. We have some instruments which enhance our abilities to sense some things (such as with the x-ray, or microscope), but some things just cannot be experienced in these ways.

The question of what makes us who we are, or even the definition of "me," is up for debate. We cannot apply this question to science.
 
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jonmichael818

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Yes, many neurologists say that when a person dies it is not instant. Meaning that one moment the person is alive and the next dead, rather death is a gradual process.(of course this process may be slower or more rapid depending on the circumstamce) During this process experts say that what people are experiencing during NDE's, are hallucinations and that the feeling of great peace and joy is due to a rush of endorphins.

I agree there seems to be a lot of inconsistancy. This is why some of the reports of NDE's are of particular interest. Some reports have to do with patients seeing things(in the operating room) and hearing things(in the OR) that they should not have been able to see or hear, because they were clinically dead at the time these things were said or were in the room. I mean clinically dead and no brain activity.

Part of how the research teams are experimenting with this to avoid those inconsistancies are:
I personally do not know what to think about this subject just yet. I suspect it may just have something to do with the brain physiologically.
Of course it would be very interesting if they found that consciousness survives physical death.
I bet ghost enthusiasts would jump all over that.
 
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sandwiches

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So, you don't believe that souls or spirits have any effect on reality, then. How do they differ from that which isn't real if they have no effect on what exists?
 
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quatona

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Just because you mentioned me: I would like to give a caveat just so I´m not misunderstood:
I think the "existence of an I/me/self" itself is already just an unscientific assumption.
Personally, I don´t see much use in supporting such an assumption by further (and even more dubious) assumptions such as "souls" or "spirits". When layers upon layers of such wild assumptions are required to make an original assumption plausible I´d rather plead to let go of the original assumption.
I guess parsimony is my friend here.
 
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GrayAngel

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So, you don't believe that souls or spirits have any effect on reality, then. How do they differ from that which isn't real if they have no effect on what exists?

First, my opinion of the soul is that it is the things we experience because of the brain. Personality is not something you can touch or measure, but it is a real phenomenon that is completely dependent on the physical body.

As for the spirit, my view of the spirit is that it does not need a physical body to exist. Rather, the spirit is something separate from the rest of the world. It doesn't have a shape of consistency, it just is.

When we are alive, the spirit does not control the body, as some say the ghost does. But the spirit experiences the world through the soul and the body. The spirit is the life inside an otherwise empty shell.

Some people might call it the consciousness, but we are not always conscious when we're alive. Consciousness is another brain activity, so I would put that under the soul as well. But there's something more than that.

Is it possible that a robot could be made aware of its surroundings, and still be an empty shell? Can't it gather up information about the world and react to it, and still there would be no one inside the metal actually experiencing these things?

Sometimes I have these strange experiences, and this question takes over my mind. I'm not just conscious of the world, I'm experiencing it. I'm more than just an empty body gathering information.

Do spirits act on the world? I believe so. God Himself is a spirit, and so are angels and demons. However, we cannot exactly put God in a testing tube. So while these spirits may very well affect the physical world around us, we cannot measure them.

Seems from the way you use the words "real" and "reality" that you think only the physical world is real. But do we know this is the case? If what the Bible says is true, than the reverse might be more accurate, and the physical world would be just a passing dream, leading into a more permanent reality.
 
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sandwiches

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Two things:
1) If spirits or souls have an effect on reality, then this can be measured, tested, and verified. Maybe not with our current knowledge but it would be theoretically possible.

2) Whatever exists, regardless of whether it's here in this universe or in some afterlife, is real. Now, why do you believe there's more than what can be perceived?
 
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