Leaderboard

There is nothing in the Bible that indicates the existence of a human soul. The only form of life after death that is mentioned in the Bible is the resurrection of the body when God or Jesus returns to reclaim the earth. The only exception to this is Jesus, who existed for a period of time as a spirit. Last year, I read the Bible from cover to cover. This was pretty surprising to me because one of the central elements of Christianity is the hope that we are immediately taken to heaven at the moment of death. There's nothing in the Bible that indicates that this is the case. Where did this come from? Is it a construct of the church? Did I completely miss something important? I'm no Bible scholar and I'm open to other opinions on this. I really am puzzled by it. With regards to a basis for morality, God help us if we rely on the Bible. With the exception of some of the teachings of Jesus, the Bible is a horror show.

A theist is someone who believes that one or more gods actually exist. An atheist does not have a belief in a god, not necessarily that a god or gods don't exist, just that there is not enough evidence to warrant a belief that a particular god does exist. The burden of proof is on the theist, or a god, to prove that a god exists, not on an atheist to prove that a god doesn't exist. As to the question of morality, atheism is not a world view or a system of morality. It is simply a rejection of the claim that a god has been shown to exist. Therefore, your question of atheism and morality is highly biased and leading, in other words, preaching to the choir. Those who do not believe in a god, and therefore, don't believe the teachings of religion based on faith are free use other means of evaluating morality across the strata of human experience, culture, science, philosophy, and logic for the common good and well-being of society. As a corollary, those who do not believe in the divine nature of religious scripture, say the Christian Bible, are free to read it objectively for what it is, an incredibly immoral, contradictory, and absurd collection of archaic stories that illustrate why atheism is the superior position. If you'd like to see the ignorance and dishonesty of people trying to defend the morality of their religious beliefs, may I suggest checking out the YouTube channel - The Atheist Experience. The Atheist Experience is a call in show, usually hosted by Matt Dillahunty, where theists try to argue for the existence of a god, and generally prove themselves to be in denial of and ignorant of the immorality of their own beliefs. The show also does an incredible job of explaining where atheists get their morals from, which is the question you originally asked, but something tells me that you weren't really looking for an answer!

?? References to heaven are all over the place in the Bible. Are you referring to the idea that people go there at the instant of death? In that case, Luke 23: "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." I guess you could argue that that was a special pass for being crucified with Christ - but it suggests that some people _do_ go there pretty close to the moment of death. And the Bible makes a pretty clear statement on the existence of the soul. Ecclesiastes 12: "The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." (referring to the dust that humans were created from in ver 2 of Genesis.)

A pretty good commentary on organized religion.

But she IS also wrong. As I just showed. I wanted to let you all know she's a fishnet wearing street walker for an associating who publishes misleading information (like she just published) to confuse people regarding climate change.

Yet we do share similar basic operating systems that do not contain anything to do with nor believe in a god, that's the malware virus content that is installed when we click on the "click OK to continue" box. We do not "boot up" with any belief system, it is fully installed as optional programming. That was my intent of the comparison.

Well, yes, but we know the mechanism of installation. It didn't just grow (as yet). Once computers, completely independent of humans, begin to design and build new systems, will they still be the result of human innovation? Computers didn't come by chance, unless you count our development of them as being a chance. Humans are by chance, and are most definitely not the culmination of years of deliberate refinement, any more than sea slugs are. Wendy P.

A flourish of strumpets.

What happens next depends on the circumstances. He says something mean and it turns out to just be mean: "Geez, I guess alarmists have no sense of humor." He says something mean and it turns out it's mean AND wrong: "Well, I was up all night working, unlike alarmists." He says something mean and it someone points out that it doesn't make his point: "You sound just like Billvon, conflating weather with Hitler."

It returns to the lightning - whis is god's synapses.

I think that sums it up pretty good. IMO

You do realize that those experiments have been completely and thoroughly debunked, right? They have never been repeated and are considered to be inaccurate. It it gives you comfort or make you wonder, fine. But it was flawed science. I would also note that he weighed dying dogs as well and found that they had no soul. I would say that the killing of these 15 dogs to do this experiment makes me think the good Dr. definitely had no soul. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/weight-of-the-soul/

Marc Cohen in "Walking In Memphis" (He is Jewish) Now Muriel plays piano Every Friday at the Hollywood And they brought me down to see her And they asked me if I would Do a little number And I sang with all my might She said "Tell me are you a Christian child?" And I said "Ma'am, I am tonight"

Bovec, Slovenia This one solved it, thanks! Also found a video by Brian Germain explaining this

A computer hard drive with a computer program weighs exactly the same as one that is empty. Where does the program exist? It exists in information. Our mind exists in the firing patterns of our neurons. I highly suggest looking up Information Theory to answer some of your questions.

Just because I can not prove something, or understand something, does not make it non-physical. My feeling is that everything is physical, but we are not capable of understand it all. If there were a heaven and a hell they would both be physical in nature. However, I don't believe in either, so in my mind they are not physical. Anymore than unicorns are.

Well that's pretty simple. It's the same as the difference between admitting you don't know something and saying that you do know something. If you say you know something and want me to believe you, you will need either evidence or a track record that I trust. This gets to the reason I never ask someone like Ron for example to justify or prove his beliefs are objectively true. He can't, I know it and he knows it. So it's pointless. I try to never ask someone for proof, so your question makes an assumption that I do something that I don't.

With this particular definition of spirituality it seems to me to be synonymous with consciousness. So sure, I am conscious therefore I am spiritual therefore I can be moral. Job done. It comes from consciousness, therefore it comes from my brain. If you take my brain away then yes, my own spiritual reality would cease to exist. It's axiomatic. Ask Descartes.

Christianity does not hold morality at it's core. It teaches that all sin can be absolved through Christ. It is nearly completely immoral in that regard. To me spirituality simply means wonder or awe, an acknowledgement all things are connected in some way that we can not ever understand. I am atheist because I say I am. I am spiritual because I am human and my consciousness must have some way of dealing the mystery of existence. Is this the inconsistency you are trying to understand?

I have put it into quotes, because I did not mean it to denote any kind of religious meaning. What I mean by spiritual: An aspect of reality that cannot be found in the world of simple objects. "Simple Objects" being things that you can point to in physical reality. They generally have "simple location" (meaning they are in one specific place at one specific time--some quantum effects being the exception) and can be perceived either by our physical senses or by instruments that are extensions of our physical senses. Brain cells would be an example of such simple objects. "Spiritual things" on the other hand cannot be pointed to in physical reality. They can include things like "morals", "values", "consciousness", "meaning", etc. If you think that these things do exist, then your theory of the world has to somehow include them. If you construct a theory of the world that explains how everything comes into being but these things are excluded, then your theory is incomplete and cannot explain things that depend on these "non-physical" (to get away from the word "spiritual") realities. Again, none of this says anything about religion. I am getting just slightly annoyed that a lot of responses seem to assume that if I point out something about atheism that questions it in any way, it must mean I'm arguing for organized religion (as if there were only 2 possible positions). It just happens that religion doesn't have THAT particular problem, because it not only accepts such non-physical realities but holds them at its very core.

No. I studied Physics at the Technical University Vienna, but changed to Philosophy, and later Computer Science. Yes. In spite of not graduating in physics, I am still fascinated by theoretical physics and keep up on a lot of the new theories. However, I find that MOST people who are not actual physicists and base their belief systems on scientific rationalism do so mostly on the assumption that Newtonian way of seeing reality is still pretty much intact.

Hi Sky, Yup, Jerry Baumchen

In "The Portable Atheist" the anthology edited by C. Hitchens, one author makes the snide remark that what God actually said was "go fuck yourselves" but it got re-worked into "be fruitful and multiply".

Less youtube. More actual jumping or tunnelling.