I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done. I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please
Atheist: "Why is murder bad?" Theist: "Because God said so."
But my question is - Why did God say so? Why did he say that this is good and this is bad without them already being good and bad in the first place? And if they are inherently good, then they are inherently good no matter God's existence - God's existence does not determine morality in that case.
Well, a ridiculous statement requires ridiculous arguments.
Quite the contrary. You've made many ridiculous assertions through the history of this thread and most people have responded with factual data and evidence which disproves your claims. Honestly I think you are just getting frustrated that you have been unsuccessful at converting people with falsified data, appeals to emotion, and personal testimony. Forgive us if we require facts before we alter our position.
In parting: "Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non probat" which means "A wise man states nothing as true which he cannot prove"
"A wise man states nothing as true which he cannot prove"
I disagree. Emotions, feelings, intentions? Rarely can they be proven. It's through peoples words and the outcomes of their actions that these are often thought on.
I intend this to be the only argument I know against that statement. Whilst you can't claim it to be true, I cannot claim that my intention of making this not viable true either.
You might be able to prove it, but right now I feel my argument still stands. The only person who knows that is me - and I cannot prove otherwise (as of now, anyway)
Carbon dating tests carried out in 1988 showed that the cloth was dated from 13th or 14th centuries."
Carbon testing was proven inaccurate because the cloth sustained high heating and fire in about the same period, thus being infused with 14C from burning wood etc, making the tests return wrong data.
Carbon testing was proven inaccurate because the cloth sustained high heating and fire in about the same period, thus being infused with 14C from burning wood etc, making the tests return wrong data.
*sighs* Please give us a source on this. For all I know you're making it up to hold your flimsy argument aloft.
Say a person has a frontal lobe lobotomy. Has their soul somehow changed? Or some type of injury involving the brain? What happened to their previous soul?
Well, the soul in unchanged by this, but its ability to interact with the world changes dramatically. You might have heard of research about people whose brain was split in half by the colossal comissure influence (sometimes temporary) which develop "double personality". I expect their soul to not be split, but be connected (by any means) to both parts of the brain and both personalities, but be severely impaired in the ability of acting as a whole. This also includes the case where one personality identifies him as a believer, and the other as atheist. So, only the ability of one's soul interacting with the body is harmed by this.
Why did God say so?
You can't perceive this. I can't too.
Does the soul comprise the mind across time? But people can change their mind for the better or worse. If sins are damages against the soul, then why do we necessarily "inherit" the sins that we had in the past in the next second and in the next second? Our minds are constantly changing.
Souls also change somehow, however they are fully grown right at the time of the fetus forming, in terms of their spiritual abilities. I think that souls cannot repair themselves, but this is why they are also immortal, that's why you "inherit sins from past second to present and the next second". God can heal the soul of those injuries, of course, He just wants us to accept Him as our God.
Which animals have souls?
Answer unknown. Your speculation is nice, however.
In the case of the robot sharing your soul, if that robot commits a sin are you held responsible for that sin?
You know what, false -> anything is a casuistic speculation. You create the robot capable of high intelligence first, and we'll see if it will have a soul. I'm not strong in casuistics, I must confess, but I know that binary logic is beaten by casuistics, because of the logical "false -> X" is true for any X. Thus, a casuistic can produce any outcome of any "what if" statement, and just shrug any logical arguments off. I'm not into this.
What if we clone someone? Does that clone have it's own soul or are you sharing a soul?
I expect God will give him a soul, but will be greatly displeased at us for this. The same is true about IVF'd children.
no, they have their own souls to care for. He's displeased for US to do this, so it's US who are in danger of going to Hell for committing IVF and stem children.
I hate answers that are like this.
You want to judge God by human merits. This is impossible, as God is infinitely greater than us.
he only went to church once and they corrupted him so fast, pretty sad
By this logic, I'm "corrupted" even before going to church the first time. So what?
Carbon testing was proven inaccurate because the cloth sustained high heating and fire in about the same period, thus being infused with 14C from burning wood etc, making the tests return wrong data.
It being caught in a fire would not effect the 14C dating. However we did discover that the part tested was a repair job on the shroud. Further testing on the shroud shows it to be at least twice as old as the 14C dating indicated. The problem wasn't with the 14C dating but the sample itself. But as I said even if the date does go back to the time Jesus supposedly lived how do we know it was in fact the one used on Jesus?
You know what, false -> anything is a casuistic speculation. You create the robot capable of high intelligence first, and we'll see if it will have a soul. I'm not strong in casuistics, I must confess, but I know that binary logic is beaten by casuistics, because of the logical "false -> X" is true for any X. Thus, a casuistic can produce any outcome of any "what if" statement, and just shrug any logical arguments off. I'm not into this.
That didn't answer my question. Under the assumption that someone did build such a robot you stated.
"If you would build such a machine, however, it will have your soul as its own."
let's further assume that robots inventor was Christian. But the robot turns out to be an atheist. Under these conditions what happens to the soul?
