The Soul.

The soul in the Bible, and other places, is just the mind. It's an emergent property of the brain. Just like fire is an emergent property of a candle.

As to what happens to it after death? The ancient Greeks thought it went to Hades. Aristotle thought it went in search of knowledge. But as far as scientists know it just dies with the body. Just like flame dies when you blow it out or destroy the candle.

 

this is the most likely truth.

it sure as fuck ain't sky daddy and moral superiority.

 

The only way Christians and Non Christians will ever to come together is to separate the Body and the Soul. It will allow the acceptance of the concepts of virgin birth by Cleopatra and Mary. It will explain the reincarnation of Jesus after the crucifixion. It will explain the beliefs in ghosts and spirits, evil or benevolent. Mary and Joseph may have produced the body of Jesus in the carnal way, and god chose that body to house the soul of Jesus. The soul is what ascends into heaven after the death of the body.

 

Interesting. Sam Harris, a neuroscientist an one of the New Atheist "Four Horseman", seems to disagree. In The End of Faith, he writes:
"...the truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death. While there is much to be said against a naive conception of a soul that is independent of the brain, the place of consciousness in the natural world is very much an open question. The idea that brains produce consciousness is little more than an article of faith among scientists at present., and there are mant reasons to believe that the methods of science will be insufficient to either prove or disprove it." (p. 208). This is one issue on which I tend to be more of a materialist than Sam Harris, but I don't claim to be basing my skepticism about souls on scientific expertise. My belief is mostly based on intuition.

 

I doubt that will do it. Christians already separate Body and Soul. Separating them has no logical bearing on the doctrine of the virgin birth, which denies that Mary ever had sex with Joseph or anyone else. As for Cleopatra, I've never heard any claims that she was a virgin. In fact, she was noted for claiming that her eldest son Caesarion was fathered by Julius Caesar (before the latter became a god posthumously by vote of the Roman senate. Were you thinking maybe of Isis? I'd question that one, too, since she became pregnant with Horus after using a magic dildo. BTW, the "change" you're recommending sounds like the longstanding position of traditional Christians.

 

More of the logic (or rather IL-logic) of religion, that I've heard throughout the years (I might as well put it here in this thread):

• If the soul lives for eternity, that would require infinite energy. No, it would. So where are you going to find infinite energy?


• How much does the soul weigh? Einstein proved that energy and mass are the same thing. So even if it is only energy, then how much does it weigh? And can you weigh it?


• If heaven and hell are a place, where are they (physically, in other words) and how big are they? No, they are not a "state". You are claiming they are a "place". So like I said, where are they and how big are they?

• Why do ghosts wear clothing? And watches? And have hair? And where in the Bible, or in any religion, does it say we should be seeing ghosts? Especially things like ghost houses and trains?

• Why did God create the Devil? No he doesn't allow him. He must have created him. So why did he do that?

• Could God create a boulder so large that even he couldn't lift it?

 

I should have said mass. Also, I didn't ask these questions. I've heard them in many places throughout the years.

 

I think that the reason that I used the Virgin Concept is somehow related to Christians obsession with male domination over women, and the purity of a virgin. I thought that Cleopatra claimed that her pregnancy resulted from a communion with RA in a dream. I may have my gods mixed up. I will sort through my Cleopatra documents and correct if necessary. There are other possible accounts of this event. Cleopatra may have had a reputation of sexual promiscuity with the Romans, but being Ancient Greek she may have engaged in other forms of sex including Oral and Anal sex. Intercourse by a Greek Queen would be problematic and risky in a country with Egyptian Culture. A pregnant queen with no legitimate father would have resulted in a rebellion.

This idea may have also influenced the virginity idea associated with Mary and Joseph, since Cleopatra had just died less than a century before the birth of Jesus. What we do know is that Hebrews traditionally married and consummated the bond in June leading to a probable birth in March, that will match up with a date off March 22 for the birth of Jesus. March 22 in the year of Jesus' birth matches up with the alignment of planets in the night sky followed by the Three kings. This marriage tradition would have been important due to the merging of the House of David and the House of Benjamin, and designating of Jesus being the King of the Jews.. The last supper may have two possible scenarios including the Celebration of Passover and the birthday for Jesus.

 

The fact that Cleopatra claimed Julius Caesar as the father of Caesarion is well-documented, so I'd rule that out as a possibility for Christian borrowing. The union of the two houses theory makes little sense, since the Biblical genealogies were both traced thru Joseph. But you are correct that Joseph's alleged tie to David was important to establishing Jesus' Messianic credentials. Illogically so, since Joseph supposedly had nothing to do with his conception.

There's a lot of woo and made up stuff out there on the internet, especially the crap circulated by the late S. Acharya (aka, Dorothy Murdock) and the Zeitgeist cr, So be careful!

 

How do you know?

 

The concept of legitimacy was an important in ancient history. Kings throughout history were obsessed being a political and theological power. That concept was important to Cleopatra, and to the House of David to counter the power of the Arabic king Herod.

The heritage of both Joseph and Mary were well known in biblical times. I am not Jewish, but their history is well known by Jewish Historians. The fact that Moses was a Levite and most Jews who have the surname Levi are descendent from that tribe. It is not an accident that Jesus(a) was called the king of the Jews. The three kings who traveled from India to Bethlehem on camels, knew the significance of the birth of the future Jewish king, descendent from Solomon and David. Since his older brothers may have had a different mother, the term "King of the Jews" did not apply to them. There were a number of Jewish tribes who were influential in both Judea and ancient Israel. It is important to consider Jewish history by a Jewish Historian.

Christian historians are sometimes swayed by Christian myth rather than historical facts. Jesus was not the son of a poor carpenter in a country with no trees. Joseph was probably born in Jerusalem, but living in Gaza prior to the birth of Jesus. This is why the family was traveling to Jerusalem to be counted in the census ordered by Caesar Augustus.

I repeat "It is important to consider Jewish history by a Jewish Historian."

 

I happen to share your (and Jimbee's) view that "the mind is an emergent property of the brain". But as I pointed out, many folks, including New Atheist neuroscientist Sam Harris, aren't on board with this. In my case, it's primarily an intuition-based assumption based on what I think I know about the brain and the rest of physical reality. But others on these forums--particularly Lone Mountain Wolf, who accuses me of being a materialst--have taken strong issue with that. The thread topic is the soul. You see this as separate from mind and consciousness. Is it also an emergent property of the brain, or does it simply not exist? There's been a perennial debate in philosophy, psychology and science over the "mind-body issue". By asking "How do you know?" I was hoping for more information about mind, consciousness and the soul to take it beyond a statement of opinion.

Britannica defines mind as : "the complex of faculties involved in perceiving, remembering, considering, evaluating, and deciding. Mind is in some sense reflected in such occurrences as sensations, perceptions, emotions, memory, desires, various types of reasoning, motives, choices, traits of personality, and the unconscious." That's a lot of functions. As Wikepdia puts it:"The mind is the totality of psychological phenomena and capacities, encompassing both conscious and unconscious states." So "mind" seems to be the umbrella term. The Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK) breaks it down into three components, two with subdivisions: Mind 1a. neurocognitive processes that occur within the brain but are not consciously experienced; Mind 1b. Observable behaviors that can be studied scientifically; Mind 2. the subjective conscious experience available to the individual; Mind 3a, the human ego that constructs narratives about itself; Mind 3b. public verbal expression, as I'm now doing. Freud's id and superego must be subsumed under Mind 1a., along with Jung's collective unconscious. But no soul!

Harris writes: "Most scientists consider themselves to be physicalists; this means that, among other tings, that they believe that our mental and spiritual lives are wholly dependent upon the workings of our brains. On this account, when the brain dies, the stream of our being must come to an end....But the truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death. While there is much to be said against a naIve conception of a soul that is independent of a brain, the place of consciousness in the natural world is very much an open question." The End of Faith, p. 208.

 

I think that we are trying to make documented events too complicated. A simpler point of view might be that there is a conscious portion of the brain and a subconscious portion. When a head injury occurs the conscious element takes a rest to allow the brain to repair itself. Excuse me but is a long time since I took anatomy and physiology 50. The subconscious brain element may take over some brain function following an injury. This may enhance subconscious fears and delusions until the rest of the brain can repair itself.

 

Easy peasy: from an omnipotent deity Who can supply infinite energy.

Einstein proved that matter and energy are interchangeable, but that doesn't mean they're the same thing. Yes, E=mc2, but that applies only to things at rest (rest energy.) There is a tiny weight to electrons in electricity (8.19 times 10 to the minus 14 joules), and even light has an infinitesimal amount of energy as a source of gravitational fields, but these are negligible compared to material weights. As for souls (if they exist), we don't know whether or not they're a form of energy or something else unknown to science.

"If" is the operative word. Who is claiming they are a "place", in a physical sense? They are depicted that way metaphorically in the Bible only to make them understandable to ordinary folks. Physicist Frank Tippler thinks we'll be assigned to our computer simulated virtual heavens and hells after death by demonic robots. That would fit well with Oxford professor Nick Bostrom's theory that our "reality" is a computer simulation--programed by Whom?

If elves and leprechauns can wear clothes, why can't ghosts? Since they seem to be imaginary, they can wear anything they want, or nothing at all. Seriously, the Bible negates the notion that the spirits of deceased humans remain on earth to “haunt” houses or the living.

The origin of "the Devil" seems to have grown out of an obscure reference to Lucifer (Latin for הֵילֵל(, hêlēl or"Shining One" in Isaiah 14:12) about the downfall of a king of Babylon for his pride, and the character ha-Satan (the Adversary) who makes his debut as the heavenly prosecutor in the book of Job. The "Devil" (διάβολος diábolos,or “slanderer”) is the Greek rendering in the Septuagint. Without any explicit explanation in the Bible, these stories were linked in general discourse to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. And voilà, we have the Prince of Darkness, who, along with his demonic minions, roams about the world seeking the ruin of souls! Why did God create him? Because He wanted to. The story goes he was created as an Angel but, like us, was given free will, and used it to lead a rebellion of "fallen angels", and was cast out of heaven. The Qur'an goes into more detail. He is called Iblis, and was cast out of Heaven because he was jealous of the humans God created and refused to bow to them, resulting in his expulsion from Heaven. He seems to have entered into biblical lore in the fifth century BCE, the Persian era, and is possibly influenced by the Zoroastrian Ahriman or Angra mainyu, the destructive spirit leading the forces of Darkness.

Oh, that old saw! Col Ingersoll, nineteenth century atheist, used to regale his audiences with that paradox. Most theologians solve it by acknowledging that God's omnipotence extends only to things that are not logically contradictory, so, no, God can't make a rock he couldn't lift. Some, associated with the school of Process Theology arrive at the same answer by a different route: God is not omnipotent. Charles Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes.

 

Your explanation is consistent with Buddhist metaphysics. The Buddha, having rejected the notion of "self" as an illusion, had to grapple with the Hindu concept of reincarnation. He concluded that people are "reborn', without actually being reincarnated. This seems like double talk to me, but I understand it makes sense to some people. I'm afraid I have a more materialistic view than you or Harris. I, like Jimbee and (I thought), you think that mind is "an emergent property of the brain." I think of consciousness in terms of the Unified Theory of Knowledge (Post #15), which conceptualizes consciousness as a component of mind. Jimbee uses the metaphor of the flame of a candle. I think of movie images generated by film and a projector. If the film or projector break, no movie. But that's just my personal mindset. No one can "prove" this, one way or another, as Harris says.

Consciousness, defined as subjective phenomenal awareness--qualia or subjective experienc--is the most immediate part of our experience. Chalmers called the phenomenal aspect of it "the hard problem'". From an evolutionary standpoint, it's hard to understand why it is advantageous to a species to have it. since zombies or an organism equipped with AI could get by without it, if the important thing about it is the ability to survive and reproduce. But to me, its of central importance. I could more easily deny the existence of external reality, including your existence, than to deny my own, which I operationally define as my consciousness. There is indeed a self, for better or for worse! But I have no confidence that my consciousness will survive after the camera breaks or the candle burns down. And the soul, to me, is incomprehensible unless it's a synonym for consciousness, or possibly that linked with the unconscious of psychoanalytic models.

Interstingly another New Atheist "Horseman", the late philosopher Daniel Dennett, denied the existence of phenomenal consciousness and qualia (Consciousness Expalined, ), which IMOH, qualified him for a padded cell. Others who seem to agree with me are John Searle (1997)The Mystery of Consciousness, (1992, The Rediscovery of Mind); Strawson https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/StrawsonDennettNYRBExchangeConsciousness2018.pdf; and Thomas Nagel, "What is It Like to be a Bat", Philosophical Review (Oct., 1974), pp. 435–50