How can one know they have a soul or spirit?

[Blastcat]

I mean that it is empty in itself, because it only appears to be through other processes and factors.

Like everything else? Then everything is void. Your ideas about void are also void.
How is the sense of "being" different?

 

[Blastcat]

Do take it too seriously? As in in a good or bad way or doesnt matter?

I think it's way more important that you decide.

If you aren't trying to ram your beliefs down the throat of anyone else, your probably like most people and ok. But it's never ok to condone harm to anyone. Too many really nice people condone evil practices just because they are religious.

The time has passed for that. Bad ideas are just BAD IDEAS.
Let's get rid of bad ideas.

To tell you honestly, I see more harm coming from the people. I always use a gun as an example. A gun does nothing oon its own. Its just a metal object (or whatever its made of), with bullets and a trigger. If someone uses that gun for ill purposes, that I have a problem with.

It's always the people who do harm. However, I am not here to discuss people who do harm. We should agree that they are wrong. But I am in here to discuss the ideas that might LEAD someone to hold a gun. Religions are one of those reasons.

With some people, they are comparing religion as if they are guns. I was never comfortable with that. People can use a butter knife to kill someone but its main use is for butter and so on and so forth.

Yes, your gun and knife analogy is a good one Religion is a gun, or a knife. We had BETTER be careful with them. People aren't careful ENOUGH... Maybe not EVERYONE should own a gun or a knife. Maybe we should talk about that.

The ONLY problem with religion is that there are HUGE problems with religion. Let's not pretend otherwise.

If I were to challenge a belief, Id challenge how the person comes to the belief he does. So instead of asking "does god exist?" Id ask more "How did you come to that conclusion? What in your brain (I wouldnt say that bluntly) click to where you feel a deity takes care of you?"

I like that approach. I use it. I tried to use it with you, and that failed.
I think it's a shame.

I mean, you can challenge a persons belief until they are blue in the face with all its inaccuracies. However, in all belief systems, if its that persons reality even If they see contradictions, if it works for them, they keep it. Just not many admit that they have some false beliefs (and even more so, false based on what? My view or objective? If objective, what is the common denominator Im basing my opinion on?)

1. If we are to be reasonable, the common denominator should be GOOD reasoning.
2. If we are to care about reality, our common denominator should be reality, and not fantasy.

Instead, if a believer is up for it, the only way to really get through is to challenge the psyche of that believer. Really get him to question why he believes what he does and even more important, how. Not to make him see his beliefs are false based on my views but question him about his views and see if he sees it himself IF it is false. I wouldnt know. I rarely do that because people are attached to their faith. Its not like debating what Plato meant by the Myth of the Cave type of thing.

Why do we need to protect their bad thinking? I say we need to EXPOSE their bad thinking, and help them think better. That they are too attached to their beliefs is THE PROBLEM.

It's true that most people are seldom interested in abandoning their cherished beliefs. They don't usually concern themselves if the beliefs are true.. but if they seem to be LIKELY true to them. It's just bad reasoning motivated by emotion and habit.

True. Havent you had anyone got far enough that you understand at least one religious concept and belief they had even though you disbelieve it?

I understand a lot of things. However, when they use these WORDS.. all we have are words. There is no REALITY attached, so all the meanings are subjective and ever changing, like your definition for "spirit".

You say it's "breath". Perfectly meaningless to call breath a "spirit". We know what breath is.. we STILL don't know why you would call it "SPIRIT" as if that meant something else, or special. I have NO idea what you mean.

Actually, it sounded like saracasm because I dont even think thats a word.

No idea what you are talking about. Sorry. If you don't quote me... then I can't read it, and your comment is meaningless. Sorry. You think that I might have been sarcastic because I use a word that I made up. How interesting. I make up a lot of words. I don't do so to be sarcastic.

If you think that something is sarcastic.. and it hurts, complain and I will take it back. I don't mean to be rude to anyone. People assume that I mean to be rude. I don't.

I can't help how people judge other people. That's on them.

I ran over natualist before. There is such thing as a spiritual natualist. Then you got all these isms etc. I never knew anything about pantheism, atheism, this ism, that ism, and all the ists until I came online.
I think ever since I came on RF Ive been in what 10 boxes already.

So, you seem to equate the natural world with a religious sensibility somehow.
It sounds nice, but a bit extravagant. I think I'm like that too, but I just don't go so far. I would not use religiously loaded words.. I would use a word like "awe" when I am expressing my emotional response to nature. Not "soul", not "spirit". It's time that we lose the bad thinking that religion represents. We can keep the art and the poetry. We need to lose the bad thinking.

But supernatualist doesnt make sense going by language. Closest I can think of to that is spiritual natualist but even that I dont claim because a lot of isms sounds like pop words.

Well, when I meant supernaturalist, I was thinking that you might believe in ghosts and that kind of thing...... you were talking about your family. I was asking if you had supernatural beliefs.

Like seeing someone who is: A neo-christo polytheistic, druidic pantheism with buddhist leanings and muslim practitioner.

I leave it alone.

Yeah, it really does get messy and vague. I call that "meaningless".

I thought they were interchangable and never questioned it. I just prefer the word spirit instead.

Yeah, both meaningless words are even used to define each other... they are really both quite meaningless. I went to the Wikipedia page for spiritual naturalism.. It actually talks about how each term is mostly meaningless to philosophers.

One meaningless word is interchangeable with any other meaningless word. "Blablabla" is interchangeable with "Bazinga." We could use both words a LOT, and like one or the other A LOT.. but they still have no meaning IN themselves. If I were to say that Blablabla means poo.. and Bazinga means toilet paper.. THEN they have meaning.

We can invent infinite meanings for the words. That's how meaningless words work, they can MEAN just about anything.
BREATH has meaning. SPIRIT has none.

One might ask what MORE meaning spirit has than breath... I'd say NO MEANING.
Breath has meaning, spirit has none.

Soul and spirit are mostly meaningless terms for something that people seem to LIKE an awful lot. People seem to be willing to die and to kill for those terms and their particular kinds.. be it Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist... When people get TOO ATTACHED to their religious beliefs, trouble isn't far behind.

I don't OWN a gun.... I think it's asking for trouble. And I was fully trained to use one. I know the danger. I do NOT think that we would be safer if everyone owned a gun. I KNOW we would not be. I think that about religions. I KNOW we aren't safe on our planet due to religions. I don't think that everyone should have one.

Kitchen knives are WAY less dangerous than guns.

Religions are more like AUTOMATIC WEAPONS and WOMDs than kitchen knives.

Yes. I try not to as much. I did when I went into Catholicism and left it I asked a lot of questions. Now I understand why a lot of christians belief as they do, I just dont understand how.

The "how" is usually by :

1. Indoctrination. Not many people actually CHOOSE their religions. They are born into them.
2. Intellectual laziness. People usually stay with a belief instead of taking the considerable trouble to change them.
3. Confirmation bias and circular thinking.. this is actually encouraged by the religious authorities.
4. Denial. JUST no...
5. Offense. If someone even HINTS at challenging some people's beliefs, they either run away in a huff or attack.
6. Usually it all ends with " You just got to have faith". Faith has to be THE WORST method to acquire a belief.

On RF, a lot of religious just watch and read. Thats another annoying thing. I think there is what ten people who interact in this forum. Maybe you meet someone who doesnt mind steping out of the box.then remember, many people cant. Its not that they are dismissing it entirely, but the religion they adopted at adulthood or indoctrinated as a child or whenever is a part of their identity.

Something I find hard to accept and only understand it when I think of my own faith.

It's ok if someone just wants to read. That's how they can learn, and make their mind up. That's why I always try to write to that "Silent audience". If I can help them on their journey away from what they have been indoctrinated into.. I have done a good thing.

For all of you reading this... I was a believer once. Then I started to read, and learn. I didn't take anyone on his word, but demanded evidence. That demand for evidence is what killed the superstitions that I was taught were true.

So, when a believer is vague, or rude, or runs away in a puff of hurt... the invisible audience gets to see that. They also get to see that I am trying my best to be reasonable, fair, and not at all evil.

Let them decide who makes more sense. The religious person with a variable understanding that ... might be just about anything, and who is stuck defending pretty rotten stuff, or the atheist, who doesn't have an agenda but trying to find out the TRUTH?

Lets use the best methods, and be as honest as we can. I think that's the best we can do, and I think a lot of people will appreciate it. I know I did. That's why I'm an atheist now. I had questions, and some atheist took the time and trouble to answer each and every one of my questions honestly.

Religious people don't always do that... some get angry and end the discussion insulted at the mere IDEA of answering direct questions. That's NOT how to influence people. That's showing that their religious beliefs are... empty at best, and dangerous at worst.

 

[Blastcat]

Part two…..

I think thats fine. Online can mess up intent behind honest questions and answer either party may never understand. That and I wish we had more discussion rather than question and answer format when learning about each others religions and how we see them as true even though it sounds false.

How do we DISCUSS anything without someone asking questions?
Just agree with absolutely everything, even if it's wrong?

That's not discussion.. that's not even thinking. We might as well be talking to rocks...

Preachers want to preach and NOT be challenged. That's why so many people get angry when I interrupt their preaching in here. They want to tell us WHAT they believe, but they don't want a DISCUSSION about it. They get angry and run away like the preaching cowards that they are.

I have no respect for someone like that.
When they leave like that. they only show their backside. Not their most upfront position.

I dont know if I gave you the definition, but spirit is a collection of our emotions, thoughts, traits, and so forth of our psyche that lets us relate to ourselves, others, and the world around us

I have no idea what that means. Do you mean ... our ego, our self identity?

When someone uses a religiously loaded word to mean something perfectly natural.. it messes up more than it clarifies, sorry. I suggest you read the Wiki entry for spiritual naturalism.. they have definitions for natural and spiritual you might find more useful.

In theology, spirit means breathe.

No, it doesn't. Breath is the etymology, not the theological meaning.

The psyche and energy (real energy rather than "religious jargon") that keeps us going and makes us who we are (physical former, mental latter) is sumed up as "breathe"

Well, it could be summed up as "eat". It could also be summed up as "drink".

Its a metaphor. We need air to breathe. Air gives us life. I honestly dont know a one word term for that thats not religious jargon. Energy is the closest.

Oh.. so the word "spirit" is just a metaphor for breathing. I don't need a metaphor better than "breathing" for the event called "breathing".. I don't think it's useful to say that I can be "SPIRITING" underwater using scuba equipment.

If I run, I don't think it's very useful to say that I am SPIRITING hard......

The word spirit, if used as to mean BREATH is completely confusing, redundant, and connotes ONLY a religious sensibility to SOMETHING... To everything, maybe. Who knows?

ALL WORDS are metaphors.. but we should use CLEAR metaphors, not vague confusing ones.

You say that you don't understand the metaphor "soul".... I don't understand your metaphor "spirit".
So after all of this talk about spirit we have NOT advanced any knowledge other than you like the word...

Thats how I know spirit exist. Without breathe (all the above) I wouldnt be here.

We know about how animals have to breathe in order to live.

Anything that needs to breathe has a spirit.. do insects have spirits too?
We say that wine breathes.. does wine have a spirit too? We even CALL wine a spirit...

The word spirit is just too vague to have any real meaning.

HOWEVER.. the word "breath" does have precise meaning.

You want to connect the word "breath" that DOES have a precise meaning to the word "spirit" , so that spirit can take a free meaning ride on breath. Completely illegitimate.

I might as well say that the word "horse" means "cart" because I can connect meaning between the two.
I can do this kind of bogus reasoning all day. It's TOO easy.

It's a child's game.

So, NO, it doesn't make any sense to say that spirit is breath because you can make a connection between the two. I showed you how spirit can be connected to human excrement for the very same reason. Next time ... you know.. think of the spirit in that.

If you don't go potty.. you will die. Believe me.
You need potty poo poo to live.

So, by your reasoning, spirit can be poo poo, too.

Spirit also can be "soul". It can be "breath", it can be air, feeling, emotion, thought, identity, attitude and alcoholic beverages. A spirit can be a person, a supernatural being, a ghost. A spirit can mean the mind, it can mean that someone is lively. Music can be spirited. The law has a spirit. Dead people can have spirit. Spirit can be used to mean courage, resilience, power, it can mean intent, it can mean stubbornness.

All perfectly good meanings for "spirit".

But you choose "breath" out of those possible meanings. A bit vague that word, if it really has so many possible meanings, depending on the context.

It can even mean poo.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I can't read minds. If someone doesn't actually write something that makes sense, I can't be expected or bothered to pretend to know WHY or WHAT or HOW or anything. You also cannot read my mind. You cannot "read" my mood unless I TELL you my mood.

Surely, a strong atheist (myself) would not believe in existence of soul.
<<<

 

[Unveiled Artist]

What method would you use to challenge the ideas of any believer without seeing their views as meanless but more for learning and seeing from their perspective rather than your own?

It's always the people who do harm. However, I am not here to discuss people who do harm. We should agree that they are wrong. But I am in here to discuss the ideas that might LEAD someone to hold a gun. Religions are one of those reasons.

Religions are not, though. That is a generalization. Its the other way around. I (my intention etc) is the one that motivates or leads me to use the gun not the gun itself.

How would you challenge the ideas that lead people from the religions that may be in general dangerous to others? (rephrasing your point)

The ONLY problem with religion is that there are HUGE problems with religion. Let's not pretend otherwise.

What is wrong with the religion?

Inaccurances, contradictions, and invisible angels harm no one. Thats like saying there is a prolem with a childrens fantasy book. Focus on the people who use the religion, if you like. People will still use religion in a bad way even if it only says "God is love' and thats it.

1. If we are to be reasonable, the common denominator should be GOOD reasoning.
2. If we are to care about reality, our common denominator should be reality, and not fantasy.

What definition of good and reality that both parties can agree on so that when you address your point, the other party understands even if they disagree?

Why do we need to protect their bad thinking? I say we need to EXPOSE their bad thinking, and help them think better. That they are too attached to their beliefs is THE PROBLEM.

How would you productively do that without steping on their beliefs (good intent or not) in the process?

Sometimes there isnt a nice way to take a gun. However, if someone isnt using the gun, how would you take it without their immediate reaction or defending themselves in the process?

It's true that most people are seldom interested in abandoning their cherished beliefs. They don't usually concern themselves if the beliefs are true.. but if they seem to be LIKELY true to them. It's just bad reasoning motivated by emotion and habit.

Having beliefs (rather than facts) based on emotion and habit is not wrong. What is wrong is how people use these beliefs against others. Instead of attacking the beliefs, attack (or challenge) how they are using those beliefs. Do it in a way that doesnt offend them. If it still does, leave it alone. Maybe you wont understand it; and, there isnt a religious police authority who can monitor whose beliefs are wrong unless it causes people to go against the law of their societies.

I see no reason nor benefit of challenging a persons beliefs in order to proove them false. If anything, it may boomer rang, have them feeling with no hope, and they kill more people then they did 2,000 years ago.

I understand a lot of things. However, when they use these WORDS.. all we have are words. There is no REALITY attached, so all the meanings are subjective and ever changing, like your definition for "spirit".

You say it's "breath". Perfectly meaningless to call breath a "spirit". We know what breath is.. we STILL don't know why you would call it "SPIRIT" as if that meant something else, or special. I have NO idea what you mean.

I know its meaningless to you. What benefit will you receive from challenging me to something you may never understand? Do you want to learn from me or do you want to proove my religion false so it wont lead me to commit crimes based on my faith?

Honestly, if you think my religious beliefs (like others) will lead me and millions to do dangerous things, maybe it is better to drop generalizations and access how beliefs affect people individually. Catholicism helped me greatly. It didnt make me think of death and pushing my former morals in peoples faces because they disagreed with mine. I didnt catagorize people as christian vs. catholic. Im just not in that group of religious people that many non-religious catagorize as dangerous and/or wrong.

Yet, Catholics have killed thousands of people in the past based on their faith. So, if you want to address religions as a dangerous weapon, get to know the person and before making generalizations, access if they actually do the things people assume most religious do (ex push beliefs on people). Not everyone sees religion as a gun. As a result, not every religion leads someone to dangerous things. It depends on the person not the religion.

So, you seem to equate the natural world with a religious sensibility somehow.
It sounds nice, but a bit extravagant. I think I'm like that too, but I just don't go so far. I would not use religiously loaded words.. I would use a word like "awe" when I am expressing my emotional response to nature. Not "soul", not "spirit". It's time that we lose the bad thinking that religion represents. We can keep the art and the poetry. We need to lose the bad thinking.

I understand. Im a poet and writer, and dont mind using some religious loaded words. When I explain it to an atheist, I try to dumb it to psychology and sociology. Thats basically the confines of religious thought. How we interact with ourselves, others, and our beliefs.

Well, when I meant supernaturalist, I was thinking that you might believe in ghosts and that kind of thing...... you were talking about your family. I was asking if yo

I do believe in spirits or deceased individuals on earth. However, it is very hard to explain it and I have been trying to. Unfortunately, every time I explain iti through psychology and sociology and even physiology, atheist dont give up as if there should be a hidden answer outside the human psyche.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

The problem I see in your debates is you are not accepting that people will and do use religious loaded words for simple and common sense conceepts. Cant get pass that unless you accept this or ask religious to use other words that are not religious oriented. If they cannot, then if youd like to understand their point of view, learn their language and find a common language for communication.

When someone uses a religiously loaded word to mean something perfectly natural.. it messes up more than it clarifies, sorry. I suggest you read the Wiki entry for spiritual naturalism.. they have definitions for natural and spiritual you might find more useful.

It depends on who I speak with and if they respect what I say even if I cant explain myself correctly for the first or secodn time I post.

No, it doesn't. Breath is the etymology, not the theological meaning.

I think the Bible coined the phrase spirit meaning breathe. However, again, you are not accepting how religious use their own terms but sticking to the "legal definition" to which the religious may find impersonal or isolated in feeling.

For exampl, my communicating with my ancestors or ansestral spirits is all through how I feel (psychology), how I interact by offerings, and the blessings, messages, and sycronicities I receive throughout the day that confirm their presence.

You can dumb this all down to psychological feelings, security, symptoms of grief, sycronicities and coinsedences, and placebo affects thats all and fine.

However, you are speaking about someones personal relationship with how they define reality. Their self identity. Them. If they find these words insulting how they interpret god through religious jargon, tell them thats the only way you can understand what they are saying.

 

[Rainbow Mage]

Like everything else? Then everything is void. Your ideas about void are also void.
How is the sense of "being" different?

That is what I'm saying. If it were not so, nothing would ever change, which would give an idea of a unchanging, unceasing self. The opposite is true. If one were going to posit an unchanging, unceasing self- is the people we are now, or the people we will be twenty years from now the true example of this 'self'? If we look closely at what comprises both, we can conclude the sense of being may be there, but it is not an independent thing that simply exists of itself. This is what soul concepts presume- that the sense of self somehow just exists, and would exist apart from the factors that agitate it.

 

[Blastcat]

Surely, a strong atheist (myself) would not believe in existence of soul.
<<<

Aren't you a believer in atman?

How do you make a distinction between atman and soul?

 

[Blastcat]

That is what I'm saying. If it were not so, nothing would ever change, which would give an idea of a unchanging, unceasing self. The opposite is true. If one were going to posit an unchanging, unceasing self- is the people we are now, or the people we will be twenty years from now the true example of this 'self'? If we look closely at what comprises both, we can conclude the sense of being may be there, but it is not an independent thing that simply exists of itself. This is what soul concepts presume- that the sense of self somehow just exists, and would exist apart from the factors that agitate it.

wow.. hard to understand, sorry.

SO..... IF "IT" were not so.. you mean if everything wasn't a void.... Nothing would change.
So, are you saying that everything is, or everything isn't a void? .. I'm confused.

Then you say... if nothing changes... then "being" doesn't change... well nothing does.
Weird that.

We have lots of evidence that things change, even our thoughts, even our sense of "being" .. I am not the same "being" as I used to be ... not eve the same as I used to be 5 minutes ago, really.

So, we can CONCLUDE that the feeling that we feel called "being there" IS there.. it's a feeling, after all.. I can verify that I have a feeling pretty much by feeling it. And yes, I think I understand when you say .. what we FEEL might be an illusion.. this "Beingness" might not be.. a THING.. that has a location in time and space like regular things, but is more like our thoughts.. concepts.

Am I close?

Are you saying that the concept and feeling of "being there" might JUST be a mental event, in our minds, and NOT a thing like a rock is a thing?

I would say that thoughts are mental events like waves are ocean events.
A wave is not the ocean, and a thought is not what it represents.

The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself.
Am I following?

 

[George-ananda]

That is what I'm saying. If it were not so, nothing would ever change, which would give an idea of a unchanging, unceasing self. The opposite is true. If one were going to posit an unchanging, unceasing self- is the people we are now, or the people we will be twenty years from now the true example of this 'self'? If we look closely at what comprises both, we can conclude the sense of being may be there, but it is not an independent thing that simply exists of itself. This is what soul concepts presume- that the sense of self somehow just exists, and would exist apart from the factors that agitate it.

Have you considered the soul as an ever-growing impermanent entity that lasts for many lifetimes. The only thing unceasing and unchanging is the Self/Brahman the One (not individual).

 

[Blastcat]

Have you considered the soul as an ever-growing impermanent entity that lasts for many lifetimes. The only thing unceasing and unchanging is the Self/Brahman the One (not individual).

Ok, I considered it. Now what?

 

[allfoak]

Ok, I considered it. Now what?

If you don't know, then you haven't considered it long enough.

 

[George-ananda]

Ok, I considered it. Now what?

What was the result of your consideration?

 

[Blastcat]

If you don't know, then you haven't considered it long enough.

So, if anyone considers you right long enough, you will be right?

Is that right?

 

[Blastcat]

What was the result of your consideration?

I thought.. vapid claim.. no evidence.. pass

 

[allfoak]

So, if anyone considers you right long enough, you will be right?

Is that right?

No, that is not right.

 

[Blastcat]

No, that is not right.

Then could you please explain to me what you mean

 

[George-ananda]

I thought.. vapid claim.. no evidence.. pass

Well I believe there is convincing evidence from my study of many paranormal subjects, personal experiences, the insights of those who can perceive beyond the physical, teachings of spiritual masters that all dovetail with one of mankind's wisdom traditions (eastern/Vedic). To me the eastern/Vedic tradition has the 'most reasonable' understanding ever presented (including western materialism).

 

[allfoak]

Then could you please explain to me what you mean

It means that to be able to understand what @George-ananda is talking about takes much more than a few minutes of considering.

I was thinking about responding but i am not familiar with the terms he uses, i am more western oriented in the way that i think.
This means a lot of defining of terms which can be rather exhausting on a message board.

 

[Blastcat]

Well I believe there is convincing evidence from my study of many paranormal subjects, personal experiences, the insights of those who can perceive beyond the physical, teachings of spiritual masters that all dovetail with one of mankind's wisdom traditions (eastern/Vedic). To me the eastern/Vedic tradition has the 'most reasonable' understanding ever presented (including western materialism).

Your "to me" kind of evidence is totally UNCONVINCING to anyone else.

Do you have any evidence that your peers might be able to verify?