Shroud of Turin is from first AD.

[Spirit of Light]

I don't care what it has "done" for you? You could have read Lord of the Rings and had a life changing experience? That doesn't make Frodo real. Or Elven magic.
My question was regarding your claim of a soul and similar. What is your evidence for forming such a belief? Right now everything you have suggested can be done with psychology. Changes in belief, emotional, mental states can all cause profound experiences.
I am interested in what is true, not comparing spiritual biceps. It is important to evaluate evidence and the reason I post this on a DEBATE forum.

I don't have any physical evidence to show you, without that you only refuse it as evidence.

 

[joelr]

To give answer to someone who only going to refute it has no value to me it helped me, thats what count to me.

There is a different between refuting something and using critical thinking to evaluate if the reason it actually helped you is what you think. If you are a Christian and I came to you saying my daily prayer to Lord Krishna has caused him to send healing energy to me and cured my depression, since you find Krishna a mythical literary construct you can decide it's probably the routine, the expectation, the hope for the future and so on that gave me a system to help depression.
Unless I can provide reasonable evidence for Lord Krishna.

Now you posit several things, a soul, an afterlife or continuation of life into another dimension, all things written about in fiction but I haven't seen good evidence presented for, just anecdotal and fallacies. And denial of counter evidence.

 

[Sheldon]

As I sad. I answered a question. No need to explain something that would only be useful for my personal life and spirituality

Actually that does answer my question, albeit tangentially.

 

[Spirit of Light]

There is a different between refuting something and using critical thinking to evaluate if the reason it actually helped you is what you think. If you are a Christian and I came to you saying my daily prayer to Lord Krishna has caused him to send healing energy to me and cured my depression, since you find Krishna a mythical literary construct you can decide it's probably the routine, the expectation, the hope for the future and so on that gave me a system to help depression.
Unless I can provide reasonable evidence for Lord Krishna.

Now you posit several things, a soul, an afterlife or continuation of life into another dimension, all things written about in fiction but I haven't seen good evidence presented for, just anecdotal and fallacies. And denial of counter evidence.

You have to find your own answer through the scriptures if that is what you seeking.

The answer i found only have to do with my own life.
If people from other religions find answers through their prayer or meditation, that is great. But their answers may not be the same that I found. Because the answers they get belong to their life, not mine.
As I said before spiritual life and answers are not the same for everyone.

 

[joelr]

I don't have any physical evidence to show you, without that you only refuse it as evidence.

Not "refuse" but it may not be acceptable as good evidence? I mean whatever you claim (I'm guessing here) could probable also be claimed by a Hindu or a Muslim and for the same reason. The Muslim God, Allah is saying Christians are wrong, they messed up the message, Jesus is not a demigod/son of God but just a human prophet, Christians are liers and cursed and a painful doom awaits.

So the idea about "it's the same God" doesn't really work. So if they can make all the same claims about afterlifes, souls, personal relationships, answered prayer in your heart and so on and be doing it under the belief of a mythology (no real deities) then this suggests it's something that can happen to anyone with any God belief. In fact all 3 religions produce very similar claims about these things I find.
So yes, to find it's something other than psychology you need good evidence.

It could be mental evidence? Has a deity shown you something humans don't yet know? Quantize gravity? The 20 trillionth digit of pi? I have an 8 digit number from pi, will a deity tell you that number? Those would also be forms of evidence.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Not "refuse" but it may not be acceptable as good evidence? I mean whatever you claim (I'm guessing here) could probable also be claimed by a Hindu or a Muslim and for the same reason. The Muslim God, Allah is saying Christians are wrong, they messed up the message, Jesus is not a demigod/son of God but just a human prophet, Christians are liers and cursed and a painful doom awaits.

So the idea about "it's the same God" doesn't really work. So if they can make all the same claims about afterlifes, souls, personal relationships, answered prayer in your heart and so on and be doing it under the belief of a mythology (no real deities) then this suggests it's something that can happen to anyone with any God belief. In fact all 3 religions produce very similar claims about these things I find.
So yes, to find it's something other than psychology you need good evidence.

It could be mental evidence? Has a deity shown you something humans don't yet know? Quantize gravity? The 20 trillionth digit of pi? I have an 8 digit number from pi, will a deity tell you that number? Those would also be forms of evidence.

It has nothing to do with mathematical answers. It has only about how to get closer to God

 

[joelr]

You have to find your own answer through the scriptures if that is what you seeking.

The answer i found only have to do with my own life.
If people from other religions find answers through their prayer or meditation, that is great. But their answers may not be the same that I found. Because the answers they get belong to their life, not mine.
As I said before spiritual life and answers are not the same for everyone.

So everyone has different beliefs about Gods and such? Something very fish here. Science seems to work well. Never hear scientists saying "well I believe the periodic table and 2nd law but you might create your own table and law of thermodynamics?
Spirituality has nothing to do with Gods sending you to eternal torture and magic blood sacrifice to remove sin-force from your body. That is mythology.
I'm interested in what is true. Anyone can study a religious text and find ways to apply this or that to their life. I can also do that with books by self-help people, psychologists, therapists. Tony Robbins changed billions of peoples lives.
Nothing supernatural there. Finding ways to apply wisdom in myths to your life doesn't validate the supernatural?

Nothing you mention has anything to do with a spiritual realm, a soul or an afterlife. Those are myths in religious text. I have found many answers to what the scriptures are.
But you made a claim about souls and afterlifes. I'm sensing now you have no interest in even discovering if any of that is true never mind explain reasons why you would find it true. Did you just decide to believe it was actually true?

Doesn't sound like a debate forum is for you.

 

[joelr]

It has nothing to do with mathematical answers. It has only about how to get closer to God

What God? There is no evidence for God?

There are stories about God.
Yahweh the warrior god?

Yahweh the revised tri-omni beyond space and time that Aquinas made up using Platonic ideas?
Allah who is mad at Christians for messing up his message?

Brahman the source of all consciousness?

Inanna the actual first creator of wisdom and all there is, supreme above all Gods?

Why can'y you get closer to a God then ask for some information? Sounds like a dodge?

 

[Spirit of Light]

So everyone has different beliefs about Gods and such? Something very fish here. Science seems to work well. Never hear scientists saying "well I believe the periodic table and 2nd law but you might create your own table and law of thermodynamics?
Spirituality has nothing to do with Gods sending you to eternal torture and magic blood sacrifice to remove sin-force from your body. That is mythology.
I'm interested in what is true. Anyone can study a religious text and find ways to apply this or that to their life. I can also do that with books by self-help people, psychologists, therapists. Tony Robbins changed billions of peoples lives.
Nothing supernatural there. Finding ways to apply wisdom in myths to your life doesn't validate the supernatural?

Nothing you mention has anything to do with a spiritual realm, a soul or an afterlife. Those are myths in religious text. I have found many answers to what the scriptures are.
But you made a claim about souls and afterlifes. I'm sensing now you have no interest in even discovering if any of that is true never mind explain reasons why you would find it true. Did you just decide to believe it was actually true?

Doesn't sound like a debate forum is for you.

Everyone has a bit different understanding of the teaching that does not mean the teaching is wrong. It only means humans are at different level of understanding of what the texts say.

You can't read the text alone and thing you gained all the wisdom from it, because more wisdom rise the more the person change them self to live as the teaching teaches.

A religious book is not like other non spiritual books.

I don't expect you to understand that.

 

[Sheldon]

Everyone has a bit different understanding of the teaching that does not mean the teaching is wrong.

No, but it hardly lends credence to the notion they're the inspired and inerrant word of an omniscient.

It only means humans are at different level of understanding of what the texts say.

It could just as plausibly mean the texts are vague, ambiguous and open to wildly subjective interpretation.

You can't read the text alone and thing you gained all the wisdom from it, because more wisdom rise the more the person change them self to live as the teaching teaches.

Wisdom can be explained and communicated, you can't claim this wisdom is accessible, and you have gained it, then simultaneously claim it can't be explained.

A religious book is not like other non spiritual books.

Hmm, see you're making a claim again, without presenting any evidence to support it?

I don't expect you to understand that.

Suggesting you can't explain it cogently, thus your claim to have gleaned more and more wisdom form it seems dubious to a neutral observer.

 

[Spirit of Light]

No, but it hardly lends credence to the notion they're the inspired and inerrant word of an omniscient.



It could just as plausibly mean the texts are vague, ambiguous and open to wildly subjective interpretation.



Wisdom can be explained and communicated, you can't claim this wisdom is accessible, and you have gained it, then simultaneously claim it can't be explained.



Hmm, see you're making a claim again, without presenting any evidence to support it?


Suggesting you can't explain it cogently, thus your claim to have gleaned more and more wisdom form it seems dubious to a neutral observer.

Honestly @Sheldon and @joelr it does not matter what anyone in religious discussion or debate telling you, you are not listening anyway.

Spiritual lifestyle are inward in to the persons being, the teaching in the scriptures are meant to awakening the true being. Not to explain physically evidence for something that is invisible to a person who don't seek it. And you are not seeking it by your self

Answers given to you will never resonate with you, because you only understand the physical world.

I stop being a part of this debate now, no need to try explain at all.

 

[ElishaElijah]

Uh, or preserved fossils and current living versions?

Today both eukaryotes and prokaryotes still exist. Eukaryotes can be found variously as single-celled organisms called protists, and as organized systems in multicellular organisms. The cells of all plants, animals and fungi are eukaryotes.


The origin of the eukaryotic cell is a milestone in the evolution of life, since eukaryotes include all complex cells and almost all multicellular organisms. A number of approaches have been used to find the first eukaryote and their closest relatives. The last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) is the hypothetical last common ancestor of all living eukaryotes, and was most likely a biological population.[97]
Fossils[edit]
The timing of this series of events is hard to determine; Knoll (2006) suggests they developed approximately 1.6–2.1 billion years ago. Some acritarchs are known from at least 1.65 billion years ago, and the possible alga Grypania has been found as far back as 2.1 billion years ago.[100] The Geosiphon-like fossil fungus Diskagma has been found in paleosols 2.2 billion years old.[101]

Organized living structures have been found in the black shales of the Palaeoproterozoic Francevillian B Formation in Gabon, dated at 2.1 billion years old. Eukaryotic life could have evolved at that time.[102] Fossils that are clearly related to modern groups start appearing an estimated 1.2 billion years ago, in the form of a red algae, though recent work suggests the existence of fossilized filamentous algae in the Vindhya basin dating back perhaps to 1.6 to 1.7 billion years ago.[103]

The presence of eukaryotic-specific biomarkers (steranes) in Australian shales previously indicated that eukaryotes were present in these rocks dated at 2.7 billion years old,[98][104] which was even 300 million years older than the first geological records of the appreciable amount of molecular oxygen during the Great Oxidation Event. However, these Archaean biomarkers were eventually rebutted as later contaminants.[105] Currently, putatively the oldest biomarker records are only ~800 million years old.[106] In contrast, a molecular clock analysis suggests the emergence of sterol biosynthesis as early as 2.3 billion years ago,[107] and thus there is a huge gap between molecular data and geological data, which hinders a reasonable inference of the eukaryotic evolution through biomarker records before 800 million years ago. The nature of steranes as eukaryotic biomarkers is further complicated by the production of sterols by some bacteria.[108][109]

Whenever their origins, eukaryotes may not have become ecologically dominant until much later; a massive uptick in the zinc composition of marine sediments 800 million years ago has been attributed to the rise of substantial populations of eukaryotes, which preferentially consume and incorporate zinc relative to prokaryotes, approximately a billion years after their origin (at the latest).[110]

In April 2019, biologists reported that the very large medusavirus, or a relative, may have been responsible, at least in part, for the evolutionary emergence of complex eukaryotic cells from simpler prokaryotic cells.[111]

That’s a cool story but if you’re an atheist then your starting point is you have nothing. This explanation is your religious belief. Yet even starting from your organism it’s impossible to get to the Creation reality we live in today from there, this is a story you make up and use billions of years which cannot be verified or duplicated. Life had to be created in an instant to be able to be sustained. You can’t even revive a previous healthy human being that’s drowned after an hour and you believe life could happen all on its own through evolutionary process over billions of years.

 

[Sheldon]

Honestly @Sheldon and @joelr it does not matter what anyone in religious discussion or debate telling you, you are not listening anyway.

On the contrary, I have listened, and I just don't find your arguments compelling, nor am I obliged to given this is a debate forum?

Spiritual lifestyle are inward in to the persons being, the teaching in the scriptures are meant to awakening the true being.

Not to explain physically evidence for something that is invisible to a person who don't seek it. And you are not seeking it by your self

Seeking something just suggests bias to me, and again unless you can evidence this objectively it looks like a no true Scotsman fallacy. You claimed your beliefs bestowed wisdom, this rationally infers you would be able to communicate this knowledge, and offer a cogent explanation.

Answers given to you will never resonate with you, because you only understand the physical world.

Now that is a no true Scotsman fallacy, textbook. If you understand something I don't then explain it, if you can't explain it then you quite clearly don't understand it, and are making an appeal to mystery, alluding to esoteric wisdom doesn't work, unless you can offer some cogent explanation of this wisdom that goes beyond platitude, or quoting claims from the bible. .

 

[Sheldon]

That’s a cool story but if you’re an atheist then your starting point is you have nothing.

No it isn't, that's absurdly stupid, Science has accrued knowledge, this knowledge is objectively verifiable independently of any subjective belief anyone holds, or does not. Unlike religion of course, which for most people is little more than a geographical accident of their birth.

 

[Sheldon]

This explanation is your religious belief.

Another demonstrably false clam. Though it's pretty funny to see you decry religious belief in this way. Talk about an own goal.

 

[Sheldon]

Life had to be created in an instant to be able to be sustained.

Nope, another ludicrously errant piece of nonsense.

 

[Sheldon]

You can’t even revive a previous healthy human being that’s drowned after an hour and you believe life could happen all on its own through evolutionary process over billions of years.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You have to define the term "spirituality" because I don't know what you are talking about.

I've asked this same question of multiple posters, as well as to give examples of spiritual truths gleaned and methods used, and the answers contain no information. One poster on this thread gave examples of what he meant after he commented that just because science can't detect spiritual things doesn't mean they aren't real, and then wrote, "If you sow lying, stealing and deceit will you end up receiving a blessing or a curse? If I am a generous person will I receive blessing or cursing? These are spiritual laws and realities." It's still not clear to me how that relates to science and reality, but I got a glimpse of what that one poster might mean spiritual - what I would call the wisdom gleaned from experience in a sufficiently decent and intelligent observer.

I've also asked the same question of the poster you're interacting with here. I'd address him directly, but he doesn't like that, and has blocked me. His answers are vague as you suggested, so it's hard to know if he's referring to anything specific that he can't articulate or whether he has no clear idea himself, but I've been reading his posts for a couple of years, and I think he's referring to the kind of learning we all do, but don't generally attach the word spiritual to.

What makes this area even more vague is the concepts of spirits as invisible beings, and when one attaches the supernatural to the process, there is a tendency to call it spiritual. And so, the claims for gods and angels and the realms of the afterlife are called spiritual truths, spiritual discernment, knowledge requiring the Holy Spirit. Now, it no longer resembles the kind of thinking a humanist has, and normal intellectual and moral growth and development are called spiritual growth.

For the record, I have a concise description of what I call authentic spiritual experiences. It is a sense of mystery, connection, awe, and gratitude that arises in various activities such as looking up at the night sky with an understanding of our connection to the stars, or a rapturous passage of music, or gardening. It's this experience that I believe theists are calling experiencing God or evidence for God. I had it myself in church settings when I was a Christian, and mistook it for the presence of the Holy Spirit. Then I was discharged from the military and returned to my home state, where I searched in vain for a congregation that was as full of the Spirit as my first (I became a Christian in the army), and realized that I had been in the hands of a charismatic pastor who created that feeling, not in the presence of the Spirit, which ought to have followed me to California. So, I'm pretty sure that that is what they are calling experiencing God after a few hymns and some singing and clapping that this is the day that the Lord has made, so be glad and rejoice in it.

By the way, that some interest and knowledge you have in religious history.

 

[ElishaElijah]

No it isn't, that's absurdly stupid, Science has accrued knowledge, this knowledge is objectively verifiable independently of any subjective belief anyone holds, or does not. Unlike religion of course, which for most people is little more than a geographical accident of their birth.

Science has changed and keeps changing its view, you take what science says as a fact and then those supposed facts are shown to be false and then the excuses how great science is and is always improving.
I don’t need to know all the ins and outs about counterfeit money, all I need to know is all about the real money, how it looks, feels and be an expert at the true bill. Then it’s easy to spot the counterfeit.
Same with evolution, mix a little bit of truth and add a whole lot of nonsense. You laugh at my example yet you believe a simple organism over billions of years turned into all the diversity of life we have here. You can concoct any story you want, call it science or whatever but you cannot duplicate or get your theory to work, except make viruses more deadly.
Easy to spot the evolution fraud

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

all evolution has shown is changes within species of say a butterfly or bird changing color or beak.

We have smoking gun evidence of speciation, which is evolution beyond the intraspecies variations to which you refer: ring species. This species has distributed itself around a valley or large body of water beginning with the gray variant in the upper left in both directions, with variations found as one goes along. Neighboring variants like teal and blue can interbreed, and thus are still the same species, but by the time the line ending in purple meets the line ending in red, the degree of variation has become too great for these populations to breed, and they are now two species.

Here is the tree and notice what we know for sure at the top of the tree is Creation according to Genesis

Genesis and the tree of life have nothing in common. The concept of the tree of life is based in the idea of universal common descent from a single ancestral population that bifurcated and bifurcated like a family tree. This is typical for nested hierarchies.

For genesis, think more like a cluster of palm trees, not a single tree. The kinds are unrelated, not derived from one another or a common ancestor, and little branching.

anything below that is all a theory and opinion of how that happened

That's not a deal breaker for a creationist. Plus, the scientific theory is evidenced. It is demonstrably correct.

They are all connected in what your proposing which is a creation apart from a Creator which is an impossible scenario. You want to talk just one part but fail at the beginning of life.

Creation without a creator is impossible? OK, then we don't call the cosmos a creation until we identify a creator. Referring to reality as a creation a religious concept alien to science.

Also, there is no failure in the science. It's incomplete, like a jigsaw puzzle in progress, where island of pieces still remain unconnected to other islands. Your comment is equivalent to calling the puzzle in progress a failure. It's not. It's coming along fine. In fact, it's in an intermediate stage of success.

We have several kinds or stages of evolution to consider:

• First was material evolution culminating in galaxies of solar systems rich with heavy elements. This piece of the puzzle is pretty well worked out in the Big Bang theory and the Standard Model.

• Next came chemical evolution, where molecules evolved into the first life. This part has many pieces that aren't connected together well yet, like a chain missing links.

• Then comes biological evolution, where the first living population evolves into the modern tree of life. This part is well understood in terms of principles like genetic variation and natural selection, but the specific pathways are like those of chemical evolution (abiogenesis) - disconnected links in a chain, hence the phrase missing links.

• The next part, psychological evolution, or the emergence of mind and consciousness from living matter, is also sketchy. What are the earliest life forms that can be called conscious? When did brains evolve to use language.

• The last part is cultural evolution, or the rise of civilization and technology in man.

So, no failure in any of that, just knowledge, albeit incomplete.

You can’t repeat it in a lab no matter how you try, epic failure

Also not a failure, and also not a deal breaker for a creationist. Most creationists have difficulty with what observability and reproducibility mean in science. Observability refers to the the present, not the past, and reproducibility refers to experiments, not history. Science does not require that the history of the cosmos play out before them as they watch, nor that they see the past, since neither of those is possible..

Who observed this?

Nobody. Observers hadn't evolved yet.

It's remarkable that creationists make these arguments against science that if potent, are equally potent when directed at creationism. Who observed God creating the cosmos and the kinds? What part of that creation story is not speculation believable only with faith? These were among your objections to the scientific theories.

Do you recall me defining the ethos of rhetoric to you? It refers to the speaker or writer's meta-message. His message is the speech (logos), but the meta-message isn't in words. Ethos in this context refers to the impression the speaker gives his audience such as does he seem knowledgeable, does he seem sincere, does he seem credible, does he seem trustworthy, does he seem competent, does he show good judgment, does he seem to have a hidden agenda, is he more interested in convincing with impartial argument or persuading with emotive language or specious argumentation, and the like.

What do you think your use of double standards for science and religious belief does for your ethos? How much confidence do you expect critical thinkers to have in the thoughts and conclusions of someone who thinks that way? Would it matter to you if I were right? Is that something you would want to know, or would you prefer to continue undermine your ethos?