by Cold Steel 165 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I don't understand why people don't just accept and respect that everyone is entitled to believe what they want to, as long as they are not hurting anyone.
Everybody is entitled to believe whatever they want.
This is a discussion forum where people trade ideas and test them in the face of criticism.
If your make an assertion like "animals have souls" this is a good place to think through whether your ideas are consistent with reality or even with other ideas that you hold.
there is nothing about a mere process that explains experience, agency and choice
Actually there is. How much study have you done on the progress of neuroscience? Of course its a science that is still in its infancy but some of the things that have been discovered about the way the brain makes sense of the world is astonishing.
Experiencing an event doesn’t seem to be an event itself but something that witnesses an event, or can initiate an event. In this sense it doesn’t seem to exist in an ordinary physical way
I'm sorry I can't follow your point could you explain it please? I suspect its the core of your argument.
By the way its Cofty not coffee.
Sorry about the name slip, I like coffee so it’s a probably a subconscious complement. I do try to keep abreast of neuroscience and there is a debate regarding if the evidence does show that mere process causes consciousness. Some do who are materialists and some don’t who are not. I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument that will persuade Mr Joe blogs in the street and some neuroscientists that mere processes describable is scientific terms exsplain adequately the soring colours of conscious experience itself, particularly if one adds in the quantum mechanical factor.
I’ll try to clarify my other argument.
An event is normally considered an occurrence in the context of time, where A can lead to B. Of course whatever A happens to be, it is also the result of another event that came before and led to it. Without time A cannot proceed to B, hence the mother of all A`s is the big bang. So the only event we know of in classical physics that seems to have initiated all other processes is that mother A. It alone initiated all other events through A leading to B leading to C ect until the present day. God along knows how big an alphabet would be needed for all such events since then. However no one knows what caused the initiating A or big bang. It cannot have existed in time as we know it because there was no time at that point. The only other thing remotely like this initiating event that we know of is consciousness. This is because through consciousness new events can be initiated that would not have done so before. A man can catch an apple and stop the normal flow of A leading to B, B being the apple hitting the ground and so on. A new initiated event has happened a bit like that beginning one starting a whole new series of events of A leading to B ect.
The question of course regarding this goes back to the two views about consciousness and whether it is a mere process and thus only part of the A leading to B process started at the big bang or if consciousness is real and means that choice is real and not an illusion, that if so would mean free will is also true and not an illusion. Materialists who tend to think all things can be reduced to a mere description of cause and effect, and the movement of particles, say that the phenomenon of conscious experience is an illusion as a result of this view. The problem is of course that for an illusion to be an illusion someone has to be there in order to be fooled and for that to happen brings one right back to the need for real conscious experience that is not an illusion. Also most normal and dare I say reasonable people know, without any need for proof, that their own consciousness is real, for it is about the most real thing there is. It never changes either. Memories do and cognitive function does and even perception but that thing that is inside us has always been the same.
What do you think cofty?
8 pages on a silly question about a mythological copncept? And now a completely non-sensical post by seraphim. Surely this is the type of stupidity Simon should be stamping out!!
Cantleave like it or not there are still people who have beliefs that leave the WT. The definition of helping those who leave or to leave a cult is not just one way or the highway. I suspect Simon would not be in favour of that. Not everyone who leaves the WT has to become atheist although there are a minority of atheists who also believe in concepts such as the soul and afterlife and so on, they just don’t have a concept of God but that is another thread.
What do you think cofty? - seraphim23
I think that if you had thought it through you would be able to explain your point in a couple of succinct sentences.
When you do think it through I am confident you will see for yourself how silly it is to imagine that every one of the trillions and trillions of rats, pilchards, pipistrelles and butterflies that ever lived is doomed to spend eternity as a soul.
If you ever manage to define spirit or soul let us know.
I tried to put it in a couple of sentences my lady but you wanted clarification. I can’t win either way. Anyhow I see that you have made your mind up. I won’t trouble you with it any further.
You didn't clarify - you pontificated so much you disappeared up your own backside.
What do you mean by "my lady"?
Are you a teenager by any chance?
lost made an interesting but worrying statement regarding there being no harm in people believing what they want. While not directly relevant to souls I think it would be worth exploring further on another thread perhaps but as a quick response I think it is critical what someone believes. In a social world where we depend on each other our behvaiour matters and beliefs can manifest in behaviour. One erroneous belief can have horrendous consequences. JW blood ban for example.
