- echo630
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That's right. My plumage is brighter than yours.
Posted by: EvilBad6666
Posted by: echo630
Posted by: EvilBad6666
Posted by: echo630
EvilBad: What I mean is that we can say, let's, with 99% accuracy that we are living right now. I mean, for all conventional purposes, that's a fine assumption. The tricky part is proving whether or not inside of our life, inside of ourselves, there is a soul that animates us--and if there is, which is a theory on the table, then that is reason to believe that it might persist after our bodily deaths. So we aren't positing something out of nowhere so much as we are extrapolating it. That's about what I mean about evidence.
Now, as far as what I actually believe, I don't believe we have a soul, so I think the question, "Do you exist after death?" is meaningless.
But yeah, I think in your summation of what I said, we're on the same page.
So you're saying that there's evidence that a soul might exist? I'm not going to argue with you on whether an afterlife exists right now or not, but I just want to be sure I get what you're saying. I mean I think you're saying that since there's this life then that's evidence that an afterlife might exist.
I just don't see how if something doesn't have any evidence why it would not be dismissible. Do we have a miscommunication on what evidence is?
No, no. I believe that when you think critically about it and really put the idea through your mental crucible, evidence to the contrary exists for a soul. I believe we are soulless and ever-changing. We have no centers. But I am saying that the existence of the soul is the competing theory. I split these theories into two groups: atman (souls) and anatman (no souls). I believe in anatman, and I think there is evidence and reason for that. But, if you really have reason to believe in atman, if you really think there is strong evidence for it (which I don't), then it is right to believe that there is no evidence to say that the soul either persists or perishes after bodily death. It's outside the scope of our science and our reason. It is of a different magisterium, so to speak.
Why would you have to have evidence to the contrary for a soul if there is no evidence for it in the first place? Also, if I understand your last statement correctly, are you saying that if no evidence can be collected then you can not tell if something is true or not? I'm pretty sure that if no evidence can be collected for something then it's the same as something where evidence can be collected but there is none collected.
I am saying that IF evidence can be collected, unequivocally, for atman, something that is eternal, then, once our bodies die, we have no way to track that atman, as far as we know. In that case (again, IF atman exists), we can't collect evidence for the persistence or perishing of said atman. It really is just a matter of either position being one of faith. It is not religion's, or the soul's, fault that we humans are so dependent on reason as the basis of many of our beliefs' but some beliefs by nature are not amenable to reason.
Now, why would I have to have evidence to the contrary of a soul if there is no evidence for it in the first place...well, that isn't true, that last part. When I use the word "soul", I use it more elastically than most people; but I basically am referring to a fixed entity that inhabits our bodies, that is veritably imprisoned by our bodies. That is the soul, that is atman. We all have that natural inclination to believe in that, I think. I mean, it is a survival tool to believe in yourself, to believe you survive for longer, for tomorrow, for next year, forever. It is delusion, but it is a helpful delusion. There are Darwinian reasons for why we would have developed this delusion, too: it is for survival.
However, that very delusion is the basis of our suffering and dissatisfaction with life because we attach to it so vehemently. It causes us anxiety to think that after we die, our personality, our beliefs, our very names will perish with our bodies. We like ourselves, don't we? Even those of us who hate ourselves, we apparently still like ourselves enough to give us the benefit of continuity, as if we will always be the way we are and nothing can change that. It is natural for us to believe in ourselves, our atman, and to believe that we will keep living for longer--you may say that it is a by-product of aforethought, an evolutionary advantage. But again, it is a mere useful delusion.
So it takes some real practice and devotion and honesty to get to the point where we accept that we don't have fixed selves, that we are just bundles of thought and skin and bones and organs that are ever changing and in dissolution. That is a "harsh" reality to face when we like ourselves so much.
ghostvirus: I hate to respond to all that so briefly, since it is now so late (or so early), but the thing is, if we have already accepted that the soul exists (which is an assumption that we can treat as a given for the sake of dialectic), then we are already in the realm of the supernatural before we even begin to talk about the afterlife. What I said above to EvilBad applies here then. We can either go down that, the supernatural, road, or this, the natural, road--i.e., atman or anatman. I believe in anatman, but if someone believes in atman, then that belief must open up into one of two possibilities, that that atman persists after death in the same unchanged form (or, let's be lenient, a similar form) or else it perishes. Either way, IF we have already assumed atman to exist, then there is still no way to tell which is true until we die and directly realize that truth ourselves.
[Edited on 01.01.2013 1:50 AM PST]