If the soul exists, it's probably less than people make it out to be. For example, consider your arm. Let's say something horrible happened and your arm was amputated. Your arm cannot exist without being attached to the body. Likewise, losing your arm gives you the palpable sense that you are less of an entity in some way. We see this same sort of reaction with cats that have been declawed. The removal of their body parts leaves them altered psychologically as well as physically.

The soul, if it exists, probably follows through with the ideas I've presented above. If it were real, then it most likely is just a component of our existence, not a higher-order self as imagined by so many. Losing it probably would be survivable (much like losing an arm), but would probably have two effects. First the soul would cease to exist in a useful form because it's been removed from the person in question (much like the arm would die if removed from the body). Secondly, the person in question would undergo some sort of palpable change considering a part of his or her existence was removed. I don't know what kind of change that would be, but something would likely become noticeable.

On a more metaphysical level, since you brought up Shinto, perhaps you should look for a book called "Monsters" by John Michael Greer. Books like this are popular around Halloween, so you should be able to find it at a large bookstore. If not, it's about $20 off of Amazon. Most of the book is an categorization of supernatural creatures, but early in the book, page 27 in my copy, he discusses "Levels of Being". This is very interesting because it shows how thoroughly people who believe in magic have reasoned things out, even though there's no scientific evidence that any of it could be true.

"Levels of Being" goes something like this: The universe is layered. Everything we know about the sciences is derived from our observation of the physical layer, but there are more layers that exist. The layers work as follows:

--- > Spiritual - Entities on this layer control the universe
--- > Mental - Entities on this layer are made of ideas
--- > Astral - Entities on this layer are made of consciousness
--- > Etheric - Entities on this layer are made of energy
--- > Physical - Entities on this layer are made of matter

Here's the thing: Any entity on one layer has a representation on other layers. Based on this, the Etheric layer would be where our "soul" resides (if it exists). Moreover, if the Etheric representation of you is damaged or destroyed, you become unbalanced mentally and physically because that part of you is gone. And if your physical body is destroyed, the Etheric representation of you eventually destabilizes and recycles back into the universe. Also, the further away from your "home" layer, the less of a representation you have. Thus, you are fully represented on the Physical layer, but almost nonexistent on the Spiritual layer (which is only named so for lack of a better word).

Personally, I'm doubtful about the existence of a soul. In over two thousand years of human history, there's been no empirical proof of such a component of our existence. Further, the success of human development has relied significantly on our ability to imagine. This is something that allows us to create and conquer, but also allows us to delude ourselves very convincingly. I suspect what people point to as proof of a soul is really just proof that humans are able to take disparate objects and events and draw connections that don't exist through sheer imagination alone. That is just my guess, though.

former atheistfag here.

yes a 'soul' does exist. i guess you could call it consciousness,its what we are, awareness.
you can also experience your spiritual dimension if you will by meditation but you have to stop living in the mind. stop trying to understand everything intellectually and start experiencing from your heart. if you are interested and not a arrogant athiest which criticize people because they do not support your atheist dogma,(yes athiesm has become a religion and has its own dogma)
i suggest you check out Tibetan Buddhism, they have great techniques how to experience your own 'consciousness / awareness'

Goodluck/have fun. spiritual dimension do exist, as a former atheist i would have laughed at some of the things i have now experienced myself. and no, people do not believe in spirituality for emotional comfort only.

Machines exist that can pick up the astral matrix of energy that resides within all of our bodies, which act as a container of sorts for them. These mtrixes are what give our physical boddies sentience, and interact with the energy realms of existence in the 4th dimension and beyond.

What do you guys think about the human body losing 7 grams of body weight after they die? Some think that may be the "soul" leaving.

>>19
It's an urban legend. You don't really lose 21 grams when you die.

Even if you did, it would be much more likely because you're no longer intaking food and water, for obvious reasons.

Besides, most people piss and shit themselves
when they die. 21 grams is not a lot compared to what people normally shit out.

>>11
If a soul exists, can it be accessed without learning a specific religion or philosophical framework? I'm not knocking Tibetan Buddhism, but I wonder if the techniques you're discussing can be or have been generalized.

I have some other questions:
- Can a soul be harmed or eradicated?
- What happens to the physical self when that happens?
- If the physical entity able to fully function, or does the entity suffer a diminished capacity?
- What determines if a thing has a soul or not? Say, animals, birds, or inanimate objects. Worms or rocks.
- What generates or houses a soul?

Sigh
This thread is a sad story

May i suggest that if something is unreachable (you will never have proof of it), it does not exist in your universe.
Be it a person on the other side of the globe, an alternate universe, or your own imagination.
I propose that things you don't see don't exist for you, but everything exists for someone else. Your imagination is reality for someone and your reality is imagination for someone else.
You may never see a rare animal, but you have heard about it from other people, so it exists for someone else but it's just imagination for you... Does anyone get what i'm saying? I don't know an efficient way of explaining it, i guess im saying everything exists, you just don't see it, and therefore it does not exist. There are alternate universes, but it is impossible for us to ever know (because if there are an infinite number and we can interact with them, then by simple logic someone must have done it in every possible way already, thereby filling up all space in existance with their bodies/communication), so it doesn't matter that it exists, because to us it doesn't.

Sorry if this was a bit repetitive, as i have been frequently misunderstood when attempting to explain it.

I think therefore i am...
I am thought of therefore i am...

A character in a movie/video game believes without doubt that they exist, as do we.
So i propose we are someone else's imagination without any way to prove it.
A character in a video game that led around by the player, but he is also doing it by his own free will. Are you doing the same?

>> 47

You posit an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I can agree with it. I'm sure we all have those moments when we wonder if the world exists if we don't observe it. The problem is that the dynamics of the physical universe don't really bear this out. I speak of the physical universe on the macroscopic level, however. I've no background in quantum mechanics.

Let's assume by "see" you mean sensory input in general. No one "sees" HIV, but it does a real number on those who have it. Not having any sensory experience of HIV did not help anyone when it was quietly spreading throughout a given portion of society. Likewise, if you're deaf and don't hear the gunshot, a bullet will still hurt you regardless of whether you see it or not.

Your idea really falls in line more with subjective, social reality rather than base physical reality. With the former, reality is what you perceive and think to be, and changes on a fairly regular basis. This is because it's largely your perception of things, and this perception will change depending on circumstance. Likewise others are engaging in this activity with respect to you. Taking this into account means your statement of "I think therefore I am" is true in the subjective sense, and "I am thought of therefore I am" is also true. Again, only in the sense of subjective reality. In raw physical reality terms, you exist regardless of whether you think or are thought of. It is only that you may or may not be incorporated into someone's subject world-view.

Getting back on point, this would mean that the possibility is there for a soul to exist, but it depends on the fact that we have not developed the technology to discover and recognize it as such. Moreover, we lack any toolset to manipulate the soul to any productive degree. All of this depends on the soul having some physical representation in the physical universe so that it is in some way empirically quantifiable.

>> 48

Am I understanding this correctly? Life is a large, complex video game, and we are characters in that game, and God/Buddha/Spaghetti Monster/etc is playing the game using us as the player character. Is this correct? If so, your next statement seems a little self-contradictory. You're saying that we're being "led around" (which I assume means "controlled") by the player, but we choose to do so of our own free will.

The problem is that most video game characters (actually all that I know of) just stand there when not controlled by a player. There is no free will, because the character is just an expression of a machine that can't think for itself. Humans, wolves, birds, fish, etc. are not like that. This is where the disconnect for me is happening.

>>50

But he thinks he is choosing to do just that, so there is no evidence of your existence whatsoever, you may do stupid things like walk him off a cliff or something like that, but he is doing it because he wants to, not because you make him do it.

If you were being controlled by a higher power right now, you couldn't prove it, nor could you disprove it.

Go ahead and write "you are in a video game" on a wall, and see if you believe it, I guarantee that you won't believe what you read, you will think "I did that through my own free will"

However, if you do believe in this 'god' leading you around, controlling your life, then you will lose all purpose, and end up like this girl, just data doomed by pending deletion, she could be happy doing what she does best, but once she knows the truth, it fails to fulfil her like it once did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN7mR_ECQjo&feature=related

And someone made this video, she couldn't have done it by her will alone, think about it.

And before you mention it, yes you can replay the clip, yes you can restart the game and do every little thing differently, so if it were his own free will every time, wouldn't he do the same thing?

Or are there infinite "parallel universes" with different people playing the same game?

>>52
I think we're beginning to come around to George Bernard Shaw's concept of the life-lie. The idea that there's a truth out there so disturbing that we invent some lie cover it up.

The idea that we're characters in a video game controlled by some outer entity is not a pleasant one for most people. Leaving aside the fact that this can neither be proven nor disproven, the acceptance of this idea, as you indicate, serves no practical positive purpose.

I think this brings up the question of whether self-delusion can be a positive thing given the proper circumstances. I don't mean in specific situations (rape, for example, although it can do life-long damage), but as an overarching philosophy.

That is why christianity was invented...

>>62

You mean for good, or for ill, or for both?

Christianity has some problems with their rules, but a lot of lower humans need to be kept in line, it's a good way to keep the peace, that's why I wouldn't want to get rid of it. It's a necessary evil.

Btw no shitstorms here, I'm proud of you guys.

>>69
What do you mean?

>>73
I don't think he meant in a racist, slavery kind of way. I think he meant it in a sort of "opiate of the masses" sense.

For example, I knew a woman who was a Buddhist. Not a real Buddhist, mind you, but the sort of fast food spirituality Buddhism that's common among the moderately wealthy and fragile. She once proudly criticised scientists in general for being close-minded and not opening up to the possibility of an afterlife or supernaturality in general.

She also stood in the middle of the office room and loudly stated that she ignores anything she doesn't understand.

Religion is perfect for someone like her. You can't really reason with someone like that, but you sure as hell can direct them through religion.

This isn't to say all religious folk are dumb or wilfully ignorant. A large number of people, however, are.

>>75
Absolutely. Stupidity knows no creed or color. I think it's the quality and type that matters, though. Stupid atheists and stupid worshippers both want you to believe they are right. I find the atheists do it out of snobbery and general arrogance, whereas the worshippers do it out of a need to keep a very insular world view. In other words, "I'm safer if everyone thinks like me"

This can't of course, apply to every jackass any one of us will ever come across, but generally speaking that's the trend I've experienced.

>>77
If someone believes in God, Buddha, Odin, Zeus, or whomever, that's their business. People have to do what makes them happy in life, and I respect that. If I'm friends with someone who's religious, I might tease them for believing, but I fully expect to be teased back for not believing. Friends can do that. I had a friend once who was into some esoteric Celtic religion. I didn't care; she was a friend and that's that.

What gets me is both the hypocrisy and persistence. I get that the religious might mean well when trying to convert someone, but I don't go into someone else's house and tell them how to live their lives. If someone tries to convert me and I refuse, that person should back off. Sooner or later that person should realize that there's a lot of energy being wasted on me.

Regarding hypocrisy, I get a little upset when I see someone espousing higher morals via his or her religion and then finding an excuse to break that morality. Here's an example:

I once knew an aspiring movie director. He was relatively upset that he was a devout Christian and I wasn't. He constantly went around saying things like "Praise him! Praise the Lord!" and talking about how Blessed he was. At the same time, he would give me those "what if God exists" questions and riddles. You know what I'm talking about; "What if you're wrong? What if God is real?", or "If God wasn't real, a Christian who believed in Him would spend his life being a good person, and if God WAS real, the Christian would be rewarded for it." Those sort of things.

At the same time, he was working on a low-budget horror film. A slasher pic. He finished it in 2007, did a screening, and tried to sell it to a distributor, but no one wanted it. After a bunch of edits and changes, he re-released it in 2009 with the tag line "Based on True Events". Now, let's keep in mind that I was there when the film was screened in 2007, and I can tell you for a fact that it's not based on anything beyond standard Hollywood horror clichés. He did it because Paranormal Activity came out a little while earlier and he became convinced that a "Based on True Events" tag line would lend the film credibility. So he's lying. He's a devout Christian and he's lying.

To make sure the illusion was complete, he created a fake documentary for YouTube. In this documentary, he perpetuates the idea that he's made a film "Based on True Events", and tries convince the viewer the documentary is real by using pictures of actual murder victims. Pictures that he stole off the Internet. To quote him exactly, he said "..but they were on the Internet and everything!". Another time I asked him how he could do this if he was a devout Christian and he responded "Because I'm hungry". So there you have it. He's a devout Christian and he breaks his morality because it's inconvenient. Needless to say I don't know him anymore, and I don't know what happened to the movie. I suspect he's done well, though.

The point of all this is that a lot of religions espouse standards for morality, and a lot of religious adherents talk about how wonderful this is, but then break the rules at a moment's notice. I'd have more respect for the religious if it wasn't so clear that a lot of the rules get broken out of inconvenience rather than circumstantial merit. If someone breaks a religious rule for the greater good, I can understand. Most religious people I've met don't do that. The folks that I've met will break the rules out of selfish inconvenience. I can't respect that. If you're not going respect your own rules, why should anyone else?

I just noticed one of my posts in this thread was deleted...

>>80
Yeah, that happened over in /code/ a while back, too. I'm guessing the site's been reverted to previous backups on a couple of occasions, and posts have gotten lost. Either that a mod is going around deleting posts for some reason. I don't know why anyone would do that, though. Most posts here seem fairly innocuous.

>>81
It was a post linking to the youtube video of John Saffron critiquing fellow atheists.

>>81
this. it's also possible some legit posts get lost if a user goes full retard on /cwc/ and their IP gets nuked.