From: kentd@FtCollins.NCR.com (Kent Dalton)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Soul
Date: 3 Sep 92 14:06:07 GMT
	<LEET.92Sep1130256@dove.ims.com>
Organization: NCR Microelectronics, Ft. Collins, CO
In-reply-to: leet@ims.com's message of 1 Sep 92 21:02:56 GMT

>>>>> On 1 Sep 92 21:02:56 GMT, leet@ims.com (Lee Thomas) said:

>>>>> On Sun, 30 Aug 92 02:42:56 EDT, Marc.Cormier%nautical@r-node.gts.org (Marc Cormier) said:

Marc>     Today's religious and philosophically enclined theologians
Marc> will probably push the soul into the realms of the unattainable
Marc> world. A obvious and logical choice. The last resort. Just as
Marc> God has been pushed from beyond the far hills, to the depths of
Marc> oceans to the end of the universe, so has the soul gone from the
Marc> heart to the blood, to the brain, and the pineal gland.  Now it
Marc> has nowhere to go. It does not exist. Another addition to the
Marc> list of unproven objects that have to be "believed" in.

Lee> If the soul is a material entity, this is true.  If the soul is
Lee> non-material, it is false.  Furthermore, the idea that the soul
Lee> started out in a physical realm is a faulty premise; Genesis 2:7 is
Lee> quite clear on that point.

The real issue here, IMO, is not where the soul is located as much as
what "functionality" it provides. It seems like early ideas about the
location of the soul to seem degree reflect what it was supposed to
provide to the person in question. 

The chest: life force (can't do that, that's the heart in combination
with other organs/processes), The head: decision making, personality,
morality (nope the brain provides that).

Okay, so the soul exists in a non-physical form, that still does not
address the question of what properties does the soul supposedly have
which are not now known to actually be provided some bodily organ? If
the answer is none, the concept of a soul is entirely meaningless.

Marc> Finally if there is no soul, why do we need anything else including...
Marc> .... GOD? Is this line of reasoning faulty, if so please respond.

Lee> If we have no souls, we don't need God.  Since we do have souls, the
Lee> argument is moot.  1 Corinthians 15:35-50 discusses this at length.

No, *your* argument is moot. You're trying to prove the existence of
some alleged, critical, yet non-material, property of humans (referred
to in the biblical passage mentioned above as a "spiritual body") by
assertion.  And as such, it is completely content-free. I could just as
easily respond "Your argument is irrelevant since we do not have souls"
and it would carry an equal amount of proof to the verses you mention in
1 Corinthians which simply assert the opposite and provide no verifiable
properties of the "body" in question.

Statements such as yours above seriously make me wonder if one must
completely abandon reason in order to embrace the Christian faith.

Hopefully, people who arrive at faith by discarding the one primary
facility that separates them from the "lower" entities they supposedly
rule over will be the first against the wall when the Messiah returns.
:^P


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Did I SELL OUT yet??
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic