As a christian i do believe that heaven and hell exit because the Holy Bible says after death judgement follows,this judgement can lead you to either heaven or hell.
Just wondering you as a atheist do you believe heaven or hell exit?
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No dumb ass
Play nice!
All things that are related to religion are automatically erased from the belief system of an atheist. Heaven and hell are no exception. There could possibly be other realms of existence but for a hardcore atheist there are none. I do not believe that any human being is capable of stating with complete certainty that there is no life after death, and for this reason I do not call myself an atheist, but more of an agnostic.
Actually, science has ascertained which parts of the brain constitute the soul -- those functions can be altered with drugs and they absolutely stop when we die.
Also, atheists do not automatically discount everything in the Bible. Some of the stories in there really did happen. But fewer than the believers think.
Can you tell me anything about where I can study further into these parts of the brain that constitute the soul? I find it hard to believe especially with how many religions have different interpretations of what exactly a soul is.
Science may have determined which parts of the brain constitutes a mind or a consciousness, lets just say cognititve function. I dont think science really has done much in terms of researching souls, especially as one would be hard pressed to to even be able to begin due process. Dr MacDougall I think it was, weighed people at various times around time of death to try and determine proof of a soul that leaves the body when someone dies and let on that he found proof that a soul weighed 21 grams but the experiments have never been reproducible. I do believe in a soul or self but don't know it to be a collection of memories attention or other mental functions for example I feel it more to be energy or life force and even believe a potato to have one I think all things living and non living alike have what I consider a soul but this to me is just energy it is changeable or can be put into several states but never destroyed.
Okay, you're mixing up two different things. The 21-grams bit has nothing to do with the soul. The bit involving the brain pertains to the brain functions and the brain centers where it all happens -- those processes can be altered by drugs and they stop when you die.
Actually the 21 grams bit does have to do with the soul it was the average weight loss of the tuberculosis patients MacDougall studied shortly after death. MacDougall also conducted experiments on animals and he believed that dogs did not have a soul because they weighed the same after death. I just so happen to think the guy was a fraud trying to use science as a way to prove the existence of souls. MacDougall strangely found sheep weighed more shortly after death.
You are right about brain function stopping when you die though and perception being able to be altered by drugs but this does not have anything necessarily to do with the soul especially when you take different interpretations of souls into account. I just want to know where I can look into your above claim "science has ascertained which parts of the brain constitute the soul".
Just because you lose it when you die, doesn't mean it's the soul. It could just be the weight of your breath and other gases leaking out, for all we know. Don't slap a religious label on it with no evidence.
I do not believe you actually read what I write. This is the second time in this thread you have not answered my question and at least the 3rd time on these boards you have clearly missed my point. Notice I am not asking you anymore because I think you are being evasive and like many theist not actually listening while the other half of the conversation takes place. Even though I feel I have lost interest in your source because now I don't think they exist, to not be as ignorant as you I will state once last time I think MacDougall was a fraud and that his experiments have never been able to be reproduced I think he was trying to produce proof of soul where there wasn't. I don't think they actually lost weight.
Um, nice try. You are linking two things that are unrelated. I am pointing that out to you. Sorry if you prefer your illusions and fallacies to my facts and logic.
HA! I would not trust your "facts and logic" at all. You would need more cognitive ability or at least comprehension skills, perhaps the ability to pay attention or at the very least ability to point out sources when asked for them as I have asked you to multiple times. What illusions and fallacies of mine, I am not denying their existence, have I brought up here? Be careful you are starting to look dumb and if I were a professional blogger I would not want to do that. How is research into the existence of a soul performed by a Doctor who concluded the soul of a human to be 21 grams unrelated to the soul. I have pointed out even in the post where I first brought him and his research up, that I think his research is bunk. But more importantly, I think your a dumb-ass, especially if you cant at least read the post I made that started all this which I am sure at this point just offended you because in your mind it brought what you were saying into question and see how what I said there related to the point I was bringing up. If I have illusions you have delusions and in this thread your delusions are showing as you cant see what I have argued and seem to see only what you want to. I am not sorry for anything I have done or said here but I am sorry for you, it must be difficult. I bet you argue with people a lot.
In other words you have nothing left but insults. Goom-bye!
I scrolled all the way through that mess hoping to find your citations, Henry...
Theory of Mind is a very hot topic in neuroscience, and I would love to see the papers to which you refer.
No. By definition, you wouldn't be an atheist if you did.
Of course atheist don't believe in those after death places according to christians. Since they don't believe in god, their is no after death for them. Of all religions, only christians believe in heaven and hell because their bible said so.
Judea and Islamic religions also believe in Heaven and Hell, though the descriptions are different they are called different terms each reference the places with amazing similarity. In Islamic belief there are many levels to heaven and hell. Also many similarities exist between what Christians believe in in terms of Heaven and Hell and Greek mythology call Hades which according to Greek mythology contain all levels of the afterlife. Jesus according to the New Testament in most versions Matthew 18:16 actually refers to Hades and so one could conclude Jesus believed in Hades it would have made sense when you consider where he was at the time. There are religions all over the globe that believe in their own versions of Heaven and Hell. To some religions Hell and Heaven are based on alignment with the will of God or just a a state of being in many cases people can leave hell. Some of these religions don't even believe in God as Christians do. As far as I know though only Christian and Islamic faith believes in hellish eternal places of suffering.
Egyptian mythology references Heaven and may be where the fiery place found it origins. Ancient Egyptians believed you when you died were sent on a journey to the dark area beyond the stars and this was heaven. Along the way you would face obstacles to deny your entry before you could enter heaven, once navigated your heart was weighed against the feather of truth, people who's hearts were weighed down by sin against the feather of truth were not determined to be good or justified and were subjected to terrifying torture, their heart was eaten by the Devourer and then they would then be annihilated or completely destroyed during the purification on the Fiery Island . If the heart weighed out to be good or not heavy with sin (justified) their heart would not be eaten and after the purification they would be sent to the two Fields of Heaven where they would live out the rest of eternity performing manual labor in the fields which were just like Egypt but more bountiful.
One can still believe in some sort of after death without believing in God, Just saying!
The concept of hell that Christians believe in, does not appear in the Bible, unless you're counting Mark 9. And heaven, in the Bible, is supposed to denote a kingdom on earth, in Jerusalem. The rest was all made up by the Catholic Church, to scare the crap out of people.
You are just flat out wrong here, you should fully read a Bible before making such claims. Depending on version you read there are many to very many references to Hell as the Christians believe but based on how well you respond to what I write, I will not try to explain how you are wrong here because I don't think it will matter if I do.
Clearly know the Bible better than you do.
Show me another reference in the Bible which specifically includes the concept of hell.
NT
Mathew 23:33
Peter 2:4
James 3:6
MARK 9:43 9:45 9:47
Matthew 5:22 5:29 5:30 10:28 11:22 16:18 18:9 32:15
Luke 10:15 12:5 16:23
Acts 2:27 2:31
James 3:6
Peter 2:4
Revelation 1:18 6:8 20:13 20:14
HERE IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING OT
Deuteronomy 32:22
Samuel 22:6
Job 11:8 12:22 26:6
Psalms 9:17 16:10 18:5 55:15 86:13 116:3 138:8
Proverbs 15:11 15:24 23:14 27:20
Isaiah 5:14 14:15 28:18 57:9
Ezekiel 31:16 31:17 32:21 32:27
Amos 9:2
Jonas 2:2
Habakkuk 2:5
Edits were made to the spelling of Revelation and Ezekiel because Henry who clearly knows more about the bible than I do and routinely makes spelling errors as well, spotted where I wrote Revelations and Ezekeal Henry went on to state that Acts was about a shipwreck and so I was clearly busted. I admit I was wrong to spell these books of the bible wrong and so because he saw how I spelled a couple book names wrong this proves he knows so much more than I do.
A bunch of them don't make the reference you claim. And you didn't even spell Ezekiel right. And the Book of Revelation is singular. And Acts 2:27, for example, tells the story of the shipwreck. You are so busted.
LOL
an atheist only believes in things they can see or prove. There is no sense in believing in heave or hell if you do not believe in a creator in the first place.
While some atheist do as you say only believe in things they can see or prove, this is not true of all atheist. Atheist just don't believe in deities or what theist believe. But an atheist can still believe in aliens for example if they want to just because they think it is highly probable they exist even though there is no solid proof to alien existence and they have never seen one.
Um, no.
Atheists are perfectly capable of assigning a logical probability to the existence of aliens somewhere in the universe.
Whereas the possible existence of God....there you are impaling yourself yet again on the ignostic dilemma I posed earlier: there is no way can define "God" -- any definition you come up with, will either (a) be so specific that we can refute it, or (b) so vague as to be meaningless.
There is as of yet is no proof of aliens, One could argue with the same amount of proof there must have been some creating force for all the universe somewhere to, and last but not least I don't believe in God so you are barking up the wrong tree.
So after being proved wrong over and over, you endeavor to avoid ever being proved wrong again, by arguing theism and atheism in the same post. Well...that's a new one.
No, not in the classical sense.
Hell though - in the time of Judea, Hell was a physical place. The dump! They used to burn all the trash and waste. I'm sure it smelled terrible, was hot and smoky, and anyone in their right mind would be terrified to spend an eternity in a hell hole like that. Of course, when telling stories of such a place several hundred years after the fact to a room full of dark ages Europeans who were used to the epics of the Norse Gods with much larger scale torture... well you can see how the translation went.
The bible really speaks a lot of moral things but it only resulted fear for unbelieving on part of people who really trusted the bible. When I was a catholic, I used to fear going to hell so I do everything that my church and elders requires. Now that I'm not, I feels better.
Like Hogwarts, Narnia, and other fictional places (and beings,for that matter), they exist as metaphors and mental constructs. We just don't believe they have objective referents.
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