mererdog

You asked for proof of a claim. If you define the parameters of the claim, and those parameters do not match those used by the people who made the claim, you are engaging in the straw man fallacy. You are asking, in other words, for proof of a claim that no one actually made. If I claim there is a soul, the first step in investigating my claim is to make sure you understand what I mean by a soul, to ensure you understand what I am claiming. The second step is to determine how observable phenomenon would be effected if my claim were true. The third step is to determine if observable phenomenon are effected in that way. The fourth step is to draw conclusions about the veracity of the claim. Skip any step, and the investigation is fatally flawed.

Yes. If we are going to claim that the soul does not exist, by any definition of the word, I will need evidence to base the claim on. I know what an elephant is and what effect an elephant has on the world around it. I know an elephant casts a shadow and that it has weight. I know a living elephant gives off heat and makes at least some small amount of noise. These are observable phenomenon that must necessarily be present if there is an elephant in the room. Since light passes unobstructed across the room, there is no elephant standing behind me. Since there are no footprints in the butter, there are no elephants in the fridge.

All of them? No chance at least some of the claims are based on error, deception, or insanity?

Based on what evidence? What observable phenomenon would the soul necessarily produce?

Definitions are important when asking for proof, because the specifics of the definition determine the nature of the proof needed. Proof requires reference to specific, observable qualities. How to recognise a soul depends on what a soul is. So if we are wrong about what a soul is, we are wrong about what is needed to prove it exists.

Translation is more art than science. The only way two people can mean exactly the same thing by any word is for those two people to think exactly the same way. We always understand things differently than one another. Sometimes it is a matter of nuance, and sometimes it is quite drastic. Shared definitions and common definitions can help alleviate the drastic stuff, but they can also hide the nuances. Sometimes, that is a good thing.... "I love Rock!" "I love rock, too!" "You love Rock Hudson?" "No, I love rock music!" "I love rock music, too! Genesis is the best!" "That isn't rock music! That's adult contemporary!" "Oh. Sorry. Whose music do you love?" "Slayer!" "That isn't rock music! That's death metal!" "** you! Slayer rocks!"

I don't think I have ever lectured you about being open minded. There are a lot of things I am quite closed minded about. But note that I draw a distinction between what I believe and what I know. This is to acknowledge that what I believe to be true may not be true. But I believe what I believe, you know? Its not something I can control. I can no more decide to be open minded about Reiki than I can decide to believe I am a small tree. The lymbic system is a cruel mistress.

"You know where it ends, yo, it usually depends on where you start." - Everlast There are no perfect tools. The trick is to know the limits of your tools so you can do the best you can with what you've got. I watched a guy on Cutthroat Kitchen make butternut squash soup using only a claw hammer, a pot, and a stove.

I consider my enemies to be anyone motivated by a desire to harm me. I don't consider a thief to be my enemy, for example, as the thief is really motivated by a desire to help himself. If I'm wrong I'll be pushing daisies!Personally, I believe that self-sacrifice is sometimes the only moral choice. I do not want to die, and that is why I hope for moral courage if faced with the worst possible choices.

I get where you're coming from. I don't think the intent is to blame the word, but simply to highlight the fact that using the word is problematic, due to a history of use by others that has produced a set of negative connotations and associations. I don't believe there are bad words, but I believe there are words that will get you punched, if you get my meaning...

Ah. The basic inability to clear the conceptual hurdle. "I do not see how it could be true, therefore it cannot be true. The limits of my imagination are the limits of reality." And, for the record, I may actually give less credence to the contents of your Reiki training than you give to the contents of the Bible. I do not know it is nonsense. I believe it is, however. That particular conceptual hurdle is too high for me.

I think creation has more than one meaning. In one sense, I create darkness every time I step in front of a light. I don't think all uses of the word in the Bible have the same meaning. In terms of original creation... L Genesis 1 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. It looks like darkness is given the same status as formlessness and emptiness. Not a thing that was created, but merely an indication that creation was incomplete. As for your concern about plants.... If there was light, even if there was no Sun, plants would not necessarily have any difficulty. And the Genesis account puts the creation of light before the creation of plants.

Skepticism is about doubt, as you say, which is about uncertainty. Many people will say that they are skeptical, when they have no doubt or uncertainty. They do not doubt the claim, they are certain the claim is not true. I use the term "pseudo-skeptic" to describe them. I have no animosity towards them, however I do find that how they operate tends to be inherently dishonest. It is important to be upfront about relevant personal bias when conducting an investigation. When you are trying to prove or disprove a claim, there is no constructive reason to obscure that fact by insisting you are just trying to determine the truth. I allow for the fact that "I don't believe you" is a more socially acceptable statement than "I believe you are lying" but a white lie is still a lie.

The first part of the quote is key to me. "Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee" The rest seems to be expository text fleshing out that point. This would mean it is only really saying that light are dark are the same to God in terms of God's ability to see. I got this impression from the way the passage is punctuated, however, which leaves a lot of room for translation issues. Checking the NIV version gives "even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you" This seems to support my original interpretation.

To me, it just reads like a flowery way of saying "You can see in the dark."

The Isaiah passage doesn't use the past tense. It is "creates" not "created." A continuing activity, not a one time thing. This difference is important. Note how the meaning shifts between "Aerosmith creates rock and roll music" and "Aerosmith created rock and roll music." Divides? The way that salt water can be divided between salt and water? The following sections have God creating land and using the land to divide the waters from the water. That context makes it seem less like separating out saltwater and more like putting the light and the dark in different places. Since this dividing is presented within the context of creating a day/night cycle, it is easily interpreted to suggest that where you are determines what time it is- which is a fairly sophisticated idea.

Darkness is perceptual, rather than actual. It is not about whether or not there is light, but about whether or not that light can be seen. Bathe a room in infrared light, and the room can still be dark. Put a blind man in a brightly lit room, and he is still in the dark. To add matter to a universe where there is only energy would be to create darkness, by your definition. To create sight would be to create darkness, by mine.

There are many paths up the mountain. There's also more than one mountain. And a beach.

I have had a few interesting conversations about love with an extremely jaded friend of mine. To me, his conception of love is completely alien to mine but, no matter how hard I try, I can't get him to see these distinctions between our definitions, regardless of how obvious they seem to me.

Apples and oranges are easy to compare. They are both fruit. They are both tasty. Neither makes a good pickaxe. We do not have to agree on definitions to avoid semantic disagreements. We simply have to understand each other's definitions. To me, the key point is that I cannot control how you define things. I can't force you to accept my preferred definition of "soul." I can tell you how I define things, so that you can use that information to better understand me. I can try to understand how you define things and use that information to more accurately weigh your arguments. That's really all I can do, right?

That isn't quite how it works. Dictionary definitions function as snapshots of aggregate word usage within a given set of publications during a given time period. They do not represent consensus so much as trends in what is fashionable at publishing houses. Because of this, they can lag years, or even decades, behind the general, conversational-level trends that more closely represent actual consensus. The interwebs are helping with this, of course, as publishing becomes more and more decentralized.... https://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq-words-into-dictionary

Nothing. But the income from athletics has a profound effect on how colleges and universities operate. http://investigations.myajc.com/football-admissions/ "Since 2009, the four schools have enrolled more than 230 players who failed to meet the bare-bones academic requirements laid out by the University System of Georgia. These so-called special admits often require intensive academic assistance when they arrive on campus. At Tech, for instance, six full-time academic coordinators are on staff to shepherd football players through their studies. • SAT scores and high school grade point averages for football players trail well behind those of regular students. That's especially true at Tech and UGA, where data shows football players entering the schools have recorded SAT scores that are hundreds of points lower than regular freshmen. • Depending on the year, as many as 100 percent of football players have SAT scores in the bottom quarter of their freshman class at Tech. At the University of Georgia, roughly eight of 10 football players are in the bottom quarter. • There were a handful of extremely low scores. Georgia Tech admitted one player with a Math-Verbal combined SAT of 590, and UGA, 570. A score of 400 is the lowest possible on the SAT. Among college-bound seniors in 2014, just 2 percent of all SAT test takers nationally scored 600 or below, according to the College Board." Now, the schools will tell you that many of the athletes perform better in college than these indicators predict. And they use graduation rates as proof. But we keep having scandals break that show athletic departments pressuring academic departments to give special treatment to athletes, or even massive cheating conspiracies as at UNC. Georgia Tech would never break the rules just for athletic wins, right? Thats why the NCAA keeps putting them on probation.

But it isn't simple. If the dictionary definition of a soul is not accurate, and that is the only definition you know.... If I ask for proof that a Quark is real, a friendly physicist may have seen proof, but his ability to explain that proof to me is hamstrung by the fact that I have no real clue what a Quark actually is. If he isn't willing to go through the trouble of trying to teach me a post grad level class in modern sub-atomic theory, he has no real motive to broach the subject.

To the best of my knowledge, all the examples I mentioned are of people with degrees from reputable schools. Your mistake seems to lie in assuming that "reputable" is the same as "perfect." Ask Georgia Tech about their athletes. Ask Harvard about their Legacies.

I'm sorry, but I've seen the first-hand proof that it isn't true. I know people who have degrees they never really used, and as a result have forgotten most of what they learned on their chosen subjects. I know loads of engineers who are great at math and theory but have no idea how to actually build something. I had quite a few teachers who had no real idea how to handle a class full of rowdy kids. Some figured it out. One quit halfway through the year. I knew an ordained minister with less people skills than a turnip. He may have gotten better. As an interesting asside, I read an article a few years back about newly-minted lawyers not having the skills they needed for success in private practice. According to the article, law firms can only really use them as glorified office clerks for the first couple of years...