Why Do Atheists Have No Souls?

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mjs82
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04 Jun 2010, 8:26 am

Discuss in essay format only. 2000 words or more.

leejosepho
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04 Jun 2010, 8:28 am

Who says they do not?

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ruveyn
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04 Jun 2010, 8:29 am

mjs82 wrote:

Discuss in essay format only. 2000 words or more.

There are no souls. Soul is a made up bogus concept.

ruveyn

mjs82
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04 Jun 2010, 8:34 am

leejosepho wrote:

Who says they do not?

Well usually they do.

Sand
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04 Jun 2010, 8:59 am

mjs82 wrote:

leejosepho wrote:

Who says they do not?

Well usually they do.

Dogs and cats have no souls and atheists are reborn from dogs and cats. I am a reconstructed cockroach.

iamnotaparakeet
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04 Jun 2010, 9:45 am

Why do Atheists "have no souls"? It is not necessarily so that Atheists have no souls. People in general either have souls or they do not have souls. To claim based upon lack of empirical evidence that souls do not exist is appeal to ignorance. To claim that belief in souls is foolish or repugnant is argument by incredulity. AwesomelyGlorious will once again accuse me of argumentum ad logicam, of which he then will also be guilty. It is obvious from the previous responses that the favored state of existence among atheists is the lacking of a soul, and however hedged it is merely a preference. To clarify, it would be a preference either way, as to whether souls exist or don't. As such, these items are not directly provable, or discountable, but only indirectly able to be asserted as corollaries of larger sets of argumentation regarding the nature of God, history, and cosmogony in general.

Asp-Z
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04 Jun 2010, 10:13 am

ruveyn wrote:

mjs82 wrote:

Discuss in essay format only. 2000 words or more.

There are no souls. Soul is a made up bogus concept.

ruveyn

+1.

If anyone disagrees with that, I challenge them to come forward with scientific proof that souls are real.

DeaconBlues
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04 Jun 2010, 10:17 am

Define "soul", if you please. It is at best difficult to debate a concept when the debaters do not agree on a common definition of the subject under discussion.

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Awesomelyglorious
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04 Jun 2010, 10:25 am

Why do atheists have no souls? Well, there are a few possible explanations, and I hope to explore all of these possibilities.

The first possibility is that souls never existed in the first place. This idea is popular among most atheists I believe, as it fits into their philosophical tendencies. There is no scientific proof of the soul. So many experiences that people have don't need the soul as an explanation. Basically, denying the soul is just reductionism, but applied to the soul.

Another option, my favorite option, is that atheists remove souls from existence through their STRIDENT rejection of the divine. The basic reason I consider this to be my favorite option is that it allows atheists to be literal god slayers, which, given the sucky nature of most gods is a good thing. Basically, atheists are just sort of like ghostbusters in this kind of idea, but now they are Holy Ghost busters.

Finally, there is a certain rationale that follows from a paper by Doug Zongker, which I will place a link to here: http://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf and it goes like this: chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. And, I think that this idea of why atheists are soulless might become very popular, especially with the zoophiliac crowd.

Hopefully, through this writing I have provided three possibilities on why atheists are soulless. Also, Iamnotaparakeet is engaging in argumentam ad logicam, which I say even though I do not know the Latin.

skafather84
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04 Jun 2010, 10:27 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

That's only 200 words. Your submission is incomplete.

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iamnotaparakeet
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04 Jun 2010, 10:28 am

DeaconBlues wrote:

Define "soul", if you please. It is at best difficult to debate a concept when the debaters do not agree on a common definition of the subject under discussion.

Although I hadn't heard of this organization before, they do provide a well stated explanation of the difference in meaning between the words "spirit" and "soul", namely,

Quote:

... The spirit is always referred to as the immaterial part of man. Man is not a spirit, he has a spirit. I believe the soul (psyche) is just what the Greek word implies, the makeup of man. You are different from every other person. The thing that makes Raymond Raymond is the soul. ...

Link, http://www.comereason.org/theo_issues/theo070.asp

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04 Jun 2010, 10:45 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

DeaconBlues wrote:

Define "soul", if you please. It is at best difficult to debate a concept when the debaters do not agree on a common definition of the subject under discussion.

Although I hadn't heard of this organization before, they do provide a well stated explanation of the difference in meaning between the words "spirit" and "soul", namely,

Quote:

Link, http://www.comereason.org/theo_issues/theo070.asp

Well, if we proceed from the assumption that "soul" is that indefinable something which individuates human beings, then the original question becomes self-abnegating, unless one is also willing to posit that all atheists are alike - that there are no essential differences between, say, Richard Dawkins and Madelyn Murray O'Hair (aside from the fact that she's dead and he isn't). I could, I suppose, pad such a response out to 2000 words by filling it with buzzwords and other such nonsense, but the point remains that this definition of the word "soul" means that the original question makes about as much sense as asking for a 2000-word essay on why hawks aren't birds.

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Awesomelyglorious
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04 Jun 2010, 10:47 am

skafather84 wrote:

That's only 200 words. Your submission is incomplete.

Reading is for wusses.

iamnotaparakeet
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04 Jun 2010, 11:02 am

DeaconBlues wrote:

iamnotaparakeet wrote:

DeaconBlues wrote:

Define "soul", if you please. It is at best difficult to debate a concept when the debaters do not agree on a common definition of the subject under discussion.

Although I hadn't heard of this organization before, they do provide a well stated explanation of the difference in meaning between the words "spirit" and "soul", namely,

Quote:

Link, http://www.comereason.org/theo_issues/theo070.asp

Yeah, I think that the definition that most people think of when the word "soul" is used in this context (as in the context of this type of debate) is the immaterial essence which is called a "spirit". People use the words "spirit" and "soul" interchangeably, with both having the meaning of "spirit"/immaterial essence of a being, so in terms of this debate that is probably the proper definition.

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