Religion and Ethics Forum

Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: Sriram on August 28, 2023, 06:33:01 AM

Title: Spirituality again
Post by: Sriram on August 28, 2023, 06:33:01 AM

Hi everyone,

Once again to revisit the spiritual hypothesis...

1. We are made of body, mind, soul.

2. The body and mind are reflections of the soul.

3. The soul (individual consciousness) evolves over several lifetimes to develop and increase its level of consciousness.

4. While we know broadly how the body works, the mind is still a mystery. It is believed to be made of prana energy and is a part of the biofield. 

5. When we die, the body disintegrates, the mind dissipates and the soul travels to different levels of celestial worlds.

6. The individual soul is reborn in different mind-body systems again and again to experience the world.

7. There is also within us a higher level of consciousness that we can call the spirit (I call it the Higher Self).

8. This Higher Self guides and navigates our spiritual development. 

9. This Higher Self can be experienced as a divine presence from within and is often identified with God.

10. God is generally seen as the highest level of Consciousness from which different levels of consciousness and the world get generated.

These are philosophical ideas for which there is evidence in the form of personal experiences, NDE's, documented reincarnation cases, ghost sightings, ESP's and so on.

Religions are cultural and regional creations based on the above basic philosophy....which can be seen as a perennial secular and universal Philosophy.   

Cheers.

Sriram 


Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Sriram on August 28, 2023, 07:02:18 AM



You could try this also...

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/spirituality-and-religion/
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: torridon on August 28, 2023, 07:06:14 AM
'Soul' being a supernatural claim without evidence, means this is not a hypothesis.  A hypothesis is a speculative conjecture to be confirmed or rejected through testing.  Stopped reading at point 1.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Sebastian Toe on August 28, 2023, 08:49:19 AM


You could try this also...

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/spirituality-and-religion/
Where do souls come from?
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on August 28, 2023, 10:24:16 AM
Sriram,

Quote
Once again to revisit the spiritual hypothesis...

1. We are made of body, mind, soul... etc

It's not a hypotheses for the reasons Torri explained you you - at best it's mythology. As I assume you believe some of all of this mythology actually to be true though, would there be any point in asking you why you believe that? 
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Enki on August 28, 2023, 10:40:10 AM
Just conjecture, Sriram, not an hypothesis, as others have said. I see you're still peddling your website to all and sundry. ;D
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Sriram on August 28, 2023, 11:17:01 AM
'Soul' being a supernatural claim without evidence, means this is not a hypothesis.  A hypothesis is a speculative conjecture to be confirmed or rejected through testing.  Stopped reading at point 1.


Nothing supernatural about it.  The soul is what you and I are. It is the source of our consciousness.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on August 28, 2023, 11:22:58 AM
Sriram,

Quote
Nothing supernatural about it.  The soul is what you and I are. It is the source of our consciousness.

And your reasons for thinking that to be true would be what?
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: torridon on August 28, 2023, 01:11:27 PM

Nothing supernatural about it.  The soul is what you and I are. It is the source of our consciousness.

Like our dear Mr Burns, clearly you're an avid fan of circular reasoning.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Walt Zingmatilder on August 28, 2023, 01:40:38 PM
Hi Sriram

I see you’re out walking the Scientism boys.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on August 28, 2023, 01:44:04 PM
Vlad,

Quote
I see you’re out walking the Scientism boys.

And he goes with the big lie to open with...

... bold move (albeit entirely dishonest).
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Aruntraveller on August 28, 2023, 01:47:32 PM
Hi Sriram

I see you’re out walking the Scientism boys.

Even you can't go along with all that balderdash.

Quote
the mind dissipates and the soul travels to different levels of celestial worlds.

Presumably the soul has to get a return ticket so that it can be:

Quote
reborn in different mind-body systems again and again to experience the world.

Anymore of this drivel and I'm going to dissipate out of sheer bloody boredom.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Sriram on August 28, 2023, 02:01:45 PM
Hi Sriram

I see you’re out walking the Scientism boys.



They need to be provoked now and then. Otherwise I get bored!  ;)
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on August 28, 2023, 03:15:33 PM
Sriram,

Quote
They need to be provoked now and then. Otherwise I get bored!  ;)

Playing the Giuliani to Vlad's Trump here seems fitting as you're peddling the same lie.

Incidentally, I'm not sure spouting unqualified assertions of the mythology that appeals to you the most has anything to do with philosophy. Perhaps you should try the faith sharing area instead for those who like that kind of thing?     
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Bramble on August 28, 2023, 04:22:19 PM
Quote
...the soul travels to different levels of celestial worlds.

Yours seems to be trapped in this forum, seeking constant attention.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: ekim on August 28, 2023, 04:32:01 PM
Where do souls come from?
I should have thought that was obvious .... from the bottom of your shoes!
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Sebastian Toe on August 28, 2023, 05:20:01 PM

Nothing supernatural about it.  The soul is what you and I are. It is the source of our consciousness.
Ok but where and when do these souls originate?
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Nearly Sane on August 28, 2023, 05:26:15 PM
Ok but where and when do these souls originate?
Obviously they are mined

https://youtu.be/dQ28vRGeuVk?si=5zPpk6GUIGyZNNSC
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Sriram on August 29, 2023, 06:57:26 AM
Ok but where and when do these souls originate?




Souls are believed to descend or emanate from a universal spirit.   Where did this spirit come from...?  I have no idea.

The same question can be asked about the singularity, space-time, elementary particles, laws of physics etc. From where did they arise?!
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: bluehillside Retd. on August 29, 2023, 09:50:38 AM
Sriram,

Quote
Souls are believed to descend or emanate from a universal spirit.   Where did this spirit come from...?  I have no idea.

Non sequitur. You just jumped from what "souls" are believed to be to there actually being souls. It's the same (non-)argument as: "People believe leprechauns wear green. Why do they wear green?...I have no idea."

Quote
The same question can be asked about the singularity, space-time, elementary particles, laws of physics etc. From where did they arise?!

Except there are good reasons for believing these things to exist at all. Throwing "souls" into the same set is a category error. 

Yet again your poor resaoning is letting you down here.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: jeremyp on August 29, 2023, 10:37:48 AM


[The mind] is believed to be made of prana energy and is a part of the biofield. 


Not by anybody who is investigating the mind seriously.
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: Sebastian Toe on August 29, 2023, 11:16:15 AM



Souls are believed to descend or emanate from a universal spirit.   Where did this spirit come from...?  I have no idea.

The same question can be asked about the singularity, space-time, elementary particles, laws of physics etc. From where did they arise?!
Life, biological life that is, must have originated somewhere , sometime.
So what you are saying is that this "universal spirit" was waiting for life to start, at which point it would begin to somehow distribute "souls".
Is that correct?
Title: Re: Spirituality again
Post by: ProfessorDavey on August 31, 2023, 11:36:55 AM
1. We are made of body, mind, soul.
Ok with mind and body (although in reality both are simply aspects of our physiology and anatomy. But soul - nope. You'll need to demonstrate that such a thing exists before positing some equivalence with body and mind.

2. The body and mind are reflections of the soul.
Given that there is no definitive evidence that the soul is even a thing then this statement is unevidenced non-sense.

3. The soul (individual consciousness) evolves over several lifetimes to develop and increase its level of consciousness.
Ah so now you are redefining things - so the soul is individual consciousness. OK, if that's how you want to define it, but in which case it is a manifestation of our neurophysiology.

Also how can individual conscious evolve over several lifetimes - that makes no sense.

4. While we know broadly how the body works, the mind is still a mystery. It is believed to be made of prana energy and is a part of the biofield.
Nope - we know a lot about how the mind, in reality neurophysiology, works. Sure it is really complex so there is a lot more to know. 'Prana energy', 'biofield' - unevidenced woo. 

5. When we die, the body disintegrates, the mind dissipates and the soul travels to different levels of celestial worlds.

6. The individual soul is reborn in different mind-body systems again and again to experience the world.
Yet more unevidenced woo and non-sense. From a fundamental logic point of view how can this be the case when the population is increasing. In that case there would be too many 'new' bodies for the available souls from dead people to populate. You'd need to continually be creating new souls. Alternatively if population decreased you'd need to destroy souls as there wouldn't be enough supply of bodies.

Here is a logical way around this - the mind is a manifestation of the physiology of an individual and when that individual dies so does the mind. Oh and that notion is also supported by the scientific evidence.

7. There is also within us a higher level of consciousness that we can call the spirit (I call it the Higher Self).

8. This Higher Self guides and navigates our spiritual development.
Higher level unevidenced woo. 

9. This Higher Self can be experienced as a divine presence from within and is often identified with God.

10. God is generally seen as the highest level of Consciousness from which different levels of consciousness and the world get generated.
Presupposition. Before inserting god into the argument you'll need to demonstrate that god, or gods, actually exist

These are philosophical ideas for which there is evidence in the form of personal experiences, NDE's, documented reincarnation cases, ghost sightings, ESP's and so on.
But as we've pointed out so many times none of these things are supported by any kind of credible evidence.

Religions are cultural and regional creations based on the above basic philosophy....which can be seen as a perennial secular and universal Philosophy.
Some religions are based on those philosophical tenets, but certainly not all. Christianity certainly doesn't seem to be based on the notion of souls being reincarnated in living bodies from generation to generation. Quite the reverse.

But the point about religions (or faiths as we also call them) is that they aren't based on evidence - that's why they are called faiths - you only need faith in a supposition if it lacks evidence in support of it.