A-L-E-X wrote:

Mr. Missed Her wrote:

A-L-E-X wrote:

Could also explain how some people retain memories of events happening around them, even in comas.

People could still have sensory input in a coma, which somehow finds its way into the memory of their glitchy brain. Because brains are complicated. But it's possible that while their physical brain is completely non-functional, their "ghost brain" detaches from their physical brain because it has less physical electromagnetism to hold on to. The "ghost brain" which I will just start calling a soul for convenience shouldn't still be able to receive some kind of input from its ghost senses, so maybe the soul can observe the physical world's imprint on the ghost electromagnetic world. If this is true, then you should be able to see other souls only when you yourself are a body-less soul.

I wonder if they could sense the exact position of people and the color of the clothes they were wearing though, as well as the "floating body" experience many report.  As you're well aware, most of the body's sensory input as well as neural input/output consist of electrical signals- we are electrical beings as far as our consciousness is concerned.

Because of my lack of understanding of this force (it is, after all, complete conjecture), I'd say that it's possible. But there isn't really any reason to expect that your experience as a body-less soul would correspond completely with a world, because while everything should have a slight imprint on the ghost electromagnetic world, this world would be different. Your "brain ghost" might not even be able to function right when not paired with your physical brain. 

Maybe there is some part of our brain that can connect with some complex mainly magnetic information structure that normally works in conjunction with the body but can also, when the body is incapacitated for whatever reason, act on its own. 
It's all part of that question "what is consciousness" though that noone seems to be able to definitively answer, though such a magnetic theory might also explain the 20 grams weight of the soul thing...

Votyn wrote:

Source of the post It's all part of that question "what is consciousness" though that noone seems to be able to definitively answer, though such a magnetic theory might also explain the 20 grams weight of the soul thing...

There are hints as to the nature of consciousness and the emergence of mind and they definitely do not agree with that notion.

Qualia is the real problem, much more so than consciousness. Although people often mean the former when they speak of the latter.

DoctorOfSpace wrote:

Votyn wrote:

Source of the post It's all part of that question "what is consciousness" though that noone seems to be able to definitively answer, though such a magnetic theory might also explain the 20 grams weight of the soul thing...

There are hints as to the nature of consciousness and the emergence of mind and they definitely do not agree with that notion.

Besides, if you really had a soul that weighed 20 grams, your soul would contain a ridiculous amount of energy. It would probably be leaking regular electromagnetism all over the place, and if that didn't happen, animals could store energy in their soul, allowing them to go forever without food. So whatever those 20 grams were, they didn't belong to a soul.

[quote="SpaceEngineer"]I am atheist [/quote]
This is my first post, but I've read the forums a time or three. Space Engine is something I've put a lot of my time into. I'll certainly be purchasing it upon release through Steam. I just haven't had anything to really say until the next update, even though I've had an account for a year or two. But sometimes I just can't pass up a fun discussion, if you're up for it!

Honestly, I can't really say I understand atheists. To be clear, I love science just as much as you and I don't think that evolution (or anything else that science teaches) poses any threat to God's existence. Still, in my mind, I think the evidence is overwhelmingly convincing that there is a God. Of course, if there is a God does that mean that it's the Christian God? Well, there is some room for faith in any religion but if God exists then I think the Christian God would be the best and most logical choice.

Why would I think the forums on Space Engine would be a good place? Because I'm fairly convinced that everyone here as an appreciation for science and I also think that when some play in Space Engine they get the feeling that they are traversing through a universe that God created. Of course, I would expect the discussion to be in the Off-topic Forum. I searched through the forums but didn't see a section related to it and am not really sure how (or if I can) start a post.

Welcome to the forum, shagsnacks.

I agree that scientific theories like evolution and the Big Bang are not contradictory to the existence of God.  That would be a false dichotomy.  All the Big Bang theory says for example is what the conditions were like in the very early universe and how the universe has changed since then.  Those explanations are things that we can test by making observations.  But it says nothing for what agent caused the Big Bang to happen.  A person of faith may insert God if they want, provided they recognize this is faith and not evidence-based conclusion, and they may need to update their view again if models for the cause of the Big Bang do become testable.  A person of scientific rigor would instead shrug and say "I cannot yet test these models, so I cannot claim to know the cause."

Historically, where science and religion have clashed is whenever the religious views came with a narrative about how the world works, our origins, creation myths, and so forth, and if those stories were taken as truths.  Today, someone who has been taught to take the story of Genesis literally may have trouble accepting what geology and astronomy tell us.  As science progresses, more territory falls under it, and our understanding of the natural world expands.  I have the best respect for religious people who don't feel threatened by science and are okay with updating their views to be up to date with scientific understanding.

Science isn't atheistic.  Not quite agnostic either.  It simply does not care about the supernatural.  Science can, however, contradict statements made by religion.  For instance, if you holy book tells you that the sun is made up of glowing yellow cheese, science can offer very good evidence that it isn't.  In the case of the Bible, science can contradict some statements in it (if read literally), like the Genesis story, and provide historical evidence for other parts, and for the most part it is irrelevant or too vague for what science cares about.

Yes, it is a mistake to place religion and spirituality on the same level of science. To do so would devalue honest science and degrade the meaning of religion or any other spiritual beliefs. Religion is a world-view, a subjective narrative of your personal life and actions, and those of whom supposedly came before you as a way to influence society. Science is an objective tool in which the processes of nature can be explained. People only think that science as the noun and religion as the noun are in conflict because as midtskogen said above, science will inevitably invalidate certain claims made of the world by religions that those belief systems are required to make in order to lend credence to their beliefs. In order to keep their belief system alive in eyes of the public, religious individuals must fend off this invalidation. 

Truthfully, there was never a "war between Science and Religion" because they are not equal concepts for that to happen, this is only in the heads of those who perceive it as such and use it as a useful psychological tool for promoting ideas. Remember that most of the first scientists were very religious and followed science to become closer to the works of their respective God(s).

Problems arise when religion(s) attempt to maintain more control over their tenants, and in doing so restrict science in order to preserve perceived values.

I guess this is a re-statement of the posts above, but it's my ten cents as an atheist who is impartial to the idea of spirituality.

Also, science does not offer absolute truths, just a set of possibilities that don't contradict.  So whilst science provide strong evidence for that the young Earth belief is incorrect, people can still choose to harmonise their religious beliefs with science by saying that the Earth was created recently complete with the fossil record and evolution ongoing.  Philosophically acceptable to some, absurd to others.  

shagsnacks wrote:

Source of the post I think the Christian God would be the best and most logical choice.

Not even remotely and it isn't even a matter of opinion but a matter of fact.

The Christian God is a god built from thousands of years of prior belief systems, co-opted pagan rituals, conflicting with well established historical, geologic, paleontologic, biologic, sociological, and cosmic evidence to the point of absurdity.  The very notion of a historical Jesus can't even be substantiated to the point he very well may not have existed.  The Christian religion is wrought with so many flaws it holds quite literally no weight in regards to the universe we observe.

This is not to denigrate just Christians however, the same can be said about every single other man made religion and ideology.

Sagan said it best

There is in this Universe much of what seems to be design.

But instead, we repeatedly discover that natural processes—collisional selection of worlds, say, or natural selection of gene pools, or even the convection pattern in a pot of boiling water—can extract order out of chaos, and deceive us into deducing purpose where there is none.

DoctorOfSpace wrote:

Source of the post Sagan said it best

There is in this Universe much of what seems to be design.

But instead, we repeatedly discover that natural processes—collisional selection of worlds, say, or natural selection of gene pools, or even the convection pattern in a pot of boiling water—can extract order out of chaos, and deceive us into deducing purpose where there is none.

There's nothing like a good Sagan-quote to settle the matter . I second this.

DoctorOfSpace wrote:

Source of the post The Christian God is a god built from thousands of years of prior belief systems, co-opted pagan rituals, conflicting with well established historical, geologic, paleontologic, biologic, sociological, and cosmic evidence to the point of absurdity.

Actually, the Christian god, that is, the god of Judaism, introduced a pretty radical idea at the time: monotheism.  But, of course, that didn't come from nothing.

DoctorOfSpace wrote:

Source of the post The very notion of a historical Jesus can't even be substantiated to the point he very well may not have existed.

It's fairly unlikely that he didn't exist, though everything about him was written down several years after his death.  You could say the same thing about, say, Pythagoras.  Their historical lives are somewhat sketchy, and the later stories about them likely inaccurate, but it's fair to assume that they did exist.

midtskogen wrote:

Source of the post But, of course, that didn't come from nothing.

My point is if you pull up history on the god of the bible, Yahweh has numerous links to previous polytheism. The history is debated still, but clearly the God of the Abrahamic faiths is made up.

Christianity as well hijacked numerous pagan rituals and changed itself to spread to more people

midtskogen wrote:

Source of the post It's fairly unlikely that he didn't exist, though everything about him was written down several years after his death.

Someone named "Jesus Christ" most likely did not exist. The references we have to the individual have been linked to church forgeries and faked documents, with no hard evidence to his existence. Clearly a guy in the middle east walking around performing miracles did not exist.

Regarding the name "Jesus", we have numerous pieces of evidence that say the first name, all of which come decades after and came at a time when the Christ cults were growing in popularity.

The biggest difference between someone like Pythagoras vs someone like Jesus is we have some pretty hard substantial documentations on his life, who his parents most likely were, development of ideas, and even you know that whole Pythagorean theorem named after him.

With Christ we have conflicting records, no known date of birth, no known parents, no known criminal record, no mention of him in official Roman documents. We have had countless searches for evidence to prove he really existed, and all we find are anecdotes and references made decades to centuries later. The earliest record from the Romans comes in at around a century later from Josephus, the first century Roman scholar who mentions Jesus twice.

So now I have to put forward a question one should always be asking in these cases

What is more likely?

A man born of a virgin walked around the middle east for a few decades and did some miracles and no one said anything or wrote anything or even made a passing mention of him until decades to a century after he died?

or

Within those decades to the next century a couple generations of people died, others were sucked into the Christ cult movements, and much like today people exaggerated their claims and made up the character to suit their needs and spread the "gospels" as truth?

The Jesus myth is something I have spent a lot of time researching, I am wholly unconvinced this character existed in any meaningful way.

But I think there must have been someone running around then and started a religion. Otherwise Christianity would not exist.
Of course, this one was not the Son of God and was not born of a virgin.
I think he was someone like so many of today's cult leaders.
He may have called himself the Son of God, the Messiah. But maybe these are also later inventions.