Religious or spiritual belief and science

[Traianvs]

I only believe in God as being the creator or originator of only one important thing - soul. He alone used His power to give humans the gift of having a soul. No other creatures on Earth have a soul. Humans evolved from prehistoric primates that did not possess any soul but at some point, once hominids came into existence, God intervened with this gift of the soul.

Care to elaborate on that a bit more? So God at some random point gave us a soul? So more or less when our brains became larger and larger up to the point we humanoids got around to reach actual consciousness?

This leads me to ask you what your definition of 'soul' is.

[MrFun]

I am intrigued by a few of the things that you fail to make clear in your statement.

1. What is the purpose of this 'soul' that has been given to mankind? Is it an inate sense of right and wrong? Truth or deceit? Good(whatever interpretation you have for that) or evil(likewise subject to massive differences of opinion)? Clemency or brutality? If it is then it has been a pretty hit and miss affair.

2. Does a 'soul' equate to intelligence, logical problem solving and the ability to aquire and retain knowledge? These we do have - to varying degrees -and which really do set us apart from a mushroom.

3. By what yardstick did God look down upon the Earth and pick a bunch of primitive bipedal cave dwellers as being more deserving of this gift rather than an ape or a dolphin?

4. Does your God judge our actions as individuals to determine the destination of our immortal 'souls' when our physical being ceases to be? Indeed is our 'soul' immortal at all in your belief set? If it is then do you include the concept of Heaven and Hell?

1. The purpose of a soul is to allow humans to transcend to another plane of existence after death. Not heaven or hell in a literal sense, but a different plane/dimension. God welcomes those who have accepted Him and have trusted His love for us to this other plane of existence after death.

2. No, I do not think that a soul is the source of our intelligence. There's only one purpose for having a soul, as I have explained in number one.

3. I cannot say for certain why God chose hominids/humans as being deserving of the gift of a soul. Many things God does not reveal to us directly and his reasons for not doing so are mysterious.

4. I think I answered this number with my reply to number one.

[MrFun]

Care to elaborate on that a bit more? So God at some random point gave us a soul? So more or less when our brains became larger and larger up to the point we humanoids got around to reach actual consciousness?

This leads me to ask you what your definition of 'soul' is.

I replied to St Jon about why/when God gave humans the gift of a soul over other creatures here on Earth. Now that I have read your post, you got me thinking - it's certainly possible that God chose hominids/humans as deserving of a soul when he saw that we had reached a higher level of consciousness compared to other creatures.

I think I defined the soul for you, in my reply to St Jon.

[Traianvs]

I replied to St Jon about why/when God gave humans the gift of a soul over other creatures here on Earth. Now that I have read your post, you got me thinking - it's certainly possible that God chose hominids/humans as deserving of a soul when he saw that we had reached a higher level of consciousness compared to other creatures.

I think I defined the soul for you, in my reply to St Jon.

Your definition of 'soul' is still rather unsatisfying. I understand the soul in your view is some sort of gift serving as a tool with which we humans can get into heaven or another dimension, however you wish to call it.

It follows logically that only humans can receive this gift since they're the only truly conscious beings on this planet, therefore the only ones who can accept God. This is then why God has bestowed the gift of soul to human kind.

So in short: a soul cannot exist without conscious humans. Isn't it possible to turn all of this reasoning around, saying that souls merely exist because we are conscious, and that they're nothing but a figment of our imagination? That we gave this abstract concept a name in order to convince ourselves there's an afterlife?

[Sava]

There's no such thing as the soul. Everything that makes us who we are is in our brains. Mess with a few things and you are different. Talk to families of people who have had traumatic brain injuries. Once the brain is dead, so are you. Then it's lights out.

[St Jon]

1. The purpose of a soul is to allow humans to transcend to another plane of existence after death. Not heaven or hell in a literal sense, but a different plane/dimension. God welcomes those who have accepted Him and have trusted His love for us to this other plane of existence after death.

2. No, I do not think that a soul is the source of our intelligence. There's only one purpose for having a soul, as I have explained in number one.

3. I cannot say for certain why God chose hominids/humans as being deserving of the gift of a soul. Many things God does not reveal to us directly and his reasons for not doing so are mysterious.

4. I think I answered this number with my reply to number one.

I am sorry but I still find this very muddy and unclear.

1. If a 'soul', by your definition, imparts no value set upon us then effectively God is giving carte blanche to every murderer, suicide bomber or manic cleric preaching death who happens to be a believer! Without any moral code I can rape my sister and yet still be assured of the transcendance of my immortal 'soul' if I believe in God?

2. Your answer simply refers to Q1 which is in itself unsatisfactory.

3. That really is a bit of a cop out. If God is a supreme being - all knowing, all seeing - then one, logically, must credit that God with intelligence, logic and reason. Just what does make humanity so very special over other provenly self aware creatures? Swans are monogamous, elephants mourn their dead off-spring and chimpanzes are able to use primitive tools as well as developing deep familial bonds.

4. You did not answer it. More accurately you referred to an already flawed answer to Q1. Apart from a blanket acceptence of God's existance there has to be some form of judgement upon our actions and intents. How is this achieved? It would take a lot of effort to keep a ledger of every one of us but how else would you decide upon which of us should spin off the wheel of karma?

It seems to me that what you are propounding is a rather imprecise and muddled form of existentialism which a lot of very great philosophers have tried, and failed, to rationalise for at least the past 200 years.

[KrazyHorse]

Yeah, members of the NAS is down below 10%. The study at the same time frame showed that physicists as a whole, like scientists as a whole, were at ~40% (a bit above).

According to a much-discussed survey reported in the journal Nature in 1997, 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians said they believed in God - and not just a nonspecific transcendental presence but, as the survey put it, a God to whom one may pray "in expectation of receiving an answer."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/23/national/23believers.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

JM

Jon: there are two problems here

1) The article you link to was a bit unspecific as to what qualifications were needed to be considered a "physicist, mathematician or biologist". Was this done solely at the PhD level and above? Also, was there a self-sampling bias for the non-NAS members which was less important for the NAS members? It seems to me to be unreasonable to me to claim that NAS members are so different in their religious beliefs compared to other PhD level scientists. I have a sneaking suspicion that the numbers for non-NAS members were gathered by mail-in form sent to all, for example, APS members wile the NAS members' info was gathered in a more rigourous way.

2) The article you link to throws all three groups together, and contains no info on the breakdown

[Jon Miller]

I saw an article with the breakdown but I haven't been able to find it when I was reading this thread.

I think it is PhDs/etc otherwise.

The ~40% fits in with my personal experience.

JM

[KrazyHorse]

That is NOT at all my experience. In mine it is close to the 10% level.

[Jon Miller]

They surveyed 1,000 randomly chosen scientists listed in the reference book
``American Men and Women of Science,''

JM

[KrazyHorse]

Jon, what is the basis for your claim that it is only PhDs? Also, how was the sample chosen? Was it only those who chose to send in a mail-in form or something? Because most atheists in physics feel less of a need or an urge to discuss their personal religious beliefs than most theists in physics.

[Kitschum]

I have not read all of this very thoughtful thread, but in my studies of something biological I have yet to encounter any belief in God or anything religious except when we discussed ethics this one time, but I had the feeling it was mentioned mostly because it was felt to be required. In conclusion, religiousness is something rare in sciences I find.

[KrazyHorse]

Could you please link to whatever source you're finding for methodology of that study, Jon? I couldn't find it when I did a quick google search earlier

[Jon Miller]

http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~neum/sciandf/contrib/clari.txt

JM

[Jon Miller]

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

Just to be clear, although I still haven't been able to find the break down by discipline.

Commentary

http://helives.blogspot.com/2008/05/really-smart-scientists-dont-believe-in.html

JM