Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] stem cell research - was more on data fabrication - soul?

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Mon, 2 Jan 2006, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:

> I consider a soul to be the "me-ness" that identifies me as me.  I think 
> that everyone senses this, and cannot explain it.

Everyone senses what?


> My sense is that radical materialists (i.e. those who only believe in 
> the material world, and not in anything spiritual beyond that) are in a 
> very small minority.  I keep arguing with Mike on this point, but I do 
> feel that he is the exception, and in a sense my argument with him is 
> just between me and him.  But I do know other people who think like he 
> does, for example, my mother.  I myself struggled to accept this point 
> of view, but just couldn't. That's why I started dabbling in religions, 
> ending up in Christianity.

Carl Sagan saw that people believed readily in all sorts of baloney. 
> From his point of view they lived in a "demon-haunted world":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/

We are just waking up from eons of pre-verbal and pre-scientific life.  I 
can't expect everyone to immediately understand that their primitive 
belief systems are harmful.  It will take time.


> Back to stem cell research - the question is, when does the blob of 
> cells gain a soul.  For example, does one need to have a nerve system 
> before this soul comes into being?  I have to say that I long pondered 
> this last question as a teenager.  I couldn't ever answer it, but I came 
> to feel more and more that a soul did not require a nervous system.
>
> While I don't know if most people would agree with me, I do think that 
> most people would think that this is a meaningful question.

People who "believe" in "souls" will be interested.  But people don't know 
what souls are, so how can they believe in them?  Why do they believe in 
them?

Mike

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