They spun on us, outraged, and one of them stamped her foot and proclaimed, "Not cute!"

This reminds me of my five year old daughter, only it's "Not fair!" and she does this deeply furrowed brow thing to let you know she's really mad.

"do your bite your thumb at me, sir?!" as casual classroom insults?

Awwww. That was a standard in my middle school, too.

Hmm - Ok I'm atheist with maybe a slightly different take on atheism. First I think that all questions of faith or lack thereof start with an emotional base. That doesn't mean reason is not important; if you can't find rational arguments for your emotional bias then you need to find a way to change it; mind you I don't think proof in any absolute way will ever be found; but I try to have a reasonable argument why my viewpoint is not insane or stupid.

(Warning; what follows is not a rant -but it may be a bit of a meander.)

OK my emotional basis is a simple one. When I was pretty young I came to accept the emotional truth that I will come to an end some day. I did not always exist, and I will not always exist. The day will come when I am not in heaven or hell or reincarnated or drifting around on a different plane. I will be gone. There won't even be a little bit of me left to know that I'm gone. That was not an easy thing to accept, and once made that leap is made, belief it an afterlife seems kind of like a kindly lie told for people who can't bear a harsh truth. Note that I'm not arguming this is actually the case; even if belief in an afterlife is wrong I'm sure most people who believe it in think about it hard and some point and continue to do so. This is simply the EMOTIONAL point I'm coming from - the bias you are dealing with when discussing the subject with me. However this does not mean I don't belief in the soul , the "I'. It simply means I think it is a matterial property - a particular organization of information that will end with my body is in fact part of the informational structure of my body.

OK - so what rational backing do I find for my particular emotional truth?

This is where the meander begins - because I have to start with Occams Razor, and make a less simple minded use of it than I sometimes see. Most people have propably heard some it is stated that "the simplest explaination that fits all the fact is most likely to be true." What is important (and what keeps it from being a tautological principle) is that it is probabilist and operates over times. It applies to areas where you don't have enough information to determine the truth, and have multiple hypothesis that appear equally likely on their face. Given that the simplest explanation that fits know facts is mostly likely to be true when you have some more facts and are able to eliminate hypothesis on some other basis. Note that it won't always turn out that way. Sometimes when new facts are discovered, the simpler hypothesis will be the one eliminated. But still until such facts are discovered the simplest explaination uncontradicted by known facts is the way to bet.

[Again - only it's acceptance as probablistic over time keeps this from being tautological. If you simply say "the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is the correct one" once all the facts are known - well that would be tautological; if you know know ALL the facts you don't have to worry about what is simplest to determine what is true; even allowing for normal imperfection in our knowledge you can get to the point where the facts support only one hypothesis anyone can reasonably come up with.)

OK so the digression over, how does the soul or existence simply being a property of matter fit with that very blunt razor? Because if you take the soul and being the "I" what makes you an individual , it can be altered by physical changes in myriad ways. Brain damage can alter the soul. Drugs can alter the soul. Chemical malfunctions in the body can alter the soul. Now I know there may be some disagreement over whether what is altered is really the soul. But, as an example someone close to me was a really great person for until he was 18. At 18 he experimented with drugs ,including LSD; he quit - but the personality changes were long term; he became self-rightous, violent on occasion, even physically abusive towards women. And then another chemical Prozac, helped him recover his balance, and he bacame the same sweet, (continued...)

( continues...) converned empathatic person I once knew; he is now married again and treats his wife with the kindness and respect he should. To me those changes were changes in the soul; you can't tell me that they were superficial that his soul was not tainted when he became violent or that it did not improve when stopped. And he did therapy for decades; it was only when the prozac was prescribed that he was able to change again.

Note that I'm not saying he was not responsible for his actions. I'm just saying he did not make the first change until he got the bad acid, and was unable to make the second until the prozac.

And if that example is flawed I'll bet you can come up with ones that aren't.

So it is one thing to imagine the soul as some kind of phantom captain seperate from the body in the face of the phenomena of death. But in the face of injury that changes how the people think and behave it gets a bit harder. Not impossible. You can add complexity to the hypothesis - imagining the connection to the body being disorted without being severed by changes in the brain. But bear in mind it is not just a matter of brain damage that lowers intelligence. You can have changes that leave you as "smart" or "cunning" or "intelligent' or whatever as you ever were, but drastically change your personality in other ways. So it seems to me that a soul that can exist seperately from the body is a more complex explanation for the same set of facts. So again it seems like the burden of proof is on anyone who wants to argue for the existence of an immortal soul, as opposed to a mortal soul that dies with the body.

Not convincing to anyone who disagrees I'm sure. And not really meant to be. Cause I also think that religious beliefs (even if wrong in my opinion) don't really make you more vulnerable to ideas that are wrong in other ways than any other approach to life. Yes I'm not exactly blind to religious fundamentalism - not Christian fundamentalism, not Islamic fundamentalism, not Jewish fundamentalism, not Hindu fundamentalism. But you know we had the whole communist phenomena which killed a hell of a lot of people which had no belief in the after life. And there were the Nazis who were essentially pagan. There are a fair number of Jews and Athesist in the U.S. on the side of the fundamentalists. There are a fair number of Evangelical Christians strongly opposed. I think your virtue and your degree of rationality (not that I think any human being including myself is all that rational) come from a deeper well than religious belief. So I'm an athesist; I think people who believe in an afterlife are wrong (while acknowledging it could be other way around). But I don't think that the mistake is an important one, and I have no desire to persuade anyone who is religious/spiritual/whatever to change. I do enjoy intellectual discussion of the point in a context where it won't distress anyone.

And for something completely different, any Royal watchers wanting a good laugh should check out the comics series The Royals

[link]

The "King Han Solo the First" one made me hurt myself laughing.

I want junk food, possibly something in the chocolate cupcake family, but I'm not sure I can actually justify leaving the house to buy them.

I will be spending the evening watching 'A Hole in the World' and chopping up each and every one of my credit cards. Is that enough?

You know what I realized?

(Chorus of "What, Tep?")

My laptop plays DVDs. Laptops are portable.

I can take a bath and watch a DVD at the same time!!!! (Yes, w/the laptop on the counter so as not to electrocute myself and/or destroy the computer.)

Well said, Typo Boy.

I can take a bath and watch a DVD at the same time!!!!

You can also use your laptop to watch movies in a hotel, or while on a train.

And for about $20, you can buy an adaptor that will let you play DVDs (or whatever) on a TV.

I think my Powerbook came with this adapter. I watch most torrents on my TV now.

Hee. See, I'm totally the opposite; I watch everything on my computer, cause my PC looks quite a bit better than my rather elderly TV.

And for a bit of mememe...I tried on pants I haven't worn since 1998, and THEY FIT!!! I have a cameltoe in them, so they are not quite fitting well, but they are on me, zipped, and loose in the thighs. I am so weirdly happy.