Do people have souls???

[Caliostro]

Science is just a way to explain things away, ALL I'M SAYING is that religion is just another way of explaining away why we are here, for some people it's good enough, and that's all that should matter, but, you seem hell bent of telling people how wrong they are and how right you are, and for that, your ignorant.

EDIT: Now I'm willing to respect your beliefs, all I'm asking in return is that we stop turning this, "discussion," into a flame war and respect each other here.

You don't know the difference between a contraction and a possessive and I'm ignorant? Sorry, particularly pressing pet peeve, if you'd pardon the alliteration.

That said, me saying "Rain is the condensation of water vapour into the heavier liquid form (i.e.: water) which then falls from the sky. You can test this by boiling some water inside some transparent covering material and seeing what happens." is a way of explaining it. "It happens because of magic, because I believe it does" is NOT an explanation. It's a cop out. It's avoiding an explanation.

Science is not the same as religion, they don't belong together, nor should they ever be mixed. I would argue religion doesn't really belong anywhere, but you're as entitled to believe in it as I am to believe Elvis is alive, or that dragons exist, or whatever else I, you or anyone feels like believing. But saying that it "is a way of explaining things, like science", or that the scientific method is equivalent to just claiming something is true is objectively wrong.

 

[RocksW]

Pretty much the same answer, our minds are a product of neurological responses to external stimuli. Our experiences determine who we are and what we become.

Agreed, but what I meant was self awareness. My name is Kevin. Why am I Kevin and not Roger from down the street?

It depends on your view on the nature of the universe i suppose, but considering we're both clockwork robots, what made me this particular clockwork robot? How does my point of view even exist in the first place? How does yours?

Like I said, pseudo science lol

 

[Blind Sight]

Pretty much the same answer, our minds are a product of neurological responses to external stimuli. Our experiences determine who we are and what we become.

Agreed, but what I meant was self awareness. My name is Kevin. Why am I Kevin and not Roger from down the street?

It depends on your view on the nature of the universe i suppose, but considering we're both clockwork robots, what made me this particular clockwork robot? How does my point of view even exist in the first place? How does yours?

Like I said, pseudo science lol

Well like I said, it's really our experiences that determine how we act and function differently from others, and genetics do play a role as well (recently, several people studying mental illnesses have found that it could actually be the product of a virus existing within the structure of everyone's DNA, they're still finding out what triggers it though). By using a CAT scan you can actually see how different brains respond to outside stimulus differently, the most obvious of this is serial killers, who's brain chemistry is often very different from an average person's.

There's really only theories on the emergence of self-awareness, personally, my favourite is anthropologist Terence McKenna's 'Stoned Ape' theory, just because it's hilarious. He argues that the emergence of things like sentience and language comes from the ingestion of naturally occurring psychoactive substances. Basically, these chemicals are known to stimulate areas of the brain that identify ourselves as an individual, as well as the centers for language and sensory perception. So in layman's terms, humanity's sapient nature could've very well been a product of early man eating mushrooms.