Household Debate

[willtruncheon]

Sandy and I have been having a religious argument in our house this morning, which I want to reproduce here in the hopes that others might want to comment on it. I asked her to reproduce her side here, but she's a little too busy right now, so I'll just try to objectively boil down our respective statements here

Comments

[willtruncheon]

What would you accept as empirical evidence against the existence of souls? Could it not be said that because we are demonstrably unable to communicate with the dead that the fact alone pushes us closer to the "not likely" end of the spectrum, if not providing real certainty

[willtruncheon]

Where I disagree is when you say that the truth of the matter isn't important. Why live a life based on a lie if you can help it? Do we need lies to be fulfilled and happy? I don't think anyone truly does.

[dcltdw]

I think... hmm, this is lj, which is such the Fount of Polished, Insightful, Carefully Reasoned Debate :) so I'm not sure, but I think you're oversimplifying. Namely, people do not lead lives that are singular in mood.

*Generally* speaking, yes, I'd agree with you -- but now I'm wielding a paintbrush four miles wide. And that's not where we (the areligious) run into contention necessarily with the religious people: it's when we're in specifics. Let's cut directly to the chase.

Somebody's mum/dad/spouse dies: oh shit, now what? That grieving stage for anyone is *complicated*, so we have to move beyond simplistic/binary declarations like the one above, even if we try to live our lives that way, and find something more nuaunced

[willtruncheon]

"...the truth of either belief is less relevant than how the belief leads one to behave."

This is undoubtedly true.