Ulti,
Religious Experiences do exist (though the actual reason for them needs to be investigated)
Not quite. Unexplained experiences exist. You cannot claim them as religious until the investigation is completed, they might have a natural cause.
Human knowledge at the moment is limited and not comprehensive.
Not quite. Existing knowledge is complete, by definition, and therefore not limited. What you really mean is that there is a great deal that we do not know.
We do not know the major portion of how human brain functions today.
I’m not quite sure how best to quantify such knowledge. In one sense we know everything since from countless studies of brain injuries we know pretty much which area of the brain accounts for what bodily functions. We also know a great deal about neural networks. What we don’t know tends to reflect our inability to model and study the vast complexity of so many neurons interacting in parallel. I think it would be more precise to say that there are some key functions that we do not understand.
Scientific FACTS keep changing with accumulation of scientific evidence. Lack of scientific evidence at a point of time does not rule out the possibility of a fact.
A fact is a fact, why qualify it? You imply that all facts keep changing, that is not an accurate observation. What you really mean is that sometimes established theories evolve and are modified as new information becomes available. Most things do not change; there would be utter chaos otherwise.
But you are correct to observe that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, stating that something might be possible given time is not necessarily true. Some things will always be impossible no matter how much time passes. For example, discovering a vehicle that can travel north and south at the same time is nonsense.
Based partly on these, can we conclude that any of us is only in a position to put forth opinions, and if we state something as absolute, we are only being dogmatic?
Almost. However, I would claim that a logical paradox will always be a paradox.
We may not realize some things we experience everyday- like all the people before Newton who did not realize gravity but experienced it.
I’m not sure that you are being very clear here. Isn’t this just giving a label to an agreed experience?
But there were always wise people at all points of time who thought what they percieved was the absolute, and that all other schools of thought were primitive.
We could argue here that if they were truly wise then they would not have made those assumptions. However, I would agree that in the past some such people would have existed. However, this cannot be said of all wise people since if no one ever questioned the status quo then human progress would have been impossible.
It is this state of skepticism that fuels modern scientific research, and why we are making such dramatic progress recently because more people have adopted the scientific method for the discovery of new knowledge.
And unless you are super-human, you would not know everything in the universe with certainty,
I agree that until I become superhuman I can’t know everything with certainty. However, could we also agree that there will be some things that we can know with certainty, e.g. we exist?
yet essentially you wouldn't accept anything supernatural- meaning your knowledge cannot be complete.
That doesn’t really make sense and it looks like a non sequitur. You are assuming that the concept of the supernatural could be translated into something real. That assumption is invalid. Using your reasoning you are saying that even if I am super-human and hence would know everything that if I do not accept the supernatural then my knowledge would still be incomplete. Presumably if I know everything then I would know if the supernatural existed or not.
The problem with not knowing everything is that you cannot say anything meaningful about anything that can’t be shown to exist and whether such a thing might be found to exist when we know more. Until you can show that something supernatural is possible and exists then you still only have a fantasy. But there are an infinite number of things that could be imagined, but only a finite number of things that map to reality. The mathematical probability of a specific imagined object being real is zero. I.e.1/infinity.
So Cris, by your own argument of science, can you rule out that souls might exist on a planet in a galaxy that is beyond those that the humans couldn't touch yet?- let me know this in the first place.
The question has no meaning. It is unanswerable. As I pointed out earlier no one has yet given a precise definition of what is meant by ‘soul’. Neither is there an equivalent definition for the supernatural.
How can I give a meaningful answer to “can something undefined exist or not”?
Secondly, if you think that people who had religious experiences essentially had delusions, isn't it merely your perception, based on your logical analysis- which itself is based on your knowledge base?
Merely? Perception? These seem unnecessary emotive qualifiers. But based on current knowledge? Yes. Like most of science my assertion is based on a strong inductive conclusion. I.e. zero evidence for the supernatural and substantial evidence for psychotic delusions. In terms of statistical probability, there is no reasonable alternative.
And isn't your knowledge base itself limited? Unless you think your base is the best of all humans.
I agree that my knowledge base does not include all the things that we do not know.
Did you ever have the superhuman capability to enter such a person's mind and analyze the supposed delusion?
I assume you can’t either. The only conclusion we can reach must be based on what we can deduce or induce from what we do know. I.e. the person is delusional.
Anyway, you wouldn't go beyond anything human!
I don’t know what you intended by this.
But there are many things which we cannot explain due to our inability as human beings and not because they are emotions (like taste of tea vs coffee).
But these are all physical attributes that we can attack through science until we can compare the experiences of different humans. The only obstacle is time but answers seem inevitable. You cannot say the same about the concept of the supernatural, which exhibits no known identifiable properties.
That again shows that you cannot be certain.
Certain about what? Remember you haven’t defined the supernatural or souls yet. So I can be quite certain that something undefined does not exist.
I have seen a lot of gullible and emotional people think they have had such experiences only to admit afterwards significant doubt and then disbelief.
Just like many more who stood by the religious experience?
Can you quantify that claim? And can you be sure they would not change their views outside of the enforcement of an indoctrinational institutional support network.
P.S.: I somehow seriously suspect you are deeply religious- though it isn't any of your logic again.
LOL. So you admit you illogically suspect I am religious. But you can safely dismiss your suspicions; I am in no way religious.
Quick Summary.
What you’ve been trying to say is that I can’t be sure that souls do not exist, for a whole variety of precarious reasons.
While not so long ago I might have agreed with that I now find that I no longer have any hesitation to state with certainty that souls do not exist, and for a wide variety of reasons and observations.
