Michael Shermer - Can a Person Be a Soul?

Is a soul required to make a person? If there is no soul, is there no person? Almost all scientists and most philosophers find no need for a soul. Certainly, souls are not known to science. What arguments support a soul? Revelations of religions? But then souls are a matter of faith. Any philosophical theories?

Michael Brant Shermer is a science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[patientson]

Michael Shermer, you lack reasonable perspective.

[existential_o]

Richard Swinburne would annihilate this guy💀

[evaadam]

"Can a Person be a Soul?"

Michael Shermer just revised the Webster Dictionary to screw up the meaning of a person and the soul ...

... wow, the things that Godless Materialists over-reach just to maintain their addiction to sense of NO ACCOUNTABILITY just a slave to natural laws....

..and Robert, instead of asking tough questions such as "what natural law drives physical matter to choose to believe in God so to kneel and pray?", he just went along with whatever this lost man blather, consenting more on his erroneous conscience...sigh..

..of course, birds of Godless feathers fly together...how sad..

[A.--.]

They ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about the Soul. Say, “Its nature is known only to my Lord, and you ˹O humanity˺ have been given but little knowledge.”

Quran 17:85

The medium of the Soul is unknown to us just like the 11th dimension or Dark Energy are truths we cant see.

[elgatofelix]

We have bodies. We have eyes, we have ears, and we have tongues to speak.
We do not have souls. We ARE souls.

[elgatofelix]

Wow less the five comments so far!?
Last time I was this early, it was still "only two weeks to flatten muh curve."

[elgatofelix]

Shermer's comparison of a car to a person is ludicrous.
Taking such a position means he is responsible to explain why destroying a car is not tantamount to murder.

[michaelharker]

He has no clue really. Stuck in an outmoded materialist paradigm. He needs to read Donald D. Hoffman. A more useful scientific perspective

[A.--.]

The proof of the Soul is a later argument when speaking to an Athiest. The first step is to establish the existence of God. So only discuss God's existence with an Atheist. Once he is over that hurdle then we can talk about Soul, After-Life, Prophets, Angles, Scriptures, Purpose, Hell/Heaven.

Its useless to discuss any of these things before establishing the existence of God.

It would be like explaning higher level dimensions or non-euclidean geometry to someone who doesn't believe in numbers or numerals or simple mathematics.

Start with the basics then build yourself up.

[rscottadams]

I wonder if Mr. Shermer loves his wife? If so, is that only a material process of some sort?

[ONEYEDPiRAT]

Our imagination is the seed of God in all of us if you flip your imagination inside out it goes on forever and every direction and we're all one in that place in your mind it's black in your imagination until you create something You're creating from the black and it's not empty it's completely full... What do y'all think lol

[peweegangloku]

The living organism or in the case of humans, we say the living person is the "living soul." (Genesis 2:7 King James Version) For a lifeless organism or person, we say a 'dead soul' ("the soul that sinneth, it shall die." - Ezekiel 18:4 King James version). So there are both living and dead souls. Since all humans are sinners, we all eventually become dead souls. The only immaterial thing possessed by any living organism is the spark of life, "the breath of life, " or "spirit of life." (Genesis 7:22) This is the igniting force that makes the transition from dead chemical substance to a living organism. This force originates only with God, the epitome, the ultimate consciousness. When we die, we lose this element of life. We will only repossess it if God reignites it in us, that is if He finds us worthy, and that will be by means of the resurrection. - Psalm 36:9

[robertjoyce]

Again I ask, this time to Michael Shermer, what do you know that hasn't come to you through your conscience experience? The answer: nothing. Therefore, how do you know that anything besides your conscious experience exists? Thus, any further speculation about reality is just that, and your materialism is no more valid than my spiritual answer.

[jacqueslucas]

Not saying he’s wrong but to think we understand everything is a joke as well….he comes across just a little bit cocky to me.

[Maxwell-mvrx]

Guys doesnt know nothing about soul though philosophy or neurosience. What is soul? When he responses this question he show this with several inconsistency though neurosience or philosophy proceendings. Rambling

[kgrandchamp]

Thanks for the great talk, Robert and Michael! Maybe Michael could read someone like Bernardo Kastrup - an analytical Idealist, extremely scientific and rigorous thinker - to see existence through another angle! That would lessen his materialism and maybe allow him to see himself as a "soul" in a universe made only of "souls" ! haha! I am still struggling with that view though, as it is almost as scary as materialism! Thanks again! 🌿

[rickwyant]

The biblical "soul" was the living being. "God" breathed into the man he formed from the dust and the man became a living soul.

[anthonyalmonte]

🧐Reported accounts of children recalling other lives lived while occupying other bodies at different points in time🤯 What is consciousness🤔 Does it emerge from a natural cosmic order & self governing or engineered &/or A.I 🤔 🧐3rd, 4th or 5th dimension point of origin🤔

[romanzavsegolov]

"Believing in the existence of the soul is wishful thinking and there is no reason to believe that a person has an immaterial component of consciousness, personality or mind".

At the same time, materialism does not explain even the most basic mechanisms of how the mind arises from the brain, how they relate to each other, as well as what consciousness is, which seems to be connected with both the body and the mind, but is neither one nor the other.

For some reason, and without any proofs materialistic scientists consider all of these to be manifestations of matter, dismiss all other theories... and this somehow is not wishful thinking on their part. Seems like double standards and confirmation bias to me.

[ronhudson]

The fundamental mistake Shermer continually makes is to limit his imagination to what he can determine with current science and technology. He definitively concludes that there is nothing other than what he can metaphorically speaking, feel, see and touch. He can neither prove nor disprove the possibility of a "soul" and yet he determines it cannot be.. The ego is strong with this one. His dismissive attitude is not only rude but arrogant. I get it. It's his schtick. He makes a lot of money as a contrarian.