M.D. Rawlings
Classical Liberal
There is exactly as much proof of gods as there is proof of human souls, aka 'minds'.
Science has proven that free will exists, which means that the choices we make are not hardwired into our brains. That means that something beyond the physical confines of the brain allows us to do things that nothing in biological makeup can explain.
You Are Not Your Brain Psychology TodayWhile passionate academic disagreement can be quite interesting, and even entertaining at times, it doesn't help us much in our everyday lives. So, do we have the power to influence our brains or not? Obviously, Dr. Schwartz and I believe that we do have the ability to harness the power of focused attention to change our brain in ways that are healthy and beneficial to us. Even more to the point, many of the thoughts, impulses, urges and sensations we experience do not reflect who we are or the life we want to live. These false missives are not true representations of us, but rather are inaccurate, and highly deceptive, brain messages.
Recognizing this fact, you likely will rapidly begin to see all the places where your brain is less than helpful - where it is working against you and your true goals and values in life. When you think about the brain and how it is structured, it makes sense. The brain's chief job is to keep you alive, so it tends to operate in a survival of the fittest mode. While that's certainly imperative when dealing with life-threatening situations, that approach does not help us much in society or in our relationships. Rather, it often gets us into trouble and cause us to act in ways we later regret. In short, the brain likely has run your life in a less than optimal way and caused you to experience one or more of the following at some point in your life: anxiety, self-doubt, perfectionism, behaving in ways or engaging in habits that are not good for you (e.g., over-texting, over-analyzing, stress eating, drinking too much and so on), ignoring your true self and/or wholeheartedly believing the stream of negative thoughts coursing through your head.
It is possible to overcome the "programming" that leads us into behavior we want to change, even when science can document physical changes to the brain that would, if we were just our brains, make such a change impossible.
Sometimes the neural level of explanation is appropriate. When scientists develop diagnostic tests or a medications for, say, Alzheimer's disease, they investigate the hallmarks of the condition: amyloid plaques that disrupt communication between neurons, and neurofibrillary tangles that degrade them.
Other times, a neural explanation can lead us astray. In my own field of addiction psychiatry, neurocentrism is ascendant -- and not for the better. Thanks to heavy promotion by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, addiction has been labeled a "brain disease."
The logic for this designation, as explained by former director Alan I. Leshner, is that "addiction is tied to changes in brain structure and function." True enough, repeated use of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and alcohol alter the neural circuits that mediate the experience of pleasure as well as motivation, memory, inhibition, and planning -- modifications that we can often see on brain scans.
The critical question, though, is whether this neural disruption proves that the addict's behavior is involuntary and that he is incapable of self-control. It does not.
Take the case of actor Robert Downey, Jr., whose name was once synonymous with celebrity addiction. He said, "It's like I have a loaded gun in my mouth and my finger's on the trigger, and I like the taste of gunmetal." Downey went though episodes of rehabilitation and then relapse, but ultimately decided, while in the throes of "brain disease," to change his life.
Distinguishing Brain From Mind - The Atlantic
As for a soul, since the Bible defines soul as anything that is alive, I am pretty sure your argument is based on a misunderstanding of the concept of soul.
Many years ago, a heavy drinker, a polite description, I chose to change my life. I simply stopped drinking, cold turkey, and after awhile, oh, after several months or so of not feeding that altered neural circuitry, the urge faded away. I didn't do AA or anything of that kind. I merely looked at my wife and my kids one day after an especially blurry-eyed morning and said enough! That was the first time I knew that all the talk about "brain disease" and the like in the materialistic sense was hokum. That was the beginning of my search for God.
If I may, how old are you, Justin?