You were very clear that a belief that either view is possible is wrong
Not at all. You should really read my initial reply again and stop bringing this up. In fact, I'll just copy and paste:
I'm not judging your view, so please don't get me wrong, but agnosticism for many just means being 'undecided' on or 'uninterested' in the God topic. It has really very little to do with arguments that are potentially true at both sides as you say.
Perhaps you've mistaken this for suggesting an agnostic person should choose a side or something. That's not what I meant at all. I meant to say that agnostic people usually do not really care about arguments against or in favor of God, because they tend to base their opinion on the mere fact that we do not know whether he exists or not. Additional arguments in favor or against a God aren't relevant enough for them to decide either way. Nothing wrong with that as I already said 4 times now!
In fact, it's easy to challenge your 'science can't prove God' argument as being relevant and valid in the exact same sense, but this time against God.
There's this old mockery in which someone wonders how God can be both omnipotent and all powerful when God obviously can't create a stone too heavy for him to lift, but at the same time being able to lift it anyway.
As for the science can't prove God argument, science at this point in time can't rule out the potential existence of God(s) indeed, but science can still speculate with what we do know and to be honest that doesn't really leave a whole lot of room for a God to exist (unless perhaps you believe in God in the pantheistic sense). The more science figures out about our universe and how it came into existence, the further back in the past a God would have to be placed to make sense, assuming it would make sense at all, which I personally seriously question.
Also don't forget the whole 'faith trade' in religion, which in practice means science BY DEFINITION (according to religious people) has a literally different understanding or definition of 'truth'. This means any kind of proof from whichever of the both perspectives, won't be recognized by the other.
You don't need to be open minded to see that in itself is nuts if all you're trying to do is a more objective kind of truth-finding. Science requires evidence, religion requires faith. It's a mute point to argue about how both at many times totally ignore this simple fact. It still doesn't mean one isn't bluntly wrong though!!
--end of quote.
One more time: eternal life + death of the body = we're more than just a body. We don't need "And this is a soul:". A "soul" is what gets preserved eternally by God's grace, even after our body is gone. It's how our post-death existence is different to an equally complex machine that ceases to function (obviously theoretical).
You've obviously missed my interpretation / argument of how death is a transformation. There is no post-death existence according to the Bible, as the death body isn't what's entering heaven, nor is the 'soul' something that's present in that death body when it was still alive. I think the Bible is pretty clear on that.
Btw I don't see why talking about an equally complex machine in context of a soul is relevant here, when the concept of a soul is really purely speculative and uhm conceptual. It could become interesting though when we would speak about other animal species. Do animals have souls according to you? I bet you're going to claim God made us 'special' and therefore we have souls, where animals don't? Is there a dog-heaven? With all due respect, I think it has so many conceptual flaws that it's hilarious in a way.
That's simple. I have continued this discussion under the generous assumption that you actually are well-read and haven't just watched a youtube conspiracy video, while you do the opposite: in a patronising manner you refuse to allow the conversation to go forward on the basis that I'm wrong that I actually have an understanding of the Bible. You have a hunch that I have not been raised as I claim, and on that basis my references to the Bible are too "blind" or "biased" to be of value to the discussion.
You're mistaken here. I just got annoyed by some of your replies in that they really are based upon popular theology and not so much your own reasoning or thinking, or even as you claim are directly derived from the biblical texts. You had to search for texts and couldn't come with something straightforward and conclusive. And that's really no wonder at all.
You're free to believe whatever you like! I swear! But I still think you're extremely biased and not open-minded at all to even be in a discussion like this. To some extent you're probably not even aware of how you really approach everything with a set paradigm in mind. How's that not being biased? Perhaps you think I'm biased as well for having made up my mind differently. I don't blame you.
