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Yes...avoiding the usage of the words, "God, soul, spirit, demons, heaven, Eden, hell, damnation," is a good idea for pretty much all philosophic and religious discussion in which they are not the theistic versions.
Also, everybody who wants to stand out as an atheist should cease using Christian or Islamic terms that have secular meanings in addition to their theistic meanings, in the real world.
Well, that may be a bit farther than I would go... My biggest beef is that these are loaded terms, so when using them you need to be very aware of context. I mean, I have no problem talking about the word soul in conjunction with James Brown's music, but If I think there is a danger of someone misunderstanding or twisting that metaphoric use of the word in a conversation to mean that I think anyone's music has an immortal soul in a religious sense, then clarification is in order.
Fortunately, that has never happened outside of City-Data . Generally speaking, people are able to use and understand words in context. It is usually only when people have a specific agenda like a debate or proselytizing that you get this laser-like focus on the minutia of language.
It's the old problem of concepts before definitions. 'Soul' is a bit of a blunderbuss term for all sorts of imperfectly understood feelings and thoughts we have the way our bodies and minds work and speculations about the individual after death and even about matter and the cosmos.
Clearly, the term can be used in many ways, but none of them make a particular case for belief from the point of view of atheism.
That is the point of the thread of course, and while we are well aware of feelings, emotions, and aspirations, it is the speculations about an element of the individual that survives after the body is gone and also the strong links between that idea and the god -claim that are addressed to atheists, and the definitions about persons whose behaviour we disapprove of, or work that seems mechanical and devoid of any commitment of inspiration, don't really concern us, as atheists.
The only thing that does is the claim to a conscious element of our identity that survives death and the implications that might have for god -belief - as there is no particular reason why a soul - if we had one - would imply the existence of a god.
Nothing with survival of conscious identity implies existence of a god.
You, your consciousness are Energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. That's just the way it is.
Therefore, yes you, your consciousness=energy survives the death of the body. No god needed.
Nothing with survival of conscious identity implies existence of a god.
You, your consciousness are Energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. That's just the way it is.
Therefore, yes you, your consciousness=energy survives the death of the body. No god needed.
Maybe, but what good is a consciousness without the organs necessary to gather and disseminate information?
Nothing with survival of conscious identity implies existence of a god.
You, your consciousness are Energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. That's just the way it is.
Therefore, yes you, your consciousness=energy survives the death of the body. No god needed.
Assuming that energy and matter (which is actually the same thing) cannot be destroyed, or indeed created, what happens is that the matter and energy that makes up our body dissapates and the atoms or other particles end up somewhere else.
Why should we assume (since the body does not remain and function) that consciousness survives after death? I agree even if it did, it wouldn't necessarily imply that a god was involved. One might as well have written 'conscioussness= god' as well as ' your consciousness=energy survives'. Both are rather and equating of two things without justification, so far as I can see.
I agree that postulating that the rather mysterious and intangible workings of our minds continues after the solid bod. is gone is a tempting one, but I don't see any good reason to suppose so.
I know there are Dreams, and NDE's and premonitions and messages from beyond, but they seem rather doubtful and are more trying to some anecdotal evidence to support what is already believed that hard evidence to say that we should give the belief about souls= surviving consciousness serious credence.
I also agree that the idea is a very persistent one - almost universally so, so it isn't even to do with a particular religion, but again, this can be common human delusion based (I would suggest) on an evolved survival -instinct.
Nothing with survival of conscious identity implies existence of a god.
You, your consciousness are Energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. That's just the way it is.
Therefore, yes you, your consciousness=energy survives the death of the body. No god needed.
Well, your metabolism is a combustive process; a fire, really. When you set a pile of logs aflame, they burn with a certain intensity, use a certain amount of oxygen, release a certain amount of CO2, water and heat (and some CO) and when the fuel has been exhausted the fire burns out and the heat dissipates. All of the energy that was released by the fire remains, all of the elements of the fuel still exist... But what you have left sure as hell ain't no fire. The heat that warmed your skin and roasted your marshmallows has dissipated to the point of uselessness almost instantly once the fuel was exhausted.
Why wouldn't conscious self be like the heat released from a fire? Or maybe a better analogy would be the water boiling over a fire?
I have come to see that there are atheists who believe in all kinds of non-god concepts without any evidence or rational basis to believe in them. I can't say that they're not real atheists because they themselves disclaim any belief in a god, which is all that it takes to be an atheist.
Nevertheless, if you really want to take it seriously and follow the logical basis of atheism (don't believe in things without evidence) you wouldn't believe in souls, fairies, spirits, energy bodies, astrology, and all kinds of other things that some atheists undoubtedly believe in.
What I find most striking about the original post, though, is that it makes the error that so many theists and spiritual believers make: encouraging belief in something not because of evidence and reasoning, but because you feel better if you believe it. Everybody, atheist or theist, should know better than that.
jackmccullough: you might want to argue with a real atheist rather than the straw man you just created.
Go ahead an poll the atheists here to see if we believe in any of the things you mentioned: souls, fairies, spirits, energy bodies, astrology. I don't.
You appear to be categorizing all non-Christians as atheists.
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. Generally speaking, people are able to use and understand words in context. It is usually only when people have a specific agenda like a debate or proselytizing that you get this laser-like focus on the minutia of language. 
