There are enough people who believe that non living things have spirit and souls. Sometimes it almost seems like my car has one.
Believers, do you believe in evolution?
by everchangingworld 159 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
prologos
cofty; you write: evolution has nor target. I meant no fixed target. it is an always moving target, species sensing and responding to be the most efficient energy-users moving into the available niches. Since there are many created niches, and some shutting down and new ones appearing, we have species that some, (not me) consider less evolved.
since it is more difficult to make an adapting entity than a fixed one, would not the evolution process give a creator more credit, than the"according to its kind" bible fable?
as a newby I am very impressed and overwhelmed with the level of knowledge and is use among you- all. If ever there would be a large scale public face-off with WTBTS personnel, it would be over .
-
still thinking
Soul means life so the moment one is conceived, one has a soul...Psac
If this is the case, what is the purpose of the soul? Especially when we consider that so many souls conceived are spontaneously, naturally aborted. What is the point of that? Is the soul 'created' at conception, or does it come from somewhere else? Was it pre existing?
Does being 'conceived' only mean through pregancy or fertilisation? What about our first ancestors that weren't conceived but evolved through adaptation and cell division. Surely it wasn't until sexual reproduction evolved that we can consider a soul at conception. So there must have been a time when life did not have a soul.
-
Chariklo
This is such a strange thread. It didn't start out strange. Everchangingworld posed an entirely reasonable question and received some very straight and cogent answers.
Then, by the second page, it went off at a tangent, as posters came in asking questions such as asking at what point in human evolution did humans acquire a soul?
Bit of an odd question, that! Not intrinsically odd; it's perfectly reasonable to wonder about that, if one is so inclined, though it becomes somewhat more odd when one realises that the poser of that question is a many times self-professed atheist, who de facto does not believe in the existence of a soul, leading the reader to wonder, logically, why she would pose the question in the first place, that being the case. One might almost suppose the questioner might be laying a trap for the unwary, but no! Surely not? Perish the thought!
Anyway, odd or not, it's an unreasonable question to pose here, since the likelihood of any poster being able to give an accurate answer is infinitesimal. It's a little like asking me how a television signal actually manages to travel simultaneously all over Britain and land inside my TV set just at the moment I want to watch it, and be there at the same time in a TV set of a viewer in, say, northern Scotland. I know this happens. (I also know it would be easier to prove than any answer to the question about the soul, but still...) But ask me to explain the whys and wherefores of a TV signal and why the air isn't jam packed with flying pictures all over the place, and I'm stumped. My guess is most of you are the same, though it's possible there's a TV engineer or scientist out there on this board who could do it. But answer about the soul and when it arrived inside a human? I haven't a clue. Truly, realistically, have you?
The reason I haven't a clue about that, and I bet nobody else does either, is first and foremost because it isn't answerable. It's a non-question, formed in the assumption that the soul has a definable physical quality that somehow gets injected or posted into a body. It just doesn't work like that. A soul just isn't like that.
Then the thread acquires further questions of this nature, and becomes further derailed, moving away from the simplicity of the OP.
Everchangingworld, this is your thread. To me, whose deep underlying faith in God managed to withstand all the harm that the Watchtower could inflict, it seems a strange question, because, for me, and for most people in Britain, there is no division at all between faith and science.
I wonder if this thread below might help by answering the question for you? Because I'm on my iPad I can't make it clickable but I'll see if I can do so in an edit. Hopefully it'll throw a lot of light on it for you.
-
still thinking
One might almost suppose the questioner might be laying a trap for the unwary, but no! Surely not? Perish the thought!
Questions are traps? I don't understand that.
Or is it just because you can't answer it that you believe it is a trap?
I'd genuinely like someone to answer my questions. They are valid, because some believers claim that they believe evolution to be real and true, so how does a soul fit into evolution? And when did it fit into that?
-
tec
Questions are traps? I don't understand that.
I understand it.
And I have been accused of doing the same.
Your questions have been answered, I think, throughout this thread.
If we ARE a soul (spirit), then it's purpose is... us... life. The flesh is a vessel for us in this physical world, but we are not our 'meat'.
Char, I am totally with you as are many believers on this thread who have already come on to state similar things. There is NO conflict between God and science. There is only conflict in our misunderstandings of one or the other.
Peace to you both,
tammy
-
still thinking
Your questions have been answered, I think, throughout this thread...tec
I must have missed the answers, because so far I haven't seen any. Would you be able to point them out to me?
Is this an example of an ANSWER to my question? The reason I haven't a clue about that, and I bet nobody else does either, is first and foremost because it isn't answerable. It's a non-question, formed in the assumption that the soul has a definable physical quality that somehow gets injected or posted into a body. It just doesn't work like that. A soul just isn't like that...chariklo Does saying you don't know, mean that the question should not be asked in the hope that someone else does know? Maybe someone else might be more 'enlightened' about that. This reply assumes that no one else knows because they don't. If it doesn't work like that, then how does it work, pray tell. And how do you know how a soul works? Did the soul always exist or not? And if you know how a soul works, at what point did it start to 'just be' in an evolving collection of cells? Was it at the first spark of life? Or was it after humans evolved? When? -
NewChapter
Bit of an odd question, that! Not intrinsically odd; it's perfectly reasonable to wonder about that, if one is so inclined, though it becomes somewhat more odd when one realises that the poser of that question is a many times self-professed atheist, who de facto does not believe in the existence of a soul, leading the reader to wonder, logically, why she would pose the question in the first place, that being the case. One might almost suppose the questioner might be laying a trap for the unwary, but no! Surely not? Perish the thought!
So are you saying that an atheist can't ask a non-atheist what their take is? You take umbrage with the question? I asked it respectfully, or is it wrong to pose the challenge?
Char, why is it that everytime I try to get into a discussion with a non-atheist, you jump on here and act like I had no right? Why do you always assume really bad motives? I don't believe in a soul, that's true, and I haven not been dishonest about that. But are you actually saying, that I should not ask a valid question? It was a question that occurred to me about a year ago, when I learned that some non-atheists believed in evolution. The way I looked at it, is that at some point, humans would have had to have received a soul or spirit or whatever, in that context, so I asked the question.
Your problem is not with the question, but that an atheist would ask it. And that it was never answered. Had a non-atheist asked it, you would have all discussed it and put forth theories and whatever. But when I ask it, it is threatening or a trap?
Char, I'm convinced that the only thing that would make you happy is if atheists just never discussed belief with non-atheists. So sorry this didn't turn out to be an echo chamber, but it didn't. And if this was a trap, just where exactly did I catch anyone? Where did I get disrepectful? Where did I mock? The question remained unanswered, and I left it at that. Not good enough for you. Good enough would have been if I hadn't posted at all.
It's reasonable for anyone to ask such a question (you say so) unless it is an atheist asking what a non-atheist's take is on it.
If I want to know how television works, I can find that information. There is evidence and sources I can go to. I wanted to know how non-atheists that believed in evolution understood that the soul, spirit, or whatever portion survives death became a part of humans. It seemed like a good place to take the question. Didn't mean to get you all flustered.
-
tec
Well, I think the answer is... don't know. At least that is my answer.
There is something missing right now in our knowledge as to this... a bridge that would explain the gap so to speak. I just don't see it yet.
Peace,
tammy
-
prologos
well all, how about thinking of the "soul" not in a mythical way but what evolution would turn out? in other words:
soul like in PSYCHEE dealt with in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, brain function studies?
There must have been in our past a brain-neuron-synaps development that was so huge, compared to the past, that the id, consciousness, contemplation was becoming a joy, a mental spark that lifted humans thinking way above the utilitarian brainfunctions of the past.
I believe that this was a divine, created step. the metaphor being "Adam & EVE". Like the
MIND in the brain, there is the SOUL in the brain. starve the brain, and the mind, the soul are gone too. too bad, but gone.* I was already "gone" for a day after a heart attack. not brain dead but unconscious, the" soul" in hiatus.
so: if God used evolution as a tool, then the psiche is a great brain- development that we benefit from. peace of mind and soul to you'all. * worse yet with dementia, alsheimers, when memory, the supposed carrier of all our sins in the mystical soul myth, is gone with the destroyed brain structure.