by everchangingworld 159 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Vegetation? There was a lot of that in the garden. I wonder what a daisy soul looks like, and is it prettier than a poison ivy soul? Was there poison ivy in the garden?
I'm starting to think I'm not going to get an answer to my question.
Oh---and water. does water have a soul? It was in the garden too.
Are these living, thinking, breathing beings? Because I am speaking as to these. The rest, I do not know.
And I am not stating these HAVE spirits, but that these ARE spirits.
It is not too hard to see. The flesh withers and dies, but still everyone receives a resurrection (the living and the dead). What receives a resurrection if we are the flesh that has died? (the meat)
(I will admit to a bias against insects, lol... so I'm just not going to go there.)
Peace,
tammy
Do you understand the question? I don't know how to make it more clear. When did humans get souls? That immortal part of ourselves that survives death and was created by God. The part that can live with or without a physical body. Did Lucy have a soul? Did our ancestors have souls? Did species we interbred with have souls?
I thought I did answer this when I said that every living creature has a soul.
But to be more specififc and even biblical: genesis 1:
29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.
The word for life is nephesh which is also the word for soul.
Soul means life so the moment one is conceived, one has a soul.
All living beings had/have souls.
What needs to be understood is that only MAN has a spirt ( or a spiritual soul as some say) and THAT was given to begin with only to Adam and Eve and there after.
The question is, who and what were Adam and Eve, were they actual people and if so, how do we reconcile with evolution and, IMO, I view it as such:
Adam and Eve were the first biological Humans and they were given the spirit at birth.
NewChapter "Glad, you don't have a soul."
I does seem to be a complicated matterm made worse by the fact that I don't really know what a soul is.
tec "I think you're covered, Glad ;)
Indeed, everyone is covered, including animals..."
Thanks for the reassurance Tammy but I think I am going to have to appeal to Caesar on this one.
Adam and Eve were the first biological Humans and they were given the spirit at birth.
Okay. Were A & E H. sapiens? Do you really think the dividing line was this black and white? What is your definition of Human, because there have been many species of human.
Okay. Were A & E H. sapiens? Do you really think the dividing line was this black and white? What is your definition of Human, because there have been many species of human.
Not sure what you mean by "dividing line"...
Not accepting that Adam and Eve were the very first man and woman does not make the entire bible fall apart. I've posted this before, but there are many that hold to the view that Adam is Israel. Here is an interesting article regarding this angle: http://biologos.org/blog/adam-is-israel
It is held that Adam is the first of a subset of people.
Here is a more detailed list of ways to take the Adam and Eve story in view of anthropological and biological evidence: http://biologos.org/questions/evolution-and-the-fall
This is a tough one, as I am a lover of science, alwyas have been...
Good points Cedars and many of you.
Not sure what you mean by "dividing line"...
Well, at some point in the evolutionary line, a souless set of parents gave birth to children that received souls.
Where do you put this dividing line? Did our ancestors just reach a moment when they were human enough to receive souls? At what point would that have been? They would not have produced a child that was all that different from themselves---the child would have been mostly like them except for perhaps a few traits that were accentuated. Evolution is not abrupt, but very gradual. The difference between parent and child would not have been glaring but subtle. A great ape did not give birth to a human child. We put lines out there now, because we can compare one end of the spectrum to the other, but if we were to lay the offspring side-by-side in a continuous line, we would see a more gradual change---two individuals next to each other would look pretty much the same---but if we took one and compared it to an individual further down the line, the changes would be more apparent.
So----at what point did souless parents give birth to a child that would have been like them very much, possibly no discernable differences, and the child was granted a soul?
Indeed, there is no need to take the Genesis 2 account as an account of two INDIVIDUALS or even as historical fact, many Jews don't.
There are many ways to view them:
First humans to "find God".
First of what would later be the Abrahamic line.
Analogy for the peoples of Israel.
Divine creations of God, sent out into the world after their rebellion.
There are a few more that don't come to mind right now.
