What About The Soul? (page 2)

pseudoxristos

With all the pets that I've had in the past 40 years, heaven would be more like hell.

I hope your wrong

pseudo

Brummie

With all the pets that I've had in the past 40 years, heaven would be more like hell

LOL

Its hard for me to believe there is nothing functioning and giving life to our bodies except our flesh. Our feelings emotions and thoughts are not physical things. I believe the whole man is body, soul & spirit. IMO we are not spirits living in a body (gnostisicm?), we are a whole person when all 3 are combined.

Brummie

Satanus

Pseudo

They may prefer a different 'heaven' than most humans do. Maybe theirs has lots of cat toys or dog toys, big litter boxes, lots of woolen blankets, pillows, etc. Some people have had nde's where a pet dog met them and showed them around. Maybe some pet actually come to think that they are human.

SS

freedom96

I do believe we have something that is unique about us. Is it a soul? I believe so. We are so much more than many animals, who just go by instinct. There is much more to us, much of which we don't have a clue, and one day we will realize and understand what it is all about.

Francois

Wow, what a target-rich environment we've got going here. First let me respond to direct queries.

I think the NT was written for everyone. If God is "not a respecter of persons," then how could he favor some tiny, almost invisible elitist group with this new book? In fact though, those guys who were writing letters to each other and to congregations they had started didn't have a clue that all those letters would be put together into a book and regarded as holy writ. When Paul said, "All Scripture is inspired and good for any thing you can think of: Seborrhea, Fungus infections, and the heartbreak of Psoriasis..." or something like that, the "scripture" he was talking about was the Hebrew scripture. The Greek-Aramaic scripture had not been cobbled together yet. Ever think of that? God loves us all, individually, personally, and uniquely for each one of us is utterly one of a kind in the entire universe. There are no duplicates. I am the only francois anywhere in God's entire creation. And that goes too for you, and you, and you, and you, ad infinitum.

Well, Scoob, I do not believe in the concept of original sin. I do not believe in the concept of the atonement doctrine. I do not believe in the "ransom sacrifice;" The barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating an offended Lord, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlightened age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath.

What a travesty upon the infinite character of God! this teaching that his fatherly heart in all its austere coldness and hardness was so untouched by the misfortunes and sorrows of his creatures that his tender mercies were not forthcoming until he saw his blameless Son bleeding and dying upon the cross of Calvary! And you tell me you believe this intellectual pap, this spiritual rot because a group of cultists who - on the side - protect child molesters "drummed" it into your head? C'mon. Those monsters drummed it in; now you drum it out. Consider for a moment the nature and character of the God who would demand these kind of things from his erring, but ignorant, children on this planet. What a savage! Gods ways are supposed to be higher than ours, not way lower and five thousand years out of date.

6/9 - 'fraid not. If any of you have done any keeping up with some of my more philosophical posts (no reason you should), you know that I believe that "...the Kingdom of Heaven is within you..." That is, an actual particle, a living part of the infinite God lives within the heart/mind of each one of us. Those who will can "touch" this living Spirit with your own mind. It's not easy due to the continuous chatter and interference of the left brain. But once you quiet the left brain, you can indeed hear the quiet, soft leading of the spirit within your right brain. And take it from me, when that finally happens, there will not be the slightest doubt in your mind concerning what has just taken place.

Remember when Charlton Heston, um, Moses, came back down from the mountain the first time in the movie and his entire countenance had changed? His hair had grown long and had grey in it? He was a changed man? Something like that happens when you first touch the Light.

So. We have the spirit of God living in our heart/mind and it will lead us into all truth if we let it. We have our own human mind that is leadable by the spirit. The relationship between the spirit of God living within us, and our own human mind is called the Soul. And once the soul has formed via making an undoubted moral choice, it does nothing but grow. If it were to stop growing, it would die. The Hebrews and the Christians in general have gotten it wrong, IMHO. The soul is NOT immortal, but it is potentially immortal.

And we do not have to disclose perfection in all our doings in this first life in the flesh. Perfection is our goal of attainment, not ours now by right of our performance. The difficulty of establishing communication between the human mind and the indwelling spirit is the main reason we do not evolve faster toward the spiritual estate. But the next life is a little less material and a little more spiritual. And so goes the continuing evolution of what once began here on this planet hundreds of millions of years ago as a "smart molecule." Evolution is indeed the grand plan, but we are part of the forest, so we can't see the leaves. One day (and I hope it not too far away) evolutionists and religionists will have nothing to argue about, and that will be because the scientists will have realized that their rejection of religion is merely the mirror image of the religionists rejecting the scientists. There never has been any ground for argumentation between the scientist and the religionist. We just have not been adequately spiritually mature enough to think about these issue in a mature, adult, spiritual manner. Religion should worry about the scientist and leave science alone; scientists should worry about science and leave religion alone.

I hope I have lit your fuses, stirred your imaginations. The current ways in which we think of these things isn't getting us anywhere. There is only one truth - and it cannot be claimed by two different groups teaching two different "truths." Am I right about that?

francois

pseudoxristos

Brummie,

In a way, I can understand your point.

Dub theology concerning the soul has always bothered me.

If Man does not have a soul, this means that his thoughts and attitudes are physical. Even though thought is based on chemical and electrical reactions, these processes exist in a physical realm. In order to gain favor with their God, their thoughts must conform to a certain standard. In the end it is their physical condition that God is accepting or rejecting.

Does God really care about someone’s physical condition?

pseudo

Satanus

Some people think that dreams are the break that the soul takes from the body. Most dreams are forgotten immediately, or distorted as they filter into memory. It's interesting that animals dream. New scientist mag had an article that claimed that roaches dream also. The roach scientists concluded this because of the movements that roaches made while asleep.

SS

pseudoxristos

SS,

LOL

Do you think I can get my SUV into heaven also?

pseudo

Ghost of Esmeralda

Hey there Francois...it's been awhile...

I am so torn on this particular topic. There is a huge part of me that simply says that everything i learned as a JW was rubbish and that they have no clue what they're talking about. That the soul cannot possibly just vanish when someone dies, but that it goes on to become part something bigger in the universe (maybe i've seen Star Wars too many times, may the force be with you) and then there is the part of me that really wants to believe that hitler is dead and part of him isn't still floating around out there somewhere. there are people so evil that you just want to believe that when they're gone, they're gone.

then, i think of my grandfather, gone 20 years now but still so real to me half the time i expect him to come in the door right after my grandmother, whistling, his keys jingling in his pockets. he's still so real to me, at times i swear i've thought he must be watching over me somehow, as things have happened in my life which were simply too odd to be coincedences, but couldn't be explained.

so i guess you have to put me down in the 'i don't know' column as well. not because i haven't thought about it, heaven knows i have. just that i'm still finding my way out of the jungle of traps and snares that the WT laid for my psyche, since i was a zygote and a fetus subjected to hearing the watchtower's mindless mantras while i was still in the womb.

someday, i hope i'll have a clearer idea of just what i believe. maybe none of us will know till we get there, and if there is nothing after this, then i guess it won't matter when we're gone.

~essie

pseudoxristos

SS,

Its funny that you would bring up dreams while on the topic of the soul. I believe that it was dreams of the ancient people, in which dead loved ones appeared, that gave them the idea of a soul.

pseudo

What About The Soul?

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