by barbar 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
If a person is resurrected, are they really the same person?
It is a bit difficult to explain this, but are they not a copy of the original person (all of the cells are new) with just the memory etc reinstalled?
It seems to me that even if resurrection were real then it would not be the actual person who was resurrected but an image of them who thought, acted and remembered the same as the original. In which case it is not really resurrection.
it depends whether you think of a person as being just the flesh and bones or whether you believe the conscious can be seperated from the body, and be sort of saved or put on ice after death and put in a new vehicale when resurrected... that's if you believe in a resurrection of course! like buying a new car but still being the same driver.
what's a person though, an appearance or the thoughts, feelings and emotions?
dh'
This thread was done very recently, but off we go again. It is an interesting subject.
The way it went was........We were told that when you die, that's it pfffffft, nothing left, all gone, back to dust. Nothing but a memory.
Therefore any resurection would be a copy. We'd be cheated, a copy with all the memories. You could just as easy make 2.
The other side is.....if the concious stays on, that means there is life after death and that shoots holes in the dub belief again!
An easier question is "How long is a piece of string" or "would you like a cup of tea" HHGTTG
Steve
Tasmanian Overbeer
My Grandad died yesterday evening. Said he felt unwell took himself to bed. My nan checked on him a bit later, and found he'd died in his sleep.
Its then you hope and pray there is a ressurection.
So sorry Scooby. How old was your grandpa?
Born in 1926 so that made him 77. You try to draw comfort from the fact that he went in his sleep, but that still doesn't help those left behind does it.
Sorry to hijack the thread.
As has been stated, in the wt paradigm, the resurrected is a clone/copy, not the original. As was also stated, if there is a spirit, a consciousness that departs when the body dies, drifting off somewhere, to be later reinjected into a newly created copy of his old body, then he/she is the same person.
Scoob
Your grandfather must have been a good man, dying like that. I hope i go in my sleep.
SS
In which case it is not really resurrection.
I would agree that this is the wrong term used.......according to the society's own teachings.
The society has always been big on using technical terms and having us run to our dictionaries to find the meaning of a word. They encourage publishers to usre their dictionaries do they not?
So......if we looked up the word ressurection.....what would we find? We would find it means a ...."raising erect". To res.....means to re-do or bring back. To erect means what it says.....to stand up or erect. This term taken as it means is to bring back erect that which layed down. Lazarus was a true resserection according to it's definition.
The way the witnesses explain it would actually be a "re-creation". The body is gone......and god makes you one like the old one but perfect. That IS NOT a ressurection.......but rather a re-creation.
Gumby
In the JW version of resurrection, you're just a carbon copy...and not the same person. If you throw an immortal soul into the mix...the body ain't quite as important.
Scooby - I'm very sorry to hear of your loss.
This is a purely hypothetical argument as far as I'm concerned, but I'll pitch in anyway -
How much of your physical body is the same material as it was 10 years ago? I think that girls are born with all their eggs already in their bodies, so I guess I've still got the same ones I had 10 years ago, but as for the rest - I'll bet most of it has been replaced. So, am I still the same person I was 10 years ago? Well in my case, no, I am a happier, better, wiser and somewhat - no, much fatter person than I was then. But these changes are down to what goes on inside, the simple substitutions of C, O, H, N and lots of other elements that I am made of have not made me a clone of myself, or effected the changes.
