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Message |
    
Harry Simenon
Awareness Member
Post Number:
9
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 06, 2003 - 01:49 pm: |   |
What is a soul? |
sophie simonet
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
659
Registered: 03-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, October 06, 2003 - 02:09 pm: | |
A soul is as intangible and invisible as God, a rare fire that burns inside those who nurture it, lending compassion, perception, and understanding, and bringing them closer to God.
Although I don't think you have to believe in God per se to have a soul. Perhaps it's just a collective goodness and love of mankind born to each or some of us. |
Harry Simenon
Awareness Member
Post Number:
10
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2003 - 01:13 pm: | |
Isn’t it possible, that what we call a soul, is a function of the brain? Also to be found in the rest of the animal kingdom, but maybe not in the same form as ours?
If you watch how dolphins, elephants and apes behave, I suspect that it is due to our lack of communication capabilities (as a species) that we regard ourselves as being very different. That what makes us different, may be that what makes us human, but it may not make us non-animal.
I think this is an interesting topic! What is it that makes us write? Our soul? Consciousnes? Subconsciousnes?
(I must admit in my case even unconsciousnes sometimes.)
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pacwriter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
940
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2003 - 02:02 pm: | |
Soul --- the Christian belief is that "God breathes life into a body" - that is He breahtes His Spirit into us. Now it can can fun at this point depending on when some say life begins. When does a person become a person apart from the other living things in creation? When does God breathe His breath of life into a "person"? I won't go there for the reason to try to answer that question is to raise a million more questions.
SOUL -- You can understand the soul as being a small part of God. that breath of life is a spiritual part of God who creates and makes alive.
Never ask a theology question of a theologian 
In the vein of PROCESS THEOLOGY - we are all in the processes of becoming. No person or thing reaches completion not even the Creator. A soul is in the process of developing, becoming more like God. As a seed falls into the ground, it changes, grows and becomes more like the mature plant that dropped the seed.
Is the SOUL only a portion of the brain? since no person has ever seen a soul (except for those who claim to be able to see auras), we don't know what one would look like. But, we have each had those moments -- out of the body experiences or near death -- that suggest to us that we are more than flesh and bone. also, we have had spiritual experiences with God and people of belief that we can only explain as "soul" connections.
My imagination runs wild when I think of a brain transplant or a head transplant. When the day comes that such takes place, perhaps we will have the answers to does a person have a soul. Sci-fi folks --- have some fun
http://www.pacwriter.netfirms.com/ |
Fred Dungan
Hsympothai Member
Post Number:
344
Registered: 10-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2003 - 09:38 pm: | |
Where does the soul reside. In the brain or in the heart? I'm inclined towards the latter.
http://www.fdungan.com/book.htm |
Laurel Johnson
Unity Member
Post Number:
2336
Registered: 01-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 06:02 am: | |
A pastor told me once that the soul or spirit is a "God shaped space inside us".
Even in ancient peoples - who did not know of God per se - this space was filled with curiosity, wonderment, joys and sorrows that they could not put a name to. When we die, that space empties itself and returns from whence it came. To God, for those of us who believe in God. |
Bill Park (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 67.64.40.171
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 11:51 am: | |
"For some...God must be experienced (felt) to be loved. For others...God must be loved to be experienced (felt)." |
Harry Simenon
Awareness Member
Post Number:
11
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 02:37 pm: | |
So, if the soul is somehow connected to God, we could discus if God exists or not. Now it is clear, I would think, that no one can proof that God exists, and no one can proof that God doesn’t exists. This moves the discussion in the direction of probabilities. Is it probable that God exists, or not?
Suppose you know two numbers that go in one end of a mathematical formula (for example A=2 and B=4,) and you know the outcome (say C=8.) What you want to find out is what kind of formula is used to produce this outcome. A possible answer is: A*A+B=C. But at this point I would say: A*B=C, as it is the simplest way to explain the outcome. One would only move on to a more complex theory, if there were any need for it.
The same applies to the existence of God. God created the universe, with everything in it. There was nothing before this creation. God had to produce a model of the universe in his mind. This means that God needs to be more complex than the universe. Where did God come from? He created, or caused Himself, or He has always existed. Is it impossible or unlikely, that the universe has caused itself, or did always exist? Just by laws of nature like gravity, electromagnetism etc? Not fully understood ofcourse, and maybe we never will.
Also, if God has created us, or guided our evolution, then why are we full of strange things? We have a tendon in our hands and feet that is only connected at one side. It is totally useless, but it doesn’t bother us. We have a useless connection between our mouth and thyroid. Our jaw is often too small for all our teeth. Our lower back is too weak, so is our thighbone. A woman could have six breasts, but four are “switched off.” Our neck contains gill tissue. We have a useless appendix. We posses a blind spot in our vision system. The drainage system for the cavities in our brain, and an artery in the brain, are not ideal for walking upright. We have the remaining of a tail. The blood vessels around our rectum are not suitable for walking upright (they miss the essential valves.) Much of our DNA code is switched off. A Mexican family can tell you all about that, they have some of it switched on again, and are extremely hairy! With “hairy” I mean like a bear! Men and woman! There are also people with tissue between their fingers and toes, like “the man from Atlantis!”
To me, this all points in the direction of evolution only.  Suppose that the climate is nice, and food in abundance. All people will thrive, and there will be great diversity among them. But then something happens. The world can be stable for ages, and then there might be floods, ice ages, drought, disease. People who can cope best with such circumstance, will have more chance to survive than the others. Their offspring will inherit their genes, and some among that offspring will even better survive. The people will have changed. Evolution means changing all the time. There is no such thing as developing, or process to becoming, as nobody knows into what you should develop to survive. Beings that can not cope with the circumstances die. This is what made us what we are today. It is what causes us to hate and to love, to fight and to forgive.
Now about auras and spiritual experiences: God will probably now when it is your time to die, why would he provide you with a near death, out of the body experience, if you were not about to die?
Some people have “crosswired” brains, the impulses from different senses are coupled. One man who had this, reported that he thought that a certain person had “a yellow, crumbly voice.” It seems that young babies have this, and that normally these cross connections disappear. I think it is very well possible for some of these people to see auras. But are these auras souls? Even leaves have auras (photographic.) Our brain uses all kind of methods to reduce the processing time of impulses from our senses, and from inside our brain. This is why our perception can be extremely deceiving under some circumstances. Even magnetic fields can cause us to feel like there is a presence in the room with us. Fighter pilots in training, using a centrifuge to test their resistance to gravitational stress, sometimes report euphoric feelings and out of the body experiences. Awkward breathing methods also can cause an oxygen shortage that can produce all kind of hallucinations and effects.
We can not trust our senses to find the truth! And some experiences like clairvoyance or psychokinesis, could very well be as natural as radio waves!
A brain transplant would be a body transplant I think. Your brain would not have changed, and nor would your soul.
Than what is it that writes, and sometimes makes us wonder why we wrote what we wrote? Maybe we should look at split-brain patients. People who suffered from severe epileptic attacks, got the connection between their brain-halves removed, to cope better with the attacks. It appeared that they functioned quite normal, but under certain circumstances,they had two separate personalities. Like there were two people housing in the same body. I suspect that it is some subconsious part of the brain that dictates the conscious. And the conscious thinks he made it all up by himself! That is maybe why we say one thing, and do another.
Never the less, there is always more to learn than we have learned!
Never ask a theology question of a evolutionist
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pacwriter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
946
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 03:12 pm: | |
The problem is quite simple
Why does man ask if God exists if there is nothing to suggest God's existence?
Since man asks, he is not sure God does not exist, there is something within man that causes man to ask.
Man searches for an answer, finds many and rejects all because no one answer satisfies completely the first question.
http://www.pacwriter.netfirms.com/ |
Bill Park (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 67.64.40.171
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 03:38 pm: | |
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an Episopal priest who wrote many excellent books on various subjects...and in April 1945 was hanged by Hitler for Bonhoeffer's part in the failed attempt to assassinate the madman. He had the best explanation for the existance of God, a superior intellegence, a force, whatever you choose to call Him/Her/It.
Take any living or inanimate object and trace it from the present to its beginning. Take a tree for example. The tree in the yard did not create itself...it came from a seed from another tree. That tree came from a seed from another tree. Take that exercise back to the very beginning...to the very first seed or tree. A seed...a tree cannot create itself. Take any object back, following that scenario. The first of EVERYTHING did not possess the ability to create itself. SOMETHING, SOME FORCE, SOME BEING/SPIRIT must have created it! And as Bonhoeffer pondered...that intelligent creator, if it did not already exist...must have had the ability to self-create.
And that force (God) possessed something each and every one of us on this chat sight enjoys to a degree...only to the infinite: IMAGINATION!
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Steven Shrewsbury
Wandering Member
Post Number:
274
Registered: 04-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 06:08 pm: | |
I thought Bonhoeffer was Lutheran.... |
Bill Park (Unregistered Guest)
Work-in-progress guest
Posted From: 67.64.40.171
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 08:09 pm: | |
Steven...I stand corrected! I was writing from memory and just checked my library of books. Bonhoeffer was indeed a Lutheran pastor and theologian. |
Gloria Marlow
Hsympothai Member
Post Number:
442
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 09:09 pm: | |
I remember being in about 7th grade and reading an essay that explained how the Red Sea parted. The writer explained that a huge meteor came close to the earth at that time, burning as a light in the sky (much like the one the Hebrews followed) and that it crossed the Red Sea, causing some sort of cataclysmic shift in the tide, etc. that day that caused the water to form a wall like a tidal wave.
All I thought, was "Wow, that's how He did it!" It entered my mind later that the point of the essayist was probably to prove that God didn't exist, however, in my mind, it simply strengthened my belief that He has power over all of creation.
I'm not a theologian or an evolutionist. I see that evolution exists to an extent, but not at the creation level. In my opinion, evolution is an adaptor, not a creator. Once again in my eyes, it's simply amazing how God formed species to adapt themselves to their environment, etc.
As to the soul...what makes each person an individual is the soul. There are no two souls alike, just as there are no two people alike. The soul is the person. I don't believe a soul is housed in any one organ of the body. The soul fills every space of the body, makes each person what they are. and once the soul is gone, the body is nothing but an empty shell, just as the organs are nothing but useless machinery.
Just thoughts from me...
Gloria |
pacwriter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
949
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 09, 2003 - 09:24 pm: | |
I think therefore I am
is this reality or is this merely a dream
if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it
what is the sound of one hand clapping
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
My soul yearns for God.
Where does worship end and entertainment begin?
Geez - I'm getting a headache.
I do appreciate Gloria's point -- evolution requires a beginning. A big bang put who clapped their hands together?
A politician this week said something to the effect, I can't prove to you there is God but I prefer to live unto God rather against God.
http://www.pacwriter.netfirms.com/ |
Harry Simenon
Awareness Member
Post Number:
13
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2003 - 04:38 pm: | |
Why does man ask if God exists if there is nothing to suggest God’s existence?
Anyone who had lost a parent can imagine how this could happen. As a child, you are totally dependent on your parents. They guide you, feed you, and love you. To a child, the parents have all the answers in the world! To speak for myself, my dad died some years ago. I would have loved to ask him questions like, “what should I do dad?” I wished he were there to help me sometimes. In my mind I picture him as if he were still alive, and imagine what he would answer. I can not imagine that I am the only one that feels that way. From there it is a small step to: “our Father who is in heaven.”
In the old days (about 6000 years ago,) the forces of nature were experienced by man as being holy, but also animals like cows and lions. After this, (5000 years ago,) the Gods became human. Every God controlled a force of nature. Slowly the Gods started to reflect the development the people went through, from families to tribes, and to city-states. Usually every city had their own God. Intolerance to foreign Gods was not common, unlike today. About 4000 years ago many people had their own, personal, or family God. Of couse, there were local differences if you would consider the whole world.
God, “as we now it,” is not that old at all. You can retrace the Christian religion step by step.
In 1945 they found the Nag Hammadi scriptures in Egypt. These scriptures once belonged among the other scriptures that are in the bible today. But they were banned by the archbishop of Athanasius from Alexandria, as they contained information that conflicted with the others. So this man decided what would be in the bible and what not. Theodorus from the Pachomin monastery in Tabannisi translated this order in Coptic, and spread it. These scriptures contain very different stories than there are in the bible. For example: the first Gods were Pistis and Sophia. Sophia started to create, and lets Jaldabaoth, (also created by her, and now “our” God) rule over everything she had created. Many things happen (there are two 450 page books) and many more Gods are created. A whole team of Gods creates Adam, named after one of them. Jaldabaoth thought he had given Adam the breath of life, but he didn’t know it was Sophia, who had done this.
I suppose that Sophia goes back to a more matriarchal era, and got wiped out when men found out that they had something to do with childbirth after all. You should read these books, as they shed a light on the development of the Christian Religion in the early days. I have the Dutch version, but I believe that you could easily can get a hold of it, the title is: “the Nag Hammadi Library in English” 1977. Interesting too: “The dead Sea Scrolls uncovered” by Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise.
If we go back a bit further, we will end up in Mesopotamia, Babylon. Again you will find a mother and a father God, Apsu and Tiamat. Their children are giants, (remember the bible?) The Babylonian conception of the after life was just lying there, in a dark dusty place. Not very nice! If you read the “Enuma elisj” you will find the roots of the Christian bible, but in quite a different form.
Now back to evolution, of couse evolution had a start. About 3,5 to 4 billion years ago. There was a lot of muddy water, vulcano eruptions, lightning. The atmosphere was very different from today, and contained hardly any free oxygen. It did contain gasses like nitrogen, hydrogen and carbonmonoxide. At that time chemical reactions, triggered by lightning caused very simple life forms. The experiments of Stanly Miller are interesting in this respect (already back in the fifties.) He recreated the earth atmosphere of 4 billion years ago, and used electricity and ultraviolet light to simulate the circumstances of that time. Within days he found aminoacids, the “building blocks” of life. This test has been repeated many times with different gas mixtures, and almost always produced many organic structures. The seas filled itself with this organic soup, for millions of years. There is still a discussion going on about what happened from there. Freeman Dyson thinks that there were first enzymes, and that RNA was a byproduct of the metabolism of ATP, while Manfred Eigen dabbles with nucleotidemonomeres. I have not enough knowledge to judge their theories, but I suppose you could find the details on the net.
At this point we could say that God organized life in this organic soup. But what would that teach us?
From the first living cells it is a coming and going of increasingly complex, changing} organisms, to this very day. I think we could learn much if we try to find out how that could have happened, as we have already discovered this much. Maybe that is what makes us human.
My PC background at work is a picture of a lazy ape, lying against a tree. He has a very happy expression, and stares at me while I work. Now who of the two of us has it made? He seems to think, “you work till you drop, you silly naked ape!” while he shoves a banana in his happy face.
Was eating the fruit of knowledge already the punishment? Did we bannish ourselves from paradise, while that hairy ape is still in there?
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pacwriter
Wisdom Member
Post Number:
951
Registered: 04-2002
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, October 10, 2003 - 05:52 pm: | |
The hairy ape enjoys his banana, thinks to himself, "MMMM -- I need to take a crap." Does just that. His thoughts extend no futher than his own personal needs.
The poor fellow banging away at the pc thinks, "MMMMM -- I need to take a crap." Instead of doing that he writes one more line, "And I love you with all my heart."
The difference between the two is one thinks of another before considering his own need.
Evolution has always been survival of the fit, that is "taking care of numero uno." So where does "love ye one another" come from?
http://www.pacwriter.netfirms.com/ |
Harry Simenon
Awareness Member
Post Number:
14
Registered: 10-2003
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, October 11, 2003 - 09:32 am: | |
Survival of the fittest does not mean "taking care of numero uno," it just filters out the beings that can cope with the situation at that moment best.
It sometimes does mean taking care of the genes that are close to you, like a family, a group, a tribe.
Many animals take care of eachother, depending on what kind of animal they are. If they live in a group, they will have a social structure, and help each other.
People who only love themselves, wil not be helped, their genes wil die out sooner. |
Trina Green
Awareness Member
Post Number:
28
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 10:33 am: | |
A soul is the innermost generator of your personality and yes all being have souls. The body is merely the chassis of the soul. That is my conclusion anyway. |
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