Souls and Spirits

What are they? What are their characteristics?

I ask not as an obnoxious atheist trying to attack those who believe in such things but as an atheist exploring his spiritual side and trying to comprehend these ideas.

Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, while the soul is different. I like this distinction.

Perhaps because I fear death, and it's convenient to speculate on such things to lessen that fear. For whatever reason I've begun to suspect that one's soul does die with the body, but could be reborn - perhaps elsewhere, perhaps in another universe after the end of this one, perhaps in a billion years on Earth.

Let us assume that the soul is simply a function of a particular arrangement of matter and energy. This is a typical materialist position which I more or less agree with but am uncertain.

This suggests a teleporter can be created (like in Star Trek). One would disintegrate a person and re-create that exact arrangement of matter and energy elsewhere without moving the atoms themselves. OK, seems plausible.

What if you re-created that person without disintegrating the original? What if it was ME (that means you)?

Obviously if you disintegrate a person, they will die. If it's me, I will cease to experience things or speculate on my experiences or lack of them.

If you re-create them elsewhere, won't it be a new person with exactly the same memories, inclinations, body etc who thinks he's me but it's not really me? Because if you re-create yourself without disintegrating yourself, you can't be both people...

Give me your thoughts. Those of you who can't think, go ahead and post anyway. It will amuse HoH and he will amuse the rest of us. 😉

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What are they? What are their characteristics?

I ask not as an obnoxious atheist trying to attack those who believe in such things but as an atheist exploring his spiritual side and trying to comprehend these ideas.

Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, whi ...[text shortened]... k, go ahead and post anyway. It will amuse HoH and he will amuse the rest of us. 😉

Well if you can remote view, then you dont need to beam your physical body anywhere.

All I know is that Spirit is the container of all. The "soul" is just a temorary, physical explanation of your discassotiation from your body.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What are they? What are their characteristics?

I ask not as an obnoxious atheist trying to attack those who believe in such things but as an atheist exploring his spiritual side and trying to comprehend these ideas.

Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, whi k, go ahead and post anyway. It will amuse HoH and he will amuse the rest of us. 😉

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Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, while the soul is different. I like this distinction.
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Yes. the soul of man and the spirit of man are two distinct parts of man. They are however, components of one living being.

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Perhaps because I fear death, and it's convenient to speculate on such things to lessen that fear. For whatever reason I've begun to suspect that one's soul does die with the body, but could be reborn - perhaps elsewhere, perhaps in another universe after the end of this one, perhaps in a billion years on Earth.
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The conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus in the third chapter of John's Gospel makes very clear that physical rebirth is not the answer to man's problem with God.

Nicodemus asked Jesus how can a man enter again into his mother's womb and be born again. Nicodemus interpreted Jesus use of the term "born again" to mean a physical rebirth. Jesus made it clear to us that a new physical birth could not solve man's problem before God.

Entering into his own mother's womb or into any other mother's womb to be physically born all over again could not bring salvation to man.

"You must be born again" relate to a new birth in the human spirit - "That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of Spirit is spirit".

The comatose and deadened human spirit must be re-enlivened, resurrected, ree-born, and brought out of its comatose state by the direct "touch" of God Himself.

God established a relationship with man. Man had the power to damage that relationship. Once the relationship created by God is damaged by man, man CANNOT fix the problem. The problem has to be fixed by God.

And that "fixing", that salvation involves God bringing to life the deadened human spirit, not the human soul, but the human spirit.

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Let us assume that the soul is simply a function of a particular arrangement of matter and energy. This is a typical materialist position which I more or less agree with but am uncertain.
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I think of soul simply as Mind, Emotion, and Will.

This kind of understanding was gleaned by scholars who looked up evey single verse on the soul in the Bible to ascertain what is meant when the word is used. A lot of this work was done by a woman Mrs. Jesse Penn Lewis, a Christian teacher.

She did the same thing with spirit and with "heart". And the Christian church owes here studious research a dept of gratitude. God gets the glory.

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This suggests a teleporter can be created (like in Star Trek). One would disintegrate a person and re-create that exact arrangement of matter and energy elsewhere without moving the atoms themselves. OK, seems plausible.
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The human spirit at the fall became comatose and deadened. The human spirit was designed to be the highest component of man. At the fall it descended beneath the second highest component, the human soul.

So we are born into this world with a missing top story, and a very active, very much out of contril second story acting as the top story.

The born again experience re-establishes the primacy of the uppermost component of man, his human spirit which is now indwelt with by Christ as Holy Spirit.

"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17)

But one has to learn to walk daily and live in this new re-arranged inward being.

But physically being reborn or even transported will not solve man's problem before God.

The story in the Bible that best signifies the failure of physical transport from a problemed world is the story of Lot's wife in the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah in Genesis 18,19.

Physically, Lot's wife was removed from a city to be judged by God. But her heart remained in the things of the city. Though she was taken physically out of Sodom her backward longing glance exposed that her mind, emotion, and will where still psychologically there.

She was turned into a monument of shame, a pillar of salt. This should be a warning to anyone thinking that physical removal from a sin filled earth will solve his problem before God. And that includes millions of Christians eager for a physical rapture.

This is a big subject. My point is that neither mere physcial rebirth or physical removal from a sin infested world will solve man's problem before God. And it is before God that the problem must be solved.

The rebirth of the human spirit through Jesus Christ brings one into the kingdom of God. Don't expect reincarnation to help. Don't expect teleportation to another world will solve this problem.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What are they? What are their characteristics?

I ask not as an obnoxious atheist trying to attack those who believe in such things but as an atheist exploring his spiritual side and trying to comprehend these ideas.

Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, whi ...[text shortened]... k, go ahead and post anyway. It will amuse HoH and he will amuse the rest of us. 😉

This is something I have pondered myself. Not that I believe that there is a soul or spirit, but what happens if an exact "me" was to be generated.

For example:

X - original person
Y - copy of person

I am presuming X will perceive as before and Y will have a new form sentience. Y will think he was X (as he has X's memories) and sees a copy of himself and considers the actual X as the imposter.

Therefore, if the X was destroyed, the sentience of X has gone, but Y will carry on living like X, and will believe he has had the full life that X had. The original X will not be aware of anything (i.e. dead).

This could be the same as creating a robot with an artificial neural network for a brain (call this robot Y) and downloading X's brain into Y's brain and then destroying X. I am presuming, like above, X will be dead, and Y will carry on wondering why he has suddently changed into a robot.

Now consider this scenario:

Say we start off with X we were to slowly replace bits of the brain with artificial neural networks so you are gradually turning X into an AI Y. Once all of X has become Y, is there a point where X has become no longer aware like in my previous scenarios, and Y has taken over awareness? I can't imagine any particular instance of this change over, but wondering, what will happen?

I predict that when the first few robots demonstrate sentience, half the theists will announce that robots can go to heaven and the other half will refuse to believe that the robots are sentient (and a few will probably try to destroy them for being possessed by demons).

Originally posted by twhitehead
I predict that when the first few robots demonstrate sentience, half the theists will announce that robots can go to heaven and the other half will refuse to believe that the robots are sentient (and a few will probably try to destroy them for being possessed by demons).

Them puir robots will be stuck in the middle
😵

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What are they? What are their characteristics?

I ask not as an obnoxious atheist trying to attack those who believe in such things but as an atheist exploring his spiritual side and trying to comprehend these ideas.

Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, whi ...[text shortened]... k, go ahead and post anyway. It will amuse HoH and he will amuse the rest of us. 😉

Don't you ever feel you are more than your body ? More than meat on bones ?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I predict that when the first few robots demonstrate sentience, half the theists will announce that robots can go to heaven and the other half will refuse to believe that the robots are sentient (and a few will probably try to destroy them for being possessed by demons).

Your boy Stephen Hawking has already announced that a computer virus may be a valid life form.

I'd like to see the circuitry and software that gives the robot a sense of self conciousness.

I mean what is the ASCII code for self awareness ?
Where's the computer chip circuitry for an ego ?

And if we don't let it evolve on its own it may not be the right stuff. You don't want intelligent design to get in there and mess things up.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I predict that when the first few robots demonstrate sentience, half the theists will announce that robots can go to heaven and the other half will refuse to believe that the robots are sentient (and a few will probably try to destroy them for being possessed by demons).

How do you test for sentience?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What are they? What are their characteristics?

I ask not as an obnoxious atheist trying to attack those who believe in such things but as an atheist exploring his spiritual side and trying to comprehend these ideas.

Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, whi ...[text shortened]... k, go ahead and post anyway. It will amuse HoH and he will amuse the rest of us. 😉

The soul and spirit is one and the same.

In this earthly life the soul is occupying the material body.
'
The material body comes with the mind, intelligence, false ego and five sense

The person you think you are is and illusion, because that person is bundled up into the mind and ego

The mind and false ego is thinking it is John Smith, male, 5 ft 10, white skin, 45 yrs old.......and so on, but you are not really all these things, because you are the soul, and when the body of John Smith dies, the soul continues its journey.

When the soul takes its next birth, it may end up in the body of a 5ft 3" Asian female called Hillary Roberts......and she will think that Hillary Roberts is the real person also....but the real person is the spiritual soul.

The spirit soul is continually re-incarnating over and over again, until the day arrives and they stop and ask themselves, what is this existence all about, why do I have to grow old and die, what is God and so on....and when they take to spiritual living they will for the first time, get an opportunity to retun home back to Godhead, and end the cycle of birth and death in this world of suffering.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What are they? What are their characteristics?

I ask not as an obnoxious atheist trying to attack those who believe in such things but as an atheist exploring his spiritual side and trying to comprehend these ideas.

Are the spirit and soul different? I've heard this before. The spirit would be the "animating force" - the mind and instincts, whi ...[text shortened]... k, go ahead and post anyway. It will amuse HoH and he will amuse the rest of us. 😉

Read and believe what the Word of God(Bible)says and then you will know.

At least as much as God wants you to know. As much as you will need to know in this life anyway.


Are you amused?

Originally posted by josephw
Read and believe what the Word of God(Bible)says and then you will know.

At least as much as God wants you to know. As much as you will need to know in this life anyway.


Are you amused?

There is not one word in the Bible....that is the word of God.

The Bible was compiled by meat eaters and therefore it is not authentic.

Originally posted by josephw
Read and believe what the Word of God(Bible)says and then you will know.

At least as much as God wants you to know. As much as you will need to know in this life anyway.


Are you amused?

"As much as you will need to know in this life anyway." - I dont like that.

"as least as much as God wants you to know"- I dont like that either.

There are no limits to learning about spirituality, most of it should be direct experience and not books anyway, but to say one book is as much spirituality as you will need is counterintuitive to the real purpose of spirituality, which is about "expansion" and " limitlessness", amongst other things.
Perhaps you could qualify your comments and put them into some context, because the way I'm reading it is that "here'e your bit of truth, now shut up and be thankful and dont ask for anymore..", or something like that.