Originally posted by SwissGambitIs so, what happens to our unique immaterial innermost beings [our individual personalities and knowledge and memories]?
The effect does not know anything, for it has no mind.
The causation is all the individual parts joined together as the whole.
Originally posted by SwissGambit
They are emergent from the physical shell. Once the shell dies, all that stuff goes *poof*.
Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
How does this effect know when to occur; and what is the causation of this emergence?
Originally posted by SwissGambit
The effect does not know anything, for it has no mind.
The causation is all the individual parts joined together as the whole.
____________________________
If our unique immaterial innermost beings [our individual personalities and knowledge and memories]
simply "goes *poof*." "Once the shell dies"................... where is "*poof*"?
Originally posted by LemonJello[b]Q.Today is Tuesday, April 15, 2014. On this day on Red Hot Pawn's Spirituality Forum,
what decision have you made regarding your permanent address for eternity?
A. ______________________________________________________________ ?
"Return to sender, address unknown.
No such number, no such zone."[/b]LJ "Last moved 330 days 4 hours and 19 minutes ago" perhaps he's reading books or out of town. Will try again. Thanks.
Originally posted by twhiteheadWhat distinctions does this "pretty good understanding..." make between biological life [cell tissue, genetic makeup and the bodily functions that sustain living material which is physical and mortal] and an individual human being's immaterial soul?
I have a pretty good understanding of the brain and how it works. I have seen plenty of evidence that our thoughts and our consciousness is entirely a product of the brain. I have also seen plenty of evidence that our thoughts can be altered by alterations to the brain whether physical or chemical.
All this leads me to the obvious conclusion that should ...[text shortened]... en able to get any satisfactory answers. It seems that most theists are reluctant to discuss it.
1 edit
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyQuotes About Jesus Christ
Quotes About Jesus Christ:
"Buddha never claimed to be God. Moses never claimed to be Jehovah. Mohammed never claimed to be Allah. Yet Jesus Christ claimed to be the true and living God. Buddha simply said, "I am a teacher in search of the truth." Jesus said, "I am the Truth." Confucius said, "I never claimed to be holy." Jesus said, "Who convict ...[text shortened]... 1922. (2a/2b to follow)
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Miscellaneous/quotes-jesus_christ.htm[/b]
"Buddha never claimed to be God. Moses never claimed to be Jehovah. Mohammed never claimed to be Allah. Yet Jesus Christ claimed to be the true and living God. Buddha simply said, "I am a teacher in search of the truth." Jesus said, "I am the Truth." Confucius said, "I never claimed to be holy." Jesus said, "Who convicts me of sin?" Mohammed said, "Unless God throws his cloak of mercy over me, I have no hope." Jesus said, "Unless you believe in me, you will die in your sins." -Unknown
"Fundamentally, our Lord's message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, "I am the bread." He did not come merely to shed light; He said, "I am the light." He did not come merely to show the door; He said, "I am the door." He did not come merely to name a shepherd; He said, "I am the shepherd." He did not come merely to point the way; He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." --J. Sidlow Baxter
"Jesus is the God whom we can approach without pride and before whom we can humble ourselves without despair."
–Blaise Pascal
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene... No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life." --Albert Einstein
"An unsurpassed master of the art of laying bare the inmost core of spiritual truth." -Geza Vermes
"Jesus Christ is to me the outstanding personality of all time, all history, both as Son of God and as Son of Man. Everything he ever said or did has value for us today and that is something you can say of no other man, dead or alive. There is no easy middle ground to stroll upon. You either accept Jesus or reject him." -Sholem Asch
"Jesus is God spelling Himself out in language that men can understand." -S.D. Gordon
"Only Christ could have conceived Christ." -Joseph Parker
"In Jesus, God wills to be true God not only in the height but also in the depth – in the depth of human creatureliness, sinfulness and mortality." -Karl Barth
"It was this same Jesus, the Christ who, among many other remarkable things, said and repeated something which, proceeding from any other being would have condemned him at once as either a bloated egotist or a dangerously unbalanced person...when He said He himself would rise again from the dead, the third day after He was crucified, He said something that only a fool would dare say, if he expected longer the devotion of any disciples—unless He was sure He was going to rise. No founder of any world religion known to men ever dared say a thing like that!" --Wilbur Smith
"I accept the resurrection of Easter Sunday not as an invention of the community of disciples, but as a historical event. If the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on that Easter Sunday were a public event which had been made known...not only to the 530 Jewish witnesses but to the entire population, all Jews would have become followers of Jesus." -Pinchas Lapide, Orthodox Jewish scholar, Germany (born 1922)
"Because Christianity’s influence is so pervasive throughout much of the world, it is easy to forget how radical its beliefs once were. Jesus’ resurrection forever changed Christians’ view of death. Rodney Stark, sociologist at the University of Washington, points out that when a major plague hit the ancient Roman Empire, Christians had surprisingly high survival rates. Why? Most Roman citizens would banish any plague-stricken person from their household. But because Christians had no fear of death, they nursed their sick instead of throwing them out on the streets. Therefore, many Christians survived the plague. -“2000 Years of Jesus” by Kenneth L. Woodward, Newsweek March 29, 1999, p. 55.
"Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: "a virgin's womb and an empty tomb". Jesus entered our world through a door marked, "No Entrance" and left through a door marked "No Exit." -Peter Larson
"I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin born, because the answer to that question would define history." –Larry King
"The most pressing question on the problem of faith is whether a man as a civilized being can believe in the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, for therein rests the whole of our faith." -Fyodor Dostoevski (2b)
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Miscellaneous/quotes-jesus_christ.htm
1 edit
Quotes About Jesus Christ
"The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the crowning proof of Christianity. If the resurrection did not take place, then Christianity is a false religion. If it did take place, then Christ is God and the Christian faith is absolute truth." -Henry Morris
"Our problem is this: we usually discover him within some denominational or Christian ghetto. We meet him in a province and, having caught some little view, we paint him in smaller strokes. The Lion of Judah is reduced to something kittenish because our understanding cannot, at first, write larger definitions." -Calvin Miller
"People talk about imitating Christ, and imitate Him in the little trifling formal things, such as washing the feet, saying His prayer, and so on; but if anyone attempts the real imitation of Him, there are no bounds to the outcry with which the presumption of that person is condemned." -Florence Nightingale
"Even Christ pleased not Himself. He was utterly consumed in the zeal of His Father’s house. As man He ever moved for God. As God He ever moved for man." -Geoffrey T. Bull
"There was no identity crisis in the life of Jesus Christ. He knew who He was. He knew where He had come from, and why he was here. And he knew where He was going. And when you are that liberated, then you can serve." -Howard Hendricks
"How was it that, even in the common tasks of an ordinary life, Jesus drew the praise of heaven? At the core of His being, He only did those things which pleased the Father. In everything, He stayed true, heartbeat to heartbeat, with the Father's desires. Jesus lived for God alone; God was enough for Him. Thus, even in its simplicity and moment-to-moment faithfulness, Christ's life was an unending fragrance, a perfect offering of incomparable love to God." --Francis Frangipane
"Jesus Christ: The meeting place of eternity and time, the blending of deity and humanity, the junction of heaven and earth." –Anonymous
"You cannot go outside of A and Z in the realm of literature; likewise Christ Jesus is First and Last of God's new creation, and all that is in between; you cannot get outside of that." -T. Austin Sparks
"It is as if God the Father is saying to us: "Since I have told you everything in My Word, Who is My Son, I have no other words that can at present say anything or reveal anything to you beyond this. Fix your eyes on Him alone, for in Him I have told you all, revealed all, and in Him you will find more than you desire or ask. If you fix your eyes on Him, you will find everything, for He is My whole word and My reply, He is My whole vision and My whole revelation." -Anthony M. Coniaris
"Whenever the method of worship becomes more important than the Person of worship, we have already prostituted our worship. There are entire congregations who worship praise and praise worship but who have not yet learned to praise and worship God in Jesus Christ." -Judson Cornwall
"The message of Christ is not Christianity. The message of Christ is Christ." -Gary Amirault
"The Lord ate from a common bowl, and asked the disciples to sit on the grass. He washed their feet, with a towel wrapped around His waist - He, who is the Lord of the universe!" -Clement of Alexandria (3 of 3)
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Miscellaneous/quotes-jesus_christ.htm
2 edits
Originally posted by Grampy BobbySorry, GB, but absent any new reasons to think your God exists, you are not going to succeed in giving me pause by threatening that "The wrath of God is hanging over [my] head like a storm cloud." You may as well try to scare me with the ominous report that I am about to be impaled by a blessing of unicorns.
LJ "Last moved 330 days 4 hours and 19 minutes ago" perhaps he's reading books or out of town. Will try again. Thanks.
We are impermanent beings. That's what all the evidence seems to indicate. You may not like this, but instead of sweeping it under the rug, I would suggest looking at it from a fresh new perspective. First, if we are impermanent beings, then there is no "permanent address" where some of us get tortured for all eternity. So we can abandon that otherwise unsettling notion and not think twice about not taking it seriously -- just like we do not take impending unicorn impalement seriously. Secondly, it is not at all clear that the loss of immortality constitutes much of a loss. In fact, there are very interesting arguments -- certainly worthy of some study -- that purport to show that we would have no good reasons to value immortality; or even purport to show that immortality would undermine or preclude things like meaning and significance. A couple I would recommend as food for thought would be Bernard William's classic argument in "The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality" as well as a follow-up argument by Aaron Smuts in "Immortality and Significance".
When I have more time, I think the next thread I will start will be one that explores the desirability (or lack thereof) of immortality. That could be a very interesting discussion. Suppose, for example, there were an elixir, readily available to you, and you know that upon taking the elixir it would grant you immortality. Should you take the elixir? What are the reasons for and against it? It seems to me that the question as posed is grossly underdescribed. After all, just having unending life tells you nothing about what sort of conditions attend that life. So it would be a worthwhile discussion to try to figure out what sorts of additional conditions would be necessary or sufficient for making such life desirable or not.
Originally posted by LemonJelloCan you say, with the same certainty with which you deny everlasting life, that Jesus did not rise from the dead?
Sorry, GB, but absent any new reasons to think your God exists, you are not going to succeed in giving me pause by threatening that "The wrath of God is hanging over [my] head like a storm cloud." You may as well try to scare me with the ominous report that I am about to be impaled by a blessing of unicorns.
We are impermanent beings. That's what a ...[text shortened]... of additional conditions would be necessary or sufficient for making such life desirable or not.
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyThey [i.e. "our individual personalities and knowledge and memories"] end. The finite nature of life is part and parcel of the human condition, as is wishing it were not so [which is where religion comes in].
...what happens to our unique immaterial innermost beings [our individual personalities and knowledge and memories]?
Originally posted by SwissGambitMy reply to your comment:
You did not just ask me that. 🙂
Originally posted by SwissGambit
They are emergent from the physical shell. Once the shell dies, all that stuff goes *poof*.
If our unique immaterial innermost beings [our individual personalities and knowledge and memories]
simply "goes *poof*." "Once the shell dies"................... where is "*poof*"?
Location: Page 3 (this page) first post:
3 edits
Originally posted by LemonJello"First, if we are impermanent beings, then there is no "permanent address" where some of us get tortured for all eternity..." -LemonJello If so, doesn't the concept of an immaterial inner being [or immortal soul] becomes a pitiful myth [helpful as the fundamental basis of your "Secondly, it is not at all clear that the loss of immortality constitutes much of a loss"]?
Sorry, GB, but absent any new reasons to think your God exists, you are not going to succeed in giving me pause by threatening that "The wrath of God is hanging over [my] head like a storm cloud." You may as well try to scare me with the ominous report that I am about to be impaled by a blessing of unicorns.
We are impermanent beings. That's what a ...[text shortened]... of additional conditions would be necessary or sufficient for making such life desirable or not.
Originally posted by LemonJello"The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality"
Sorry, GB, but absent any new reasons to think your God exists, you are not going to succeed in giving me pause by threatening that "The wrath of God is hanging over [my] head like a storm cloud." You may as well try to scare me with the ominous report that I am about to be impaled by a blessing of unicorns.
We are impermanent beings. That's what a ...[text shortened]... of additional conditions would be necessary or sufficient for making such life desirable or not.
"This essay started life as a lecture in a series ‘on the immortality of the soul or kindred spiritual subject’. My kindred spiritual subject is, one might say, the mortality of the soul. Those among previous lecturers who were philosophers tended, I think, to discuss the question whether we are immortal; that is not my subject, but rather what a good thing it is that we are not. Immortality, or a state without death, would be meaningless, I shall suggest; so, in a sense, death gives the meaning to life. That does not mean that we should not fear death (whatever force that injunction might be taken to have, anyway). Indeed, there are several very different ways in which it could be true at once that death gave the meaning to life and that death was, other things being equal, something to be feared. Some existentialists, for instance, seem to have said that death was what gave meaning to life, if anything did, just because it was the fear of death that gave meaning to life; I shall not follow them. I shall rather pursue the idea that from facts about human desire and happiness and what a human life is, it follows both that immortality would be, where conceivable at all, intolerable, and that (other things being equal) death is reasonably regarded as an evil."
http://ebooks.cambridge.org/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780511621253&cid=CBO9780511621253A012
LemonJello, does this excerpt accurately present the topic you're considering for a "worthwhile discussion" thread?
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyI don't know what you mean by 'an individual human being's immaterial soul'. I have asked many times on this forum what theist mean by a soul and got many different answers, none of which made a whole lot of sense.
What distinctions does this "pretty good understanding..." make between biological life [cell tissue, genetic makeup and the bodily functions that sustain living material which is physical and mortal] and an individual human being's immaterial soul?
I think I have already explained what I think about thoughts and consciousness if that is what you are talking about. If not, be more specific about what you mean by 'soul'.