The Soul, or "I will go to heaven"

Originally posted by EcstremeVenom
this is terrible; i've never seen a question take this long to be answered. what he wants to know is, do you (Christians) believe that when you die you go to heaven in your current mind state? for example if you die w/ brain damage or other complications, do you live in heaven w/ them as well?

of course not. when one is resurrected perfectly, any "damage" or illness will be gone.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The most fundamental part of what I am getting at is what constitutes "I". In my personal opinion, "I" is a continuously changing entity that includes my body, my conciousness, my memories etc.
If you took my 5 year old self and sent it to heaven, I would no longer see it as 'me'. I might not even want it to happen.
If I had my memory wiped out and was ...[text shortened]... pass the 'me' test, do not fit with what I know about the human body.

"If my character was fundamentally changed, would I still be 'me'?"

Yes. you will always be you. Only better. If you can, try to see this from my perspective for a moment. We couldn't understand what it would be like to be perfect, because we don't know what perfection is. There's nothing in our experience that enables us to adequately describe what perfection is. We can only say that perfection is the absents of imperfection. We can say that God is perfect, and that's the gist of it right there. God is perfect, and we're not. We know we're not. But in the presents of God we will be perfect. No other explanation will suffice.

Look, this is probably not working. I could go on and on about what the Bible says about our identity, but if you don't recognise it's authority nothing I say will satisfy.

But I have to say this. The Bible says that the believer is being transformed into the image of Christ. We start out as babes when we are saved, and if we study the living word it has it's effect on the inner man. We grow throughout our life time, and when we die, and at the coming of Christ, we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye into persons just like Jesus Himself. We will be perfect. But we will always be who we are. Only better.

If this doesn't work please try again. I don't mind. I actually enjoy it.

Originally posted by josephw
If this doesn't work please try again. I don't mind. I actually enjoy it.

I would still like a bit more specific answers.
If I loose all my memory, will it be returned to me upon death? All memories ever lost throughout my life or just some?

Now to a different area. When does the soul start? At what point in the growth of a person from fertilized egg to adult human being?

And related to that, are souls divisible? If I have multiple personalities, do I have two souls? If half my brain is removed, do I loose half my soul?

Do animals have souls?

Would a concious computer have a soul?

If my conciousness is copied into a computer, does my soul go with it?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I would still like a bit more specific answers.
If I loose all my memory, will it be returned to me upon death? All memories ever lost throughout my life or just some?

Now to a different area. When does the soul start? At what point in the growth of a person from fertilized egg to adult human being?

And related to that, are souls divisible? If I ha ...[text shortened]... computer have a soul?

If my conciousness is copied into a computer, does my soul go with it?

Interesting questions.

If I loose all my memory, will it be returned to me upon death? All memories ever lost throughout my life or just some?

Yes, but not your memory of sin. You will know, if you are a saved person, when you are in heaven, those things you did in this life that brought honor and glory to Jesus.

Now to a different area. When does the soul start? At what point in the growth of a person from fertilized egg to adult human being?

I believe at conception.

And related to that, are souls divisible? If I have multiple personalities, do I have two souls? If half my brain is removed, do I loose half my soul?

No. Any adjustment to the brain will not change the soul.

Do animals have souls?

Yes, but no spirit.

Would a conscious computer have a soul?

No. Man created the computer, but man cannot create a soul.

If my consciousness is copied into a computer, does my soul go with it?

This is an interesting question. I've often wondered that if we could clone our bodies and some how transfer our neuronet into the brain of the clone if we would have a consciousness in the cloned body. It would mean that our consciousness would be one and the same as the bundle of electrical chemical composition of our brain. If not, and the soul is something more than just electrical chemical impulses, and we have a spirit as well, then I think it would not be possible.
When we separate the oxygen molecule from H2O, it is no longer water.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Now to a different area. When does the soul start? At what point in the growth of a person from fertilized egg to adult human being?
Originally posted by josephw
I believe at conception.

Do identical twins share a soul?

No. Any adjustment to the brain will not change the soul.
So things like the way we think, our memories, our desires, our conciousness etc are not properties of the soul? I am sure that modifications to the brain change all those things.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Do identical twins share a soul?

[b]No. Any adjustment to the brain will not change the soul.
So things like the way we think, our memories, our desires, our conciousness etc are not properties of the soul? I am sure that modifications to the brain change all those things.[/b]

Do identical twins share a soul? I wouldn't think so. How would one divide a soul? One body, one soul, one spirit.

"So things like the way we think, our memories, our desires, our consciousness etc are not properties of the soul? I am sure that modifications to the brain change all those things."

In an earlier post I gave a brief description of the function of each of our three parts.

Body- the vehicle which houses the soul and spirit. That includes the brain. It, the body, gives us world consciousness.

Soul- the seat of our identity, gives us self consciousness.

Spirit- this is where we think, and it gives us God consciousness.

You may find this hard to swallow that it is with the spirit that we think. It came as a surprise to me when I learned this. I was always taught that we think with our brain, and this is where things get really complicated. One would ask, if our brain is damaged, is our ability to think damaged as well? I think the answer is yes. So also is our personality, our soul, altered. Likewise our body suffers as a result of Brian damage.

Our three parts are so closely linked that damage to any part has it's corresponding effect on the whole according to the relationship of each to the other.

I don't understand it all. Like everything else in the universe, it's very complicated. Yet the mystery of life is understood at a spiritual level and is accessed by faith.

Originally posted by josephw
Do identical twins share a soul? I wouldn't think so. How would one divide a soul? One body, one soul, one spirit.

So if one of the twins believe in Jesus and the other doesn't, will half the soul go to heaven and the other half to hell?
Also your conclusion tells us immediately that conciousness is not a true property of the soul at all as the twins have two consciousnesses.

In an earlier post I gave a brief description of the function of each of our three parts.

Body- the vehicle which houses the soul and spirit. That includes the brain. It, the body, gives us world consciousness.

Soul- the seat of our identity, gives us self consciousness.

Spirit- this is where we think, and it gives us God consciousness.

You may find this hard to swallow that it is with the spirit that we think.
Since they are more definitions than anything else it is not a matter of being hard to swallow.

It came as a surprise to me when I learned this.
I'm curious - where did you learn it?

I was always taught that we think with our brain, and this is where things get really complicated. One would ask, if our brain is damaged, is our ability to think damaged as well? I think the answer is yes. So also is our personality, our soul, altered. Likewise our body suffers as a result of Brian damage.
So our soul is in fact our brain. That's easy. One wonders then how the brain gets to heaven.

Does anyone understand what Supernatural means?
--Yes, everybody has A soul--theyir very own. Even twins.
-- Yes, God can resurrect you perfectly, no matter how hideously you died. He made the universe--you think putting a human back together will be difficult for the Almighty??😉
-- No, you won't have a disease, or any mental defects--check the word "Perfect" in the phrase "raised incorruptable,in a perfect body".

Most all the questions asked here can be answered simply: God performs miracles; He can do ANYthing.

it is my humble and undereducated opinion, that the soul is formed within a person as a result of the strugggle or conflict between the flesh and the spirit. The spirit being that spark of the divine placed in us by the creator (again...my opinion), that allows life to occur. The spirit being holy, and the flesh being corrupt, the 2 are locked in mortal combat for control of the being. The resultant being an id or ego that is formed, or what some might call the soul. As to weather the soul continues after death, I would like to hope that it does, but I am certain (my opinion) that the spirit does. If the soul is linked to the spirit by the manner of its creation, it may indeed be possible that the energy from the soul continues after the body quits, and that part of the soul which is linked to the body dies with it.


thoughts?

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
Most all the questions asked here can be answered simply: God performs miracles; He can do ANYthing.

Can he make a = not a ?
Can he contradict himself?

The issue however is not really whether God can or cannot do anything but whether or not what you claim God will do, a) makes sense and b) he will actually do.

Originally posted by josephw
Interesting questions.

If I loose all my memory, will it be returned to me upon death? All memories ever lost throughout my life or just some?

Yes, but not your memory of sin. You will know, if you are a saved person, when you are in heaven, those things you did in this life that brought honor and glory to Jesus.

Now to a different area. would not be possible.
When we separate the oxygen molecule from H2O, it is no longer water.

…
Now to a different area. When does the soul start? At what point in the growth of a person from fertilized egg to adult human being?

I believe at conception. …

Just curious: does the Bible indicate or support that view?

Regardless of whether the Bible says so or not, there are scientific reasons to believe that no intellect nor ‘mind’ can exist in a living thing without a brain because there are scientific reasons to believe that your intelect and mind comes from processes in our brain (or, to be more precise, IS the processes in the brain!) At conception, the fertilised egg doesn’t have a brain, so therefore, at that stage of development, there is no brain to support any intellect or ‘mind’

-unless you mean something completely different from the word “soul” and you claim that it is possible to have a ‘mind‘ without having a “soul“?

There is no such thing as the soul and you can not show otherwise. There is consciousness but no spirit or soul - what continues after death is conciousness in its most subtle form. There are three levels 1/ Gross e.g. waking minds which experience the waking world which is not separate from the gross minds.
2/ Subtle e.g. dream mind
3/ very subtle mind - it is the very subtle mind that contunues after death - the process can be controlled and experienced before death by advanced meditation practices that Christians do not have access to so they spend all their time in the gross world with their gross minds telling the rest of us we are wrong. The arrogance of these deluded fools beggeers belief.

The bible is mostly nonsense and is of little objective value as a guide to anything except intolerence. Why people quote it is a mystery to me.

Originally posted by clearlight
There is no such thing as the soul and you can not show otherwise. There is consciousness but no spirit or soul - what continues after death is conciousness in its most subtle form. There are three levels 1/ Gross e.g. waking minds which experience the waking world which is not separate from the gross minds.
2/ Subtle e.g. dream mind
3/ very subtle mind ...[text shortened]... jective value as a guide to anything except intolerence. Why people quote it is a mystery to me.

Fiddle faddle.

Originally posted by twhitehead
So if one of the twins believe in Jesus and the other doesn't, will half the soul go to heaven and the other half to hell?
Also your conclusion tells us immediately that conciousness is not a true property of the soul at all as the twins have two consciousnesses.

[b]In an earlier post I gave a brief description of the function of each of our three par So our soul is in fact our brain. That's easy. One wonders then how the brain gets to heaven.

"So if one of the twins believe in Jesus and the other doesn't, will half the soul go to heaven and the other half to hell?"

twhitehead, are you sure you're paying attention? This question tells me you are either skimming through what I said, or you really aren't interested.

Originally posted by josephw
twhitehead, are you sure you're paying attention? This question tells me you are either skimming through what I said, or you really aren't interested.

My apologies. I could have sworn that you said that twins shared a soul, but when I look back I see that you did not. My eyes must have been playing tricks on me that day.

So tell me. If a soul is gained at conception and the foetus later divides into identical twins does the soul divide too?