Souls - What, where & when?

[b&wpac4]

Interesting. I am curious though, what is to happen after the big resurrection? 'Cuz that's an awful lot of dead people, even if a lot of them get 'left behind'. I confess I don't know much about that subject. When everyone is resurrected, are they as they were when they died--old people old, babies still babies--or are they all about the same age? Or maybe they get to choose? And then what are they going to do for the rest of eternity?

These are serious questions, I'm afraid I don't know much about the climactic ending. Mostly I just read the introduction and then flip to random pages...

None of those questions are answered with any sort of certainty. Different churches have different interpretations, but as far as I know, there is no real scripture you can point to that says 100%.

 

[ebia]

Well, it is different, because they claim that once you die your soul lives on.

Those concepts can all be attributable to neural processes, one acts, behaves and thinks differently to everyone else because no one's upbringing or memories are identical, and everyone has different levels of chemicals affecting the brain than everyone else. If the brain dies, then one no longer has a personality, etc. This negates the need for the soul, because the brain can do everything the soul can allegedly do.

When you die, your brain dies and with it all of your memories, thoughts, personality, consciousness and beliefs.

A view in line with the historic Christian understanding is not that those things carry on without a brain, but that God preserves that information state, until the final resurrection when we have a new glorified body on which it can continue. The idea of a soul living on for eternity in a disembodied state is not the historic Judeo/Christian hope; it's a mixture of christianity, gnosticism and other extra-biblical ideas.

Soul is no different from personality, conciousness, identity, personhood, whatever one wants to call it.

 

[ittarter]

Do you have any charts, graphs, or any other scientific information that would prove your theory on that? I'm not putting you down or asking for an argument. Just a simple yes or no will suffice. Just because someone says that we have a soul doesn't mean we have one. You can't throw common sense out the window when thinking about this.

What on earth does scientific information have to do with souls?? We are talking about a concept, not about a testable empirical reality.

 

[b&wpac4]

What on earth does scientific information have to do with souls?? We are talking about a concept, not about a testable empirical reality.

Some people require that testable evidence before the concept can be accepted.

 

[ittarter]

Some people require that testable evidence before the concept can be accepted.

Philosophical ideas do not require empirical evidence. Rather, they interpret and synthesize empirical evidence into existentially meaningful units of information.

 

[b&wpac4]

Philosophical ideas do not require empirical evidence. Rather, they interpret and synthesize empirical evidence into existentially meaningful units of information.

I don't disagree with you, but I understand where they are coming from. They want testable information before accepting anything, so they accept nothing that cannot have it.

 

[ebia]

I don't disagree with you, but I understand where they are coming from. They want testable information before accepting anything, so they accept nothing that cannot have it.

But the accept all sorts of other philosophic constucts without. No-one would dispute that concepts such as personality, conciousness, personhood, identity, etc are valid. But because, when they hear the word soul they hear religious overtones suddenly they demand testability for what is nothing more than the same sort of idea.

 

[Vehementi Dominus]

But the accept all sorts of other philosophic constucts without. No-one would dispute that concepts such as personality, conciousness, personhood, identity, etc are valid. But because, when they hear the word soul they hear religious overtones suddenly they demand testability for what is nothing more than the same sort of idea.

Then the soul is simply neurological processes within the brain, and dies along with it.

 

[ebia]

Then the soul is simply neurological processes within the brain, and dies along with it.

Except, by the grace of God, the information (for lack of a more precise term) will be preserved to run again when we are resurrected at the end of the age.

 

[Vehementi Dominus]

Except, by the grace of God, the information (for lack of a more precise term) will be preserved to run again when we are resurrected at the end of the age.

As your belief dictates, but there is absolutely no evidence of this.

If the soul exists as "data" in the brain, that gets preserved by God after death, then what if we could transfer all of the information in the brain onto a hard drive, and use that to run a robot?

Would the person's soul be replicated, one going to heaven or hell, and one remaining in the machine?
Would the person's soul be transfered to the machine?


If the soul is just data in the brain, the answer to one of the above questions would be "Yes.".

 

[theVirginian]

1. What is the soul according to you? How do you define it?

I'm assuming you're asking about the spirit, not the soul, which is our mental capacities and resides in the physical brain.

The spirit is the real, immortal you. The reason nonchristians get confused about this subject is because until it is regenerated through the new birth, it is as the Bible says, dead in sin. A better way to say it is that the spirit is dormant and you are stuck living in a two dimensional world of the physical and mental realms.

2. Where does the soul reside?

Think of your skin as a covering over your spirit. If that isn't strange enough for you, your spirit has the same senses as your physical body except they are tuned into the supernatural dimension. The "brain" is located in the middle of the body. Why there instead of in the physical brain? I'm guessing so we don't confuse a communication directly from God or a true supernatural experience as just something our mind conjured up.

3. When does the soul 'enter' our body? (Conception? 10 cells? 20 cells? Once a brain/heart/... is developed in an embrio? Birth?)

Sometime between conception and the baby drawing its first breath. The point of starting to breathe would parallel God breathing life into Adam, except Adam was just a sack o' meat before that happenend. Unborn babies show signs of life by moving around so, since I don't actually know, I play it safe and say the spirit shows up at the point of conception.

4. What happens with your soul when you're in a coma for 20 years and kept alive with machines?

The spirit stays until the body officially dies.

5. At what age do you tell your children about them having a soul and possibly eternal punishment? And do you consider this moral?

Warning somebody about Hell has it's place, but I've never done it. I'm more interested in telling people the positive side of Christianity. That would be what I tell my kids and I would tell them ASAP.

6. How does the concept of a soul work with twins? Is it split in half? Is the soul getting copied?

They are seperate persons. They get their own spirits.

 

[Sojourner1]

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[HeKnowsMyName]

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