Religion Theological query about souls

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Good questions, I'm not 100% convinced of anything, this is just the way I lean

1. Why do I think we have souls? I've heard a number of compelling NDE, haunting, reincarnation etc stories to make me believe our consciousness does somehow persist after the brain stops functioning.

2. How is the soul created? I've thought about this as well. The idea that there's a "soul factory" somewhere that is dutifully monitoring the number of human being born, so it can ship a soul down to each baby is hard to believe. Also, I have to wonder why souls would choose certain lives. Who would want to incarnate as a woman in Afghanistan?

I figure that perhaps the soul is created by the body/brain, and is able to persist after death. So in that sense individuals are the "soul factory". Some souls can chose to return, but for many they are just getting started.
 
rasheedfan2005 said:
Perhaps out brains have been prgrammed to be limited in the dimensions we can understand
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Kurt Vonnegut got me thinking about this long ago but the Taoists believe this totally....aboriginal tribes also have more of this concept seeing the flora and fauna as an extension of the soul rather than something to dominate just because we're human
 
Odds are, the souls in our mammalian flesh bags are strikingly similar to say a bear or a rats soul.

As far as ghosts go, these is a lot about energy that we don't understand yet, I really doubt that if they exist they have consciousness though.
 
riverman said:
Kurt Vonnegut got me thinking about this long ago but the Taoists believe this totally....aboriginal tribes also have more of this concept seeing the flora and fauna as an extension of the soul rather than something to dominate just because we're human
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The ancient Greeks believed that the soul was simply what made something alive. So basically grass has a soul as well. However, Aristotle did think there were different kinds of soul - grass had the simplest, the "nutritive" soul. He also believed that the soul was destroyed when the body was, though, so no afterlife possible.
 
Dougnsalem said:
Same here. Dan Brown got me curious about the topic, when he discussed an experiment happening at CERN in one of his books. They were trying to discover the actual weight of a soul. True fact in a fiction novel??? Got me. It's been researched in the early 1900's, and again even more recently.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/column.php?id=204863

In 1988, Noetic Science carried out experiments on the largest number of patients and concluded that the human soul weighs 1/3,000th of an ounce. The experiments were carried out by East German researchers who weighed more than 200 terminally ill patients just before and immediately after their deaths. In each case the weight loss was exactly the same – 1/3,000th of an ounce.

Fasinating, if you open your mind up to the possibilities....
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That's the reason for the title of this movie.
 
Rastapopoulos said:
The ancient Greeks believed that the soul was simply what made something alive
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They also believed the gods had sex with a lot of humans....giving some humans more vibrant life juice than others
 
I've had two out of body experiences briefly...both times when my life was in danger..most vivid was a car wreck as a passenger...saw the whole thing happen in bird's eye view...my imagination? Dream state? Projection? I sure don't know
 
rasheedfan2005 said:
I know critically thinking and theorizing and looking at lifes biggest questions from all sorts of angles is too hard for liberals. Thats why i stopped being a liberal when i learned to critically think.

In before "lol flying spaghetti monster" and intellectual superiority complexes.
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I don't think "critical thinking" is political. So you didn't need to stop being a liberal. You are free to stop for other reasons, of course.
However, there's also a difference between "critical thinking" and wild speculation. Wild speculation is very useful, but it's the beginning of the process. You then ask "what would have to be true for my theory to be true? What would prove my theory false?" Then you set about testing it.

Re: God. There are two main camps about God's relationship with time. Some argue that God is in time along with us, that time is a "moving now" and we're all in that boat together. Others say that God is outside of time, looking at the universe as a giant four dimensional object. So God knows what happens at the end of the universe as much as the beginning. Both views have troubling implications. I think Einstein's view poses a problem for the "God in time" view, because you can't separate space and time, they are together as spacetime. That would mean that God created time along with the universe, which means that he wouldn't be trapped in it. On the other hand, God "outside" of time poses issues for our free will. If God knew what would happen throughout all the history of the universe (including things in our future) then in what sense do we have a choice about anything? And why did he punish Eve for eating the apple when he knew it would happen before he even created the universe - in a sense she was created to fail.

Fun stuff.
 
Rastapopoulos said:
I don't think "critical thinking" is political. So you didn't need to stop being a liberal. You are free to stop for other reasons, of course.
However, there's also a difference between "critical thinking" and wild speculation. Wild speculation is very useful, but it's the beginning of the process. You then ask "what would have to be true for my theory to be true? What would prove my theory false?" Then you set about testing it.

Re: God. There are two main camps about God's relationship with time. Some argue that God is in time along with us, that time is a "moving now" and we're all in that boat together. Others say that God is outside of time, looking at the universe as a giant four dimensional object. So God knows what happens at the end of the universe as much as the beginning. Both views have troubling implications. I think Einstein's view poses a problem for the "God in time" view, because you can't separate space and time, they are together as spacetime. That would mean that God created time along with the universe, which means that he wouldn't be trapped in it. On the other hand, God "outside" of time poses issues for our free will. If God knew what would happen throughout all the history of the universe (including things in our future) then in what sense do we have a choice about anything? And why did he punish Eve for eating the apple when he knew it would happen before he even created the universe - in a sense she was created to fail.

Fun stuff.
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What if this god head doesn't know all.....another Vonnegut novel spun the idea that god as an entity had no long term memory....sort of suffered from eternal dementia
 
One could look at god as a dryer....and we are just the lint collection stuck to a screen
 
riverman said:
the primordial muck! I think you're onto something!
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Maybe God needs food/energy just as humans do. And just as we do, we he gets rid of what's left after that food is digested and converted to energy. And we are God's excrement. Looking back at human history, it has a sort of hard to refute logic....
 
The only heaven humanity has ever found is Earth.

That would make us the souls.
 
UncleCliffy'sDaddy said:
Maybe God needs food/energy just as humans do. And just as we do, we get rid of what's left after that food is digested and converted to energy. And we are God's excrement. Looking back at human history, it has a sort of hard to refute logic....
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or maybe in God time, he's starving and we're just the groceries...only eats after a big bang
 
What if Trump is the devil and Denny is one of his minions.

Would it be okay to punch Denny? A minion is worse than a Nazi, right?
 
Rastapopoulos said:
"what would have to be true for my theory to be true?
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This is an interesting question....scientific method or blind faith...both exist, attract followers and claim truths...as individuals I believe we have a built in truth measuring device like a traffic light..red, yellow, green....green light is your personal truth.
 
Due to an out of body experience, I believe in an eternal soul. It was the most peaceful experience I remember.

The result is, I am not afraid of dying. It did leave me with the desire to enjoy every moment I have left, and to be as good of a person as I can be.

I also remember 2 dreams from when I was a small child. I believe the dreams where a carry over from a past life. Strangely, in a past life I was a gazelle that lived a happy life until I was killed and eaten by a lion. The other dream is too difficult to explain. It was more a traveling through an unknown dark dimension until my soul entered my human body.

My "theory" is.
Each new cycle of life for my soul is a result of how I lived the past life.
My question becomes, was my soul placed in a human body as a reward, or punishment?
I really don't know the answer, but afraid it was more a punishment when you look at how flawed we all are. And if this human life is a punishment, how do we get our souls to a higher level?

I also have a second "theory".
In "gods" big picture, humans are not important. I picture our entire universe as a spec of dust floating around in "gods" living room. There is so much that is beyond our comprehension, our self importance is not justified. What is important is how we live the life we have, no matter what we believe as a result of our experiences and memories.
 
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oldfisherman said:
I picture our entire universe as a spec of dust floating around in "gods" living room
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I completely envision reality this way...our concept of size and perception is so limited....when you look at the world through a microscope there are amazing colonies of life on things we can't see...I think swimming in the ocean really brings this idea home...where you are literally an unimportant floating piece of bait. ("you" as in "anyone"...not calling you a piece of floating bait as an insult or anything)
 
Rastapopoulos said:
I don't think "critical thinking" is political. So you didn't need to stop being a liberal. You are free to stop for other reasons, of course.
However, there's also a difference between "critical thinking" and wild speculation. Wild speculation is very useful, but it's the beginning of the process. You then ask "what would have to be true for my theory to be true? What would prove my theory false?" Then you set about testing it.

Re: God. There are two main camps about God's relationship with time. Some argue that God is in time along with us, that time is a "moving now" and we're all in that boat together. Others say that God is outside of time, looking at the universe as a giant four dimensional object. So God knows what happens at the end of the universe as much as the beginning. Both views have troubling implications. I think Einstein's view poses a problem for the "God in time" view, because you can't separate space and time, they are together as spacetime. That would mean that God created time along with the universe, which means that he wouldn't be trapped in it. On the other hand, God "outside" of time poses issues for our free will. If God knew what would happen throughout all the history of the universe (including things in our future) then in what sense do we have a choice about anything? And why did he punish Eve for eating the apple when he knew it would happen before he even created the universe - in a sense she was created to fail.

Fun stuff.
Click to expand...
I agree whole heartedly. Ive rationalized "free will" with the fact that you dont know the outcome, even if God does. So you decisions are free will, he just knew what theyd be. I also came to the same conclusion about eve. And for a long time was bitter at the creator for being such a dick. But then i fell in love, and later, had my heart broken. I realized that knowing what sadness was gave me more of an appriciation for the feeling you get from love. The old addage tis better to have loved and lost is true IMO. Time heals wounds. But ive often wondered maybe God had to allow the fall of man, in order to display love. I thought about angels being with him in heaven before earth and how satan and 1/3rd of the angels rebelled anyway despite always having that perfect love. And then god makes man from dirt, and says take a look at this fellas, ill show them what loves is, and theyll appriciate me more than you did. I dont really know, just fun to think about. More intellectually stimulating than peoples tweets and 1 liners anyway.
 
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