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Post by Gav on Apr 22, 2012 22:50:29 GMT -5
It's one of those times when you go 'I wake up to this?'  Just to point out that I'm not a Christian either, but I grew up in a Roman Catholic family, so it was inevitable I picked up a few things along the way, though hardly as much as the people here. I'm not going to delve into it any furthur because I think the others have summed it up pretty well, at any rate. For the record, though,you did know that the by and large of the religious here are Christians in the first place, so to be honest I'm not sure of your intentions, especially since you didn't pitch your initial questions specifically to non-Christians. Finally, I do live in a place where there are a large number of Buddhists and Muslims. Still, any information I could get from them would be limited and sketchy since I'm not the one actually giving an opinion. Anything I could find out you could probably find out yourself. |
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Post by Yoyti on Apr 23, 2012 20:42:33 GMT -5
Sarn, I assure you I have nothing against Christians, nor do I hold the assumption that Christians have something against me, but let’s be quite honest. We make assumptions about people every day, some big, some small. It’s an instinct which we probably got from when we were in hunter-gatherer societies. We would need to judge in an instant whether someone was a friend or foe. Those in our own clan/family, we’d recognize and instinctively trust, but strangers would likely be met in a less friendly manner. Even in a very mixed society, we still make judgements about those unfamiliar to us. Stal, that’s a fair point, and I’ll keep that in mind, but I do hope you won’t penalize me for continuing this discussion here. Sae, I recall something you said a while ago about individual bacteria having souls, but the cells that make up your body don’t. What about things like intestinal bacteria? I know that when I die, if it turns out that there is an afterlife, I want those bacteria with me. Or do we have to partake in a ritual whereby I’m buried in a tomb with my intestinal bacteria?  Gav, the thing is, even within one religion, everyone has slightly different beliefs. It’s not just a yes/no situation. And what I’ve been seeing is a lot of yes/no. Something I found interesting was Douglas Hofstader’s opinion regarding some creatures have smaller souls than others. My original goal was to find out where the line was drawn, if any line is drawn. Later, my goal became to try and draw that line, which is how we got to zombies and vampires. Unfortunately, those two subjects get a lot of pop culture coverage, so in hindsight, they probably weren’t the best choice of example. Having phased back on to the subject of souls, some of you have made passing mentions of higher animals perhaps having souls, such as chimpanzees and elephants. I get the impression that most of you don’t think that dogs have souls. But then again, there are some rather intelligent dogs, who have shown displays of emotion. Is it possible for some individuals of a species to have souls and others to not? And does this give these individuals certain advantages in the life of the domestic dog? I’m going to conclude this by saying that there are probably a million ways I could have phrased this that would have each evoked a different response, yet each time be saying the exact same thing. Tone is extremely hard to convey over the internet, so I do sincerely apologize if I come across as rude or tactless, or if I offer a response that makes you think that I think you’re coming across as rude or tactless, if that made any sense. It took me quite a bit of time to write this, and I likely won’t post it until the end of the day in case I think of something later, so that I might avoid this sort of response. Good day. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2012 20:52:51 GMT -5
Sae, I recall something you said a while ago about individual bacteria having souls, but the cells that make up your body don’t. What about things like intestinal bacteria? I know that when I die, if it turns out that there is an afterlife, I want those bacteria with me. Or do we have to partake in a ritual whereby I’m buried in a tomb with my intestinal bacteria? A disembodied soul would not need those bacteria to be comfortable, since they only coexist together to keep the human body alive and the bacteria get a place to live. But if they're all disembodied, they have no reason to do this anymore. Those bacteria would have souls since they aren't building blocks of the body, if that's what your question was. |
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Post by Komori on Apr 23, 2012 20:57:24 GMT -5
If there's an afterlife, where a higher being has seen fit to give us new bodies, I'm pretty sure they've got the whole intestinal bacteria thing covered. Either we get new bodies that don't need that bacteria, or we get new bacteria with our new bodies. I don't see any particular reason why each bacteria would need a soul in order for us to have some in an afterlife. Like, I'm pretty sure there'll be plants in Heaven. Doesn't mean those plants have to be the same ones that are down here.
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Post by Gav on Apr 23, 2012 22:59:10 GMT -5
Yoyti, I think that in a sense, you made it seem like you were conducting an experiment, and people won't understand that in the beginning and they might get their feelings hurt when they find out, because it would seem like they were putting in honest discussion and you were treating it like a game. (Not saying that feelings were hurt or that that's what you were doing, but it can come across that way.) There is a concept of 'higher' animals, capable of what appears to be thought and reason, like apes and dolphins. Possibly what makes people have the idea of souls in one and not in another might be just personal appeal or how they look. We like the idea of ceteceans having them but not octopi, we sometimes like the idea of dogs and cats having them but not spiders, which can study the habits and instincts of other spiders and devise strategies to trap them for each individual prey. It's a little like the whole endangered species bit. People campaign to save polar bears, but not bugs. At least, that's how I see it, really. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 24, 2012 4:01:17 GMT -5
I can see how giving some animals souls but not others can reflect a bias on the part of the one talking. It's what I try to avoid if I ever think about animals and souls - how we decide to value some animals more than others can tend to be as much about whether we like them or not. And I don't want to base my beliefs on my being sentimental about things.
But the way I see it, the soul isn't merited by intellect... you don't need to pass an intelligence test to have a soul. Some humans are severely mentally disabled, incapable of doing things in their head that the rest of humanity takes for granted, but that doesn't mean they don't have a soul. And young children often seem to act more on instinct than rationally. But no matter how much intelligence you lack as a person, you can still have your soul.
The trouble with using intelligence to determine whether an animal has a soul or not is that it would often end up excluding some humans from the deal, if we were to apply the principle with uniformity and without bias. And I take issue with that.
So my thoughts are this: absolutely all human beings have souls, and only God knows if animals have souls, since the presence of the soul can't be determined by external factors like intelligence.
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Post by Yoyti on Apr 24, 2012 6:00:56 GMT -5
Gav, again, I apologize if I came off as disrespectful or ant other negative tone. I'm trying to keep my tone as neutral as I can.
Sae, do you think I would be responsible for genocide if I took antibiotics to get rid of harmful bacteria?
Komori, well, that was directed at Sae, but thank you for your answer anyway.
Pacmanite, well that's kind of interesting. I was operating under the previous assumption that a soul was tied directly to consciousness, and self-awareness seems likely to be directly related to the complex neural patterns which are also associated with intelligence. Humans have very large brains (bigger than elephant brains, even!), which makes us extremely intelligent compared to most other life on earth, hence, we are self aware. I'll think about this some more during the day, but for now, thank you for your answers.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Apr 24, 2012 7:23:08 GMT -5
Sarn, I assure you I have nothing against Christians, nor do I hold the assumption that Christians have something against me, but let’s be quite honest. We make assumptions about people every day, some big, some small. It’s an instinct which we probably got from when we were in hunter-gatherer societies. We would need to judge in an instant whether someone was a friend or foe. Those in our own clan/family, we’d recognize and instinctively trust, but strangers would likely be met in a less friendly manner. Even in a very mixed society, we still make judgements about those unfamiliar to us. Gosh, why on earth would people be making the assumption that you don't like Christians. Maybe it's because of that time you compared Christians doing good work to blackmail. Or the time you linked to this: It's not an off-the-cuff, split second evaluation. It's taking account of your previous actions, which have been incredibly hostile towards many of the people in this thread. Or maybe they remember the part where you said you had a problem with religion in general. |
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Post by Crystal on Apr 24, 2012 8:50:04 GMT -5
That link never fails to strike me as strangely hilarious. xDDD It's just so insanely, over-the-top offensive. I suppose I do know plenty of people who hold beliefs like that (or at least think them), but I've never actually seen it written down and linked to before. Anyway, on the belief that animals have souls... I have never thought seriously about it. I will do that today and see if I can write up a meaningful response. |
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Post by Stal on Apr 24, 2012 9:00:00 GMT -5
Yoyti, I'm going to level with you. Tone is somewhat hard, yes. But the choice of wording used and the language construction matters a lot in terms of the tone you convey. Instead of keeping your tone neutral (which in so doing opens it up to wide wide interpretations), maybe consider writing it in a way that conveys a friendlier tone.
You say you wish to learn? That you're looking for simply answers? Then ask your questions and do so with enthusiasm.
Your hostility here is well documented (as Teow just pointed out) and you're not even coming across as someone that wishes to learn. You're coming across as someone that wishes to ask question only to argue about them. If you really want to learn, you have to leave the hostile question asking behind (after all, you can't learn anything then because it is demonstrative of a closed mind). Approach it with a positive attitude and that tone will come out in your posts.
Gav, for example, has an incredibly positive and gentle tone in just about all of his posts. I don't think he has to "work" to convey that tone. It's just an extension of his mood and writing.
There are ways to make this a positive constructive experience, if that's really what you want it to be. But your history does speak against you, and your current method isn't exactly furthering your stated goals.
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Post by Poldon on Apr 24, 2012 12:45:12 GMT -5
I think...
When you love and care for another person, you are literally giving of yourself. They become a part of who you are, after a fashion, and you become a bit of them. Everything contributes to this.
If you love and care for a pet, or even a toy, you're investing yourself in it. You're giving it a life that it would not otherwise have. This would not mean that it now has a soul, but it is meaningful in such a way that it stays with you.
I believe there will be some form of the things we love in heaven, but I am unable to be sure just how.
Creation becomes reality in God's kingdom, and we are driven to create just as we were created. Perhaps pets and beloved toys will become reality too, then. I do not know.
I will say then when you invest yourself in anything, you're usually doing so in more than a physical sense. When you care enough to step in and help someone out, there's something greater and more wonderful happening.
God is love, and through love we get nearer to him.
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Post by Yoyti on Apr 24, 2012 18:38:29 GMT -5
Teow, I recall explaining that I never compared Christians doing good deeds to blackmail. My considerations on the subject led onto a tangent which led to thoughts about blackmail. Gav, I did not demand information as if there were none. My wording, I think stated clearly that I’d like Stal to start this topic, since if I were to start it, I’d get off topic for sure, citing how my train of thought led to blackmail as an example. If you’d like to see exactly what was going through my mind, I’ll put an approximation of it in a spoiler here.
First, I decided to think up some good things people have done because of religion. The first one that came to mind was the bishop in Les Miserables taking Valjean under his roof when no one else would. The next thing that came to mind was that this example was totally fictional. But then I decided that a fictional example would be a good start. Since Victor Hugo gave us a pretty clear understanding of what the bishop was like, there would be little room for disagreement on the details.
So the next thing I thought of was this: Maybe it would be hypocritical to judge something based only on the bad, but it would also be hypocritical to judge the good differently from the bad. That is, I should only accept good things as coming from religion if religion was the specific reason the person in question did the good thing. Into which category does the bishop fall? Victor Hugo doesn’t really give much insight on this topic, so I decided to assess each case separately.
If the bishop took in Valjean not primarily because he was a Christian, but because he was a good person, that is discounted much in the way I’ve agreed to discount wars in which religion was not the primary cause. If, on the other hand, it was primarily the bishop’s being a Christian that caused him to take in Valjean, that begs the question: Why? To quote Einstein, “If we do good only because we seek reward and fear punishment, then we are a sorry lot indeed.” The only incentive I see religion giving is reward/punishment. If the bishop did it because it made him feel good, then that falls into the first category, which I’ve already discounted.
But at the time, there was also a conversation about accountability going on, and I thought, “well who’s accountable for what in the case of a threat, much like the threat of hell?” I concluded that it depended on what the victim was being threatened with and what he was being threatened to do. If a man is having his life threatened unless he forges a letter, I’d say the man would be right to forge the letter, and then later to reveal the forgery. If a man is having his life threatened unless he kills someone, in general I’d say he shouldn’t go through with it, but it also leads into the topic of how do you put value on a life. I decided to let that drop.
Then I thought of another type of threat, blackmail. If someone is being blackmailed, they already feel guilty about something, and are accountable for that in the first place. There is the odd occasion where the blackmail is actually false, but then the person being blackmailed doesn’t have anything to fear. The person being blackmailed should be held accountable for whatever it is he’s being blackmailed for, provided the blackmail’s true, and if he caves to the blackmailer, he should be held accountable for trying to conceal it.
At this point, I realized I had gotten very much off topic and decided to let Stal make the first move.
Stal, actually, I think everything I wrote in the above spoiler is very much relevant here, except maybe the stuff about the threats and anything after that. I won’t deny that people have done good things specifically because of their religion, but that goes back to the Einstein quote. See, I never compared good deeds in the name of religion to blackmail (although I will admit to questioning its viability as a true good deed depending on the circumstances in which the good deed is committed). I linked to freethoughtpedia.com as I was departing the conversation so as to offer you some information. I did specify that I was not in complete agreement with everything that page said. Freethoughtpedia.com has delved much deeper into theology than I ever have, and it actually answers its own... forwardness. Freethoughtpedia.com, once you get past the forwardness, is actually a very insightful website, and I encourage you to check it out. Just don't let it get to you too much. And don't confuse what it says with what I say. To explain that last quote, I don’t have anything conscious against religion, but if I do have something subconscious against religion, that that is accounted for. So while we’re on this, let’s talk history.
I’m from a rather semi-religious Jewish family (excepting a strain of orthodox cousins whom I rarely saw, or even see now). My parents (really more my mother than my father) would send me to Hebrew school, we had and listened to the soundtrack of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (which occasionally got mixed with the soundtrack for The Mikado leaving me very confused until I started listening to Gilbert & Sullivan a few years ago). But religion was not a strict subject in my family. As a result, and because I was always encouraged to speak my mind, I was perfectly comfortable talking about religion.
Then, I think it was in first or second grade, I heard someone exclaim “Jesus Christ!” I asked what they had just said, and I kept on getting the god’s name wrong. He thought I was intentionally mocking him, and... well things didn’t turn out to well. I was left deeply confused.
So I asked my parents, and found out that Judaism isn’t the only religion. The subject pretty much dropped for a while. I learned about evolution, which I liked because it made sense, and I’ve always been fond of finches and tortoises. But then one day, someone in my Hebrew school class asked about evolution. I’d never seen both evolution and intelligent design in the same room before, and I panicked. The teacher went around the room asking each of us what we believed, and in my panic, I jumped onto the mostly empty boat saying that God put in place the organisms that started evolution. I wasn’t quite satisfied with that, but I was quite happy to have weaseled my way out of an awkward situation.
After thinking about it a while, I realized that my previous answer was unsatisfactory, because it would require rewriting the Torah. So which was it? Evolution or intelligent design? I settled on evolution and became a deist, asserting to myself that there must be a god, because the universe exists, and thus must have had a creator.
Then I learned about recursion. The lobby in my grandmother’s apartment building was redone, and one of the new design features was, by the elevators, mirrors on the adjacent walls. I was fascinated by the image of mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting mirrors. I later likened this to the concept of a first cause, in that, if there is a god, what created it? And what created the thing that created that god? You could say “God always has been,” but what if he wasn’t? What if the god that created God was the one who has always been? Why does there even need to be a god? Why can’t it be the universe (or great... quantum... bubble wrap... thing) that has always been? What is there that requires the existence of a god?
Somewhere around this point, I learned that one of my idols, Richard Feynman, was an atheist.
My grandmother died, pretty much cutting off connections to my father’s side of the family for a while (which was a shame since I’d recently learned that one of my uncles was a Hindu, and I wanted to learn about Ganesh, because I loved (and still love) elephants). For some time afterwards, I tried to contact my grandmother in heaven. Then I learned that Judaism does not involve heaven. I was disappointed, not only because my communication attempts were doomed to fail, but also because I had always been taught about heaven, and wondered how much of my religious learnings were actually in the religion?
I read into the Torah more, and after letting it stew for a while, I decided to define myself as an atheist. I confided this to some mates at Hebrew School, and I then learned about agnosticism. Since then, I have classified myself as an agnostic atheist. One who doesn’t believe in a god, but doesn’t think it’s possible to know for certain.
It took me two years before I told my parents, because, quite frankly, I was afraid. There was at least one copy of the Torah in every room in the house, and we had a collection of mezuzahs. The news went over reasonably well, but I was not allowed to tell my grandparents or those orthodox cousins I mentioned earlier. I went through with my bar mitzvah to appease my mother, and since then, I’ve been free from Judaism. Although, much to my annoyance, I still have to ask the four questions for the Passover Seder, since none of my cousins can read the Hebrew.
That’s my story with regards to religion. Make of that what you will. My conditioning as a child has led me to speak my mind. I never had to worry about sugar-coating what I thought. My close family didn’t mind if I asked why we go to synagogue on the sabbath (because going there involves work), so I assumed it was transferable to people not in my family. Tact is not second nature to me as it is to you (I was brought up with manners, but I never had a list of subjects which weren't okay to talk about (except the one about not asking a woman's age, because that was in half the books I read as a kid)). So I apologize if that bothers you, but it is not in my instinct to worry about offending people, because the people I grew up with didn’t get offended very easily. And I’ve been working on changing it, but my personality is rather solidified (I like to think of it as a newtonian fluid), so it may take a while. Stal, I'm glad you're leveling with me. I find myself uneasy when I feel that there is a tension in someone that involves me, if that last sentence made any sense. If you want me to leave the discussion, say so and I will. ~~~ Back to souls. Poldon, that’s a nice point of view. I can’t say I’ve ever met it before. Something that occurred to me today was this: If an embryo has a soul, can an embryo sin? Does an embryo inherit the sins of his/her ancestors, or does that wait until it’s born? What if it dies in utero? Just some things to think about while I focus on the slightly more pressing issue to me. *Glances at page and a half of text above* |
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Post by Stal on Apr 24, 2012 19:30:15 GMT -5
Not trying to cut you out. Making sure previous happenings don't reoccur, and giving you the advice on how to make it go better and best pursue your goals. As long as you stay civil and develop tact (whether it's second nature or not), you'll be good. We'll only have problems if problems arise. Else, take it as guidance.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Apr 24, 2012 21:06:13 GMT -5
Well, I have to say, if someone linked me Stormfront and told me it had some insightful things to say on it, I would think they were a racist. I spent some time on Freethoughtpedia and I came to the conclusion that it was a hateful, spiteful mess. Forwardness does not begin to cover it, and you do yourself a huge disservice by vetting for it.
Not just most wars, but most death[/]?! I'd love to hear how religion plays a role in SIDS, heart attacks, natural disasters, etc.
Saying that you're not in complete agreement implies that you are in partial agreement, and when you do not specify what exactly you are agreeing with, it makes it look like you agree with pants-on-head ridiculous statements like the above.
At the very least, it would be in your best interest to learn how to be a little more selective in your sources, or to present them more clearly.
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Post by Gav on Apr 24, 2012 22:29:06 GMT -5
Well, now I feel all fuzzy inside. In any case, I think that if that tangent is over, it could be a good idea to focus back on the discussion rather than going back and forth about the past, if Yoyti is alright with keeping it civil. I wouldn't want this to get any more personal than it already is. In regards to the embryo, I'd have thought it'd be fairly obvious. (Well, to me, anyway) Disregarding the earlier discussion as to when one gets a soul, if one hypothetically did, I see no reason why it would inherit the sins of its parents, just as much as a son of a robber wouldn't have actually robbed a house, or a son of a fireman actually put out fires. Nor do I see how it could possibly sin while as an embryo. Does a guy in a coma sin while he's in it? Unless you mean if the mother dies in childbirth, but I wouldn't even say that's it's fault; you can't really blame anyone for that in good conscience, except maybe the mother's body, but that just seems tactless. |
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Furgo 
Michael. 
