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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 22, 2012 10:16:33 GMT -5
A vampire that wanted an active role within the church would be pretty tragic, since according to a lot of legends they can't actually enter one. In Dracula the Eucharist burned like any other religious icon, so communion would not only be difficult, but probably fatal. Poor religious vampires. Question then - what about a Charismatic church that rented a theatre on Sundays? It's not a designated church building, and there are no crucifixes. No holy icons. Just preaching, music, prayer, tithing... and there would have to be the occasional Eucharist/communion, I guess, but that's about it. Would a vampire be able to stand that? Or is the mere gathering of believers on Sunday in itself a holy kind of thing? I lol when I think of a vampire making a really good Charismatic Christian... :'D |
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 22, 2012 9:49:50 GMT -5
But pretty much, yeah, no zombies. I think even the translators back then had no idea what a zombie was. I'm pretty sure the ancient Roman's didn't know what a house was, but they knew what a domus was. A zombie is just a reanimated corpse. I pointed out a reanimated corpse passage to segway into this discussion. That is all. Now this is just getting ridiculous, but what about vampires? I'm not sure how much vampires are a part of Christianity, but Christianity is a big part of vampirism. They are also the walking dead, but they are much more intelligent than zombies. And about Jesus, well, I would call him a zombie, but he never stayed alive after his "ressurection." he died again shortly after. Right? I don't think that Jesus' ascension into heaven after his resurrection counts as a death, though. There was a guy in the Old testament who didn't die - Enoch, his name was - because one day God decided to just literally lift him up into heaven. He didn't leave a dead body behind. Neither did Jesus. So Jesus and Enoch are essentially living bodily in heaven... or at least that's how I see it. Vampires... I don't know what to say about them because they vary so much between fictional universes. And I haven't really read many stories about them. Except, shamefully, Twilight. xD I wouldn't know what would become of a vampire or what you should do with a vampire unless I could get answers to all of these questions: - Do they have a soul? If "no" - then how are you sure?
- Can they continue to live without causing the death of a human being? (Are they a predator of humans, or simply a parasite?)
- If they can exist without killing, do they have the moral reasoning capacity to choose not to kill?
- Do they have enough self-restraint which enables them not to kill (if they really try to exercise it)?
Basically, I'm fine with vampires as long as they don't have to kill people to survive. And in the case that they can live and let live, I'd be willing to believe that they could probably get salvation too. Because I can't see how anyone could prove that a vampire is soulless. I mean, you can't even prove that a human has a soul. And if they have an intelligent mind like a person, they can understand things like forgiveness and faith. And I doubt that Jesus would withdraw his kindness and grace from a willing believer simply because he or she had the body of a vampire. ((I think it was in Twilight that I heard the argument "vampires are immortal, so they don't get to go to heaven," but that was silly because in Twilight if you hate a vampire you can kill it by burning it. And there is no way that a vampire which can die by being burned will live for infinity, because sooner or later the sun is going to become a red giant and consume the earth. Or at least they're going to get burned up in some kind of catastrophe. So, essentially I think every vampire is just as mortal as anyone else, because accidental and violent deaths are going to have to happen to everyone if natural causes won't kill them. So they all need to deal with death.)) But I reckon a lot of accounts of vampires in fiction seem to make them act like real people internally, the only difference being that they just have to deal with violent cravings because they're vampires. (but don't a lot of humans have that too?). When a vampire's like that, I don't care how sparkly/pale/fanged they look, they're essentially human in vampire costume. Now if it were the case that the vampires were amoral, found it impossible to grasp the idea of ethics, could not survive without killing, could not prevent themselves from going on a killing spree every time they were tempted, then I would say such a creature lacks proper free will and can't be allowed to live when the inevitable consequence of it continuing to live is the deaths of many. It would be like a crazed antisocial pitbull which has killed several people and is going to kill more. It should be put down, for mercy's sake. But if there was any slightest indication that vampires could act like humans and choose to live moral lives, I would much rather find a way to "rehabilitate" them and find a place for them in society than dare to kill what may well be a real person. I'd even encourage them to take up positions in church, if they're inclined to the faith, although taking communion could be difficult...  EDIT: Actually I want to revise my position on killing vampires who kill. I find it hard to get a distinction between a vampire and a really, really mentally unstable person. And even if they are irrational and amoral, I can't quite be sure that they don't still have their souls, and the soul is just dormant. So I would advocate putting them in some kind of protective custody. In practice it would be a bit like a cross between a prison and a mental home, and I'm sure it'd be expensive. So it might not be possible to do things that way if there was a sudden plague of vampirism spreading around quickly. But if the cases were isolated, I'd want to err on the side of caution and not let there be a state-sanctioned kill of undesirable people. I think if vampirism happened in real life, I'd find it very difficult to accept that the vampires were really "inhuman", instead of more like "changed humans". |
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 16, 2012 20:52:46 GMT -5
Hmmm...
I've been wanting to believe that the soul enters the baby at conception, because to me that's the clearest cut-off moment for when a baby is definitely not a baby, versus when it might probably be. At least at that moment all the genetic material is in one spot and has come together and created a unique creature. But I've found a conundrum. Identical twinning.
I read that for the first 14 days after conception, if the embryo is split into two pieces, it will form identical twins. It happens, we all know. And theoretically, within that window of time, even a doctor could deliberately cut an embryo in two and make two people where possibly there had been one. That I find very disturbing...
Because if the soul entered the body at the moment of conception, what happens to the soul of the embryo when it splits apart and forms identical twins? Can splitting a body split the soul? Can two people really be made from one person? Do they have two identical souls? Do they share the same soul? (I doubt that) Or does one twin (maybe the bigger piece) get the original soul, and the other gets given another soul?
I know there's been a lot of people saying that identical twins can have telepathy with each other, but the experience of identical twins I have met has generally led me to believe that they are not aware of each other's thoughts. To my knowledge there hasn't been a serious study which could prove that twins have a special connection. Doesn't mean that there necessarily isn't some kind of connection which just isn't that obvious, but if it were something as fundamental as sharing a soul, I would think that it would show. But it seems clear that the twins I have met are separate people with separate lives, that each one counts individually as a person in their own right. No one would dare argue that killing two twins is the same as killing one person.
At present, the only answers that seem to make sense to me are a) the soul is granted at conception and the twin-splitting event either duplicates the soul or creates a new one; or b) for 14 days after conception the embryo does not have a soul or at least not a solidified, stable soul.
Buuuuttt then the other question to ask is whether you need a soul to be alive, because if animals might not have souls, they could still be considered alive. Their bodies, at least, are alive.
So then the question could go back to physical factors - and I could return to my original position, that what is genetically human and forms a discrete 'body' should be considered human. The fact that it grows more and more body-like differentiates it from mere organ tissue, which stays only a part of the greater whole. I definitely don't agree that an unborn baby at full term should be considered not alive, since it has all the same amount of matter as a newborn baby. And I don't like the idea that a body could come alive at some hazy, unspecified time in between early and late stages of pregnancy, because all throughout that time it has been developing gradually and each of the stages resembles the stages just before and after. So the only moment I can see which is dramatic enough to draw a line between alive and not-alive, in terms of physical features, would be the moment of conception.
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 16, 2012 19:01:51 GMT -5
omg my hair is so soft. *pats it* The shampoo I bought and the routine of washing every other day is realllllyyy working. I remember when I first arrived in London my hair was so coarse feeling. But now I'm just like sitting here stroking my hands over the top of my head because it's like silk to the touch. Silk and bunnies.
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 16, 2012 4:26:15 GMT -5
I believe that the soul - by which I mean the immortal and innermost part of a person's being - entered humanity when God breathed it into the first man. I'm inclined to believe that the other animals, while they sometimes do have thoughts and feelings, and can be capable of logical reasoning, didn't get this immortal breath implanted in them, and so did not get a soul.
I haven't really studied/thought very far into it, so as I mature I might get a different take on this. But at the moment I imagine humans as possessing three layers - the body, the mind, the soul. The mind contains both feelings and thoughts, and although it is tied quite firmly to the physical properties of the body (it feels pain and gets depressed in response to chemicals), it is also closely intermingled and attached to the soul. It is very difficult to cleave the mind from the soul.
Only the body dies at the death of a human. The soul, the immortal part, survives, and since mind is so closely attached to it, it goes wherever the soul goes.
I would say that animals have only a body and a mind. So when the body dies, there is no way for the mind to continue to exist by itself, because there is nothing permanent for it to attach onto. So, it just perishes. It only existed in response to physical stimuli. The mind has finished its function, it vanishes when there is no more for it to do.
Admittedly, though, I'm not entirely sure that God didn't breathe a kind of soul into the animals. It might have just been given less emphasis because the bible is meant for humans to read. "Let all that has breath praise the Lord" kind of implies that animals can worship, although this could be a rhetorical figure. It's not completely clear-cut.
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 6, 2012 4:44:49 GMT -5
Thank you so much for the birthday wishes, everyone. <3 I had a truly wonderful day, and you all made it that much more special.  |
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 31, 2012 18:33:05 GMT -5
Yeahhh it was awesome! It really brightened my weekend to hang out with you lovely peoples.
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 30, 2012 13:38:54 GMT -5
Is everyone excited for this? And I think there should be another PM going around, shouldn't there? I got one of them a while ago and it said that there would be another sent around, for contact info/facebook/pictures, but I haven't received any messages after that and I wonder if anyone else has. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 12, 2012 20:33:54 GMT -5
"What's he mad at?"
"I'm just kidding, he just sees you."
"AUGHH!"
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 5, 2012 6:20:45 GMT -5
Oops, I'm even later (ahaha I'm always late to birthday wishes these days ;  . But I hope you had a wonderful time and best wishes Thundy! |
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 2, 2012 17:19:24 GMT -5
Joel has excellent taste, because he chose a Latin phrase for his username on neo. And it's nice to see his posts around the forum, he shares something witty or happy when the occasion demands. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 1, 2012 20:15:42 GMT -5
Just a quick note - I checked the schedule for the Jubilee Market at Covent Garden, and the antiques market is only there on Mondays. (On Saturdays and Sundays there's the arts and crafts market, which is also nice to stroll around). But yeah, lots to do and see around Covent Garden. I love that place.
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 1, 2012 17:53:37 GMT -5
Hahaha I'm so late too. But I want to wish you all the best and a happy belated birthday Stal! |
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Post by Pacmanite on Mar 1, 2012 7:17:52 GMT -5
I love Covent Garden. They have a most lovely pie shop there. And on certain days they have a market where people sell their family heirloom type antique-y things. Like a mini Antique's roadshow. I need to check when that's on, because it's fun to wander around looking at old stuff. In any case, I like museums and galleries too. And parks, as long as the weather is mild. |
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Post by Pacmanite on Feb 17, 2012 18:23:12 GMT -5
*Hugs*
It's funny, just the other day I was thinking of how I don't get many hugs nowadays. Living away from family for the first time and all. But it sure is nice to know you're here... with your hugs... =D
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. But I hope you had a wonderful time and best wishes Thundy!