Do liberals have a soul?

Religion and Secularism
1

I believe it’s quite possible that at the root of the inability of Liberals, Rationalists, children of the 'intellectual enlightenment" to successfully confront Republican Religious Right propaganda and bulldozer tactics

is because progressives, “atheists”, ect who have put “God” aside often think that means having to put their inner “Faith” and one’s own “Soul” aside. (Soul, that inner voice and those feelings that seem to come from someplace else)

The scientific observation fact based world was too successful in compartmentalizing everything and lost sight of the web of life with its infinite interconnections and interdependences flowing down the cascade of time.

My life has gone at things from the other direction. I started clueless except that I knew the political/economic (priorities) world around me never added up. The promises and assurances never quite added up. Early on i committed myself to learning through experience. Which of course includes a lot of reading and listening and paying attention to what great minds have learned and shared. But also paying attention to one’s day, good and bad, as they flow by.

Now coming out at 65 and looking at the nation around me with its isolated lost, and masses of confusion out there - I see that my internal math was correct and that I was wise to go my own way.

What do I have for the effort? A faith in this Earth, the flow of time and myself, that includes and understanding of where I came from. The bloodline and how that really and truly ties into the rest of humanity once we learn to appreciate the Evolutionary and Human Drama upon this planet that created us. I have a visceral appreciation for DeepTime coming and going and for my little moment on this stage. I know that I have lived a life of freedom and good fortunate that is truly rare among the human misery of the past ages.

The Bible told me to, Ask. Ye shall receive.

And so it was, I have seen the burning bush and experienced the breath of God against my back. When I hear talkers preaching about God while pickpocketing, I see right through their dishonest filthy souls, yeah like Jesus in the temple with the sellers/buyer if we want to get grandiose about it. When some offer their thoughtless mantra, God Bless You - I want to ask, who are you silly human to presume to bestow God’s Blessing! What do you really know of God? Why not just wish me well. I do know God and appreciate that no human can speak for God.

For I know God resided within my Mindscape, which is housed inside my head, inside this body experiencing the life that has come my way. That life has unfolded upon the plane of Physical Reality - in the full awareness that my perceptions are limited and can never grasp the whole of it. I find no problem with that. I do the best I can with what I have, and so far so good. :slight_smile:

 

The Republican God is a petty Demi-God - The God Of Human Ego and Avarice.

Petty as petty gets, fearful, resentful, violent, hateful, in the end always destructive to all it touches.

 

If more liberals had paid attention to their Evolution lessons and the wondrous discoveries scientists have been making and refining, especially during the past half century of our own life times. We became so educated, but learned little, never figured out how to integrated it into our own lives and spirits. Forgot all about ENLIGHTENED SELF-INTEREST, CRITICAL THINKING, CONSTRUCTIVE DEBATES.

Never learned to appreciate DeepTime, Evolution, our moon and Earth, our biosphere, biological diversity, our dependence on “Mother Nature.” Few have viscerally grasped Deep Time, that’s our loss. It leaves too many so insecure that anytime a Republican waves their God Flag, they retreat. Why? The Republican God is nothing but the God of Ego and Greed and utterly destructive.

Why can’t we say it out loud?

 

An appreciation for DeepTime, when tied together with a deep awareness of Evolution instills a SPIRITUAL STABILITY, strength of inner soul and spirit in the face of life and death. It gives everyone something to work with.

that all the endless “Praise The Lord I’m Saved” mantras can’t touch.

 

(Why was it all so ignored is what I keep wondering. Yeah the party. But I liked the party too. Why did it have to lead to such crazy never ending excess, topped by ever insaner excess that ignored all necessary moving part to the economic organism. (Why not more of the Joe Walsh Syndrome - a man who knew a good thing when he saw it and then preserved and extended and enjoyed it while it lasted.)

 

 

 

 

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(Soul, that inner voice and those feelings that seem to come from someplace else)
Do you mean a conscience? Most of us have a conscience. None of us has a personal essence that lives beyond our death.

I dare say the consciences of liberals are more active than those of conservatives. But neither has an immortal soul.

4

“Deep Time” – Yeah that is a concept that evolution-deniers cannot fathom.

5

Of course liberals have a “soul”, its just a very milquetoast version of one.

6

Oneguy, it’s your delusional belief that people have “souls” so I guess your delusion can include milktoast versions of the fiction for people you don’t agree with.

7

Tim where the hell did I say anything about an immortal soul?

Can you really tell me you’ve never had thoughts or inspirations or brainstorms that seem like they could not have come from within yourself. Earth talking to you, your experience making subconscious connection, of course never in a void all way itself.

I’m talking about the kind of inner soul that offer’s strength in the face of a Christian phony preaching about power and EGO and they mistake for some God almighty. But we are too insecure - that’s the lack of soul I’m hinting at…

 

 

As for that guy, all I can think is don’t you shut you obnoxious idiot. You and your perfection of the art of ridicule to derail all thoughtful discussion get’s really old. f’n destruction is all your side has to offer humanity, suck on a rock.

8

Yeah Lausten a little rock’n rock to loosen us up a little.

 

cheers

9

Tim, would you like it any better if I trashed the “soul” word altogether stuck to Spiritual Strength.

Yeah, how about:

WHY DON'T LIBERALS HAVE THE "SPIRITUAL STRENGTH" TO STAND UP TO THE REPUBLICAN GOD OF EGO AND GLUTTONY?
10

If one uses the term “soul” as a metaphor for some inner workings, (e.g., “…thoughts or inspirations or brainstorms that seem like they could not have come from within yourself…”, fine, poetic license. But the term “soul” in our society usually refers to the supernatural version. What I questioned you about was when you said it was when you described it as “that inner voice and those feelings that seem to come from someplace else”.

I simply asked if you meant the “conscience” because that is what I would call “that inner voice and those feelings that seem to come from someplace else”.

I cannot help it that liberals tend to be pussies. I can only model being a liberal dick to the useless rightist dicks.

11

I was flipping through a book by Frank Schaeffer, wherein he fails miserably at coming up with a new type of theology that mixes science and religion.

He ends with the idea that love predated creation. It gets worse, I’ll save that for now. The way I see it, love was created at the Big Bang, when time came into being. At that moment, things could end, so everything became precious and temporal. Hydrogen did what it did to survive, and when it was fizzling out, became something else, then stars, then us. What makes us a little special is we have language, so we call it something, spirit if you want, but it’s all from that drive, to exist as long as we can.

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I don’t think “love” started before there were organisms who could experience feelings. I don’t even think that it was among the first of the emotions to exist in organisms. I think that it developed along with the development of social animals, who need to protect and support each other, to some extent, in order to survive as a species.

13

Certainly not the kind of love we as humans experience. I’m not using the word in the way it is commonly used or even in how it was originally conceived in human minds. But we’re not talking about normal things here, we’re talking about souls. I’m comparing people saying “God is love” to reality. As Robert Ingersoll said, “Love is a flower that grows at the edge of a grave”. We have this emotion that is a feeling not just of liking, not just of getting an endorphin hit or a hormone surge, but of feeling attached to something because it seems to be connected to our whole life. It’s a feeling that doesn’t just want some short term satisfaction, but wants something that lasts forever, wants something to be true because it’s permanent, something that isn’t just consumed, but can be held and generate warmth and a sense of peace. That feeling would never have developed in something that existed infinitely and only experienced change as a curiosity, instead of something with a beginning and an end.

14

A feeling from our pre-verbal days, when we were suckled and cared for delicately and safely by someone who cared for us?

That’s pretty much it. Idk how a flower on the side of a grave fits in the discussion. But if you wish to be so poetic as to assume that there is such a thing as a “soul”, something that is our essence, but is not part of our physical existence, then I suppose you can wax on poetically about the emotion of love, also having some supernatural quality.

I don’t buy it.

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Wax on poetically is what people do, :wink: and I Lausten did a pretty good job there.

You’re objections to the use of the word Soul have been registered.

Guess we all have to pick our battle, and I’m tending to agree with you the “soul” isn’t that place, so I’ll be more calculating with my word choice next time.

How’s, Our Living Spirit, sound to you?

My mom used to tell us about some great German author who really loved kids, so when they buried him he asked that an apple be placed in his mouth. Sure enough a great apple tree grew there that children were welcomed to climb and eat apples off of, if they timed it right. Now that sounds like true love to me. :slight_smile:

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Of course liberals have a “soul”, its just a very milquetoast version of one.
Then of course, there are those who seem only possessed by fear, anger, resentment and an internal need to create enemies and to destroy what others have achieved.

Being a cheap vandal is so much more easier than being a thoughtful builder.

17

Poetry is fine. It can enhance our reality. But I think we must take care to insure that it does not replace a clear-eyed view of reality. I enjoy romantic tales. And I enjoy and appreciate many of the various ways that we express our natural feelings. But if it’s up to me (though clearly it’s not) I am not allowing the lie of something supernatural to leak in to obfuscate truth of our collective reality. Even if it is a beautiful sounding lie.

I can distinguish between fiction that effects me on an emotional level. It can inspire. It can excite. It can make life more enjoyable, and so forth. But fiction is not reality.

Apparently a substantial portion of my fellow Americans, cannot distinguish fiction from reality.

You call something a soul or you say something is spiritual, and most people are going to be thinking you are referring to something supernatural. If you can get around that problem, go for it. Because we DO need to express that basic part of ourselves that is emotions.

 

 

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Oneguy says liberals have a milk toast soul. He just means that liberals have an immortal soul, as he believes every one has a soul. He just wants to add, in his own way, that liberals are pussies, even in their immortal souls.

However, there is no immortal soul for anyone, milk toast flavored or otherwise.

But if we are going to play the game of fiction, and pretend that conservatives have souls, I would say that they, for the most part, have lizard souls.

19

I didn’t say anything about the supernatural did I? If you can define “love” without being poetic, I’d say you accomplished something.

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And did I say anything about poetry being precluded?

I actually said “Poetry is fine.”

Speak about love all you want. I like it. Speak poetically.

I am just saying that when discussing “souls” which are commonly understood to be immortal entities, it is important that we distinguish that such things do not exist. Unless you are content to let others commonly assume that you do believe in the supernatural.