I was talking about the selling points of Pauline Christianity at the time the NT was being put together. It was also used in the late 1800 and early 1900’s. Egyptian idealism of a pure body in heaven was being sold as part of the early Christion religion. Today the Catholic Church’s view when pressed hard for an answer is that in heaven, you’re a mist. Like vapor. You have no need for a body. Today most of the Christian I know will go along with a glorious hale body in heaven.
That’s an issue: if the soul is immaterial, why would it need a body? And why the resurrection of the bodies at the end of the times?
Because a body is what produces our mind, which is where our sense of a “soul” resides.
The answer to that for the church was most likely what was the general historical belief. The spirit was around long before gods. Everything was made from stardust. To honor a person. You burnt the person so the spirit could be in the air. Thus, the stardust of the person was among the people to be remembered. Egypt used the spirit without the stardust and kept the bodies. But the Pauline Christianity was being pushed by the northern areas which still had some levels of reincarnation and levels of heaven. The southern areas had Gnostic Christianity. Which was completely different. What the common factor was a ruler that was going to cut off their heads if they couldn’t merge. Before the job was complete. The ruler died and the job was never finished.
[quote="
citizenschallengev4, post:43, topic:10626"]
Because a body is what produces our mind, which is where our sense of a “soul” resides.
[/quote]
I agree with you, but a Christian would not and I was just underlying an inconsistency in their belief.
1 Like
- still you know me, I believe this concept belongs to the question asked.
I know some consider it a distraction, but ya know reality is reality, so I can’t see it as a distraction, I see it more like a reminder.
Also Morgan, please be sure, I’m not trying to knock anything you said. I think you’re one of the refreshing voices around here, and have gained a good deal of respect for your commentary - so please don’t misunderstand my motivations. 
1 Like
So, what happens to the soul when it leaves its residence? Is heaven a kind of motel when your soul can stay overnight?
But on a more serious note. The soul is a product of active thinking, creating memories stored in the brain. When the brain dies it will no longer generate thoughts.
So what is a soul that it can reside in your brain and when you die it can transfer to what?
For me, the answer lies in electricity.
Once a dynamo stops moving it stops producing electricity.
No one wonders what happened to the electricity. It’s simply no longer produced.
Once a living creature dies, it’s soul (read biological “electricity”) stops being produced.
It gets absorbed back into the ALL.
Our mind doesn’t want to die just as much as the body doesn’t want to die,
so that demands we find a place for it to reside after our body dies.
But that’s simply a figment of our imagination and insecurity about being a transient Being, that’s going to disappear from this Earth.
I fully agree
The idea is to mock the believers
[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:48, topic:10626”]
For me, the answer lies in electricity.
But electricity can be measured and when the body dies electrical activity ceases and homeostasis stops, except for out symbionts, who will eat the body and convert its biochemical structure altogether.
Once a dynamo stops moving it stops producing electricity.
No one wonders what happened to the electricity. It’s simply no longer produced.
[/quote]
But when the dynamo stops all electricity has been consumed by the light bulb and the bulb goes dark. That’s where the elctricity goes. It gets used as heat.
They measured that during dying the body loses a small but measurable amount of weight, but that turned out to be caused by “loss of heat”, not electricity.
What, are you thinking? I’m not implying the “Soul” is something discreet that can be measured.
Soul and mind are pretty synonymous in my thoughts.
Well, “thoughts” propagating through the mind can be imaged. Think about it, those images are basically measurements.
Dec 14, 2018
Dr Just shows us the latest research on using fMRI machines to read
thoughts. Patterns in brain activity can be correlated to images and
more complex concepts independent of language and person using Machine Learning. Even emotions and semantic elements have surprisingly universal representations in the brain. With these tools, we can develop more effective ways of teaching and perhaps tackle mental illness. …
Also, what I’m talking about a mind experiment and not a lab top experiment. (Body dies, thoughts dies, soul dies.) It’s about the reasonableness of environment/circumstances, senses and bodies and neurobiology creating thoughts. (without any metaphysical help)
How could any creature prosper without having a sense of itself? (which isn’t the same thing as being “aware” of itself) So we’re the most complex and advanced, we’re still part of the same spectrum.
Yes, but in a dynamic environment, memories get scrambled. It’s like the difference between engraving your name on a wedding ring forever, or writing your name in a water puddle. The memory wouldn’t last but a fraction of a second and would be irreversible. This falls under the laws of Laminar or Turbulent flow.
It’s clear that the “laminar flow” lends itself to reversal.
David Bohm demonstrated that under ideal conditions memories may be conserved in a non-chaotic environment, but how does that translate in the abstract? Laminar flow?