glintofpewter Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 Jenell, That may the point of Paul's story but not mine. In the problem of the evolution of the soul one has to consider if it has always been there or if it evolved or changed over time. What the story about hydrogen suggests to me is that there is elemental metaphysical "stuff" that has always been available. Like hydrogen it does not need to change to be part of the growing complexity of evolution. It is too concrete to provide any more than a mental picture, one story of many. Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted February 24, 2012 Share Posted February 24, 2012 God is whatever all those protons and neutrons and other sub-atomic stuff are made of? A simple description of pantheism I think. If I were forced to choose I am a panentheist so this is not for me. Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Dutch, Ok, re-reading your reasoning, I see what you are saying. I'd have to agree with that. As the Word (the Logos..Christ?) was with God, the Word was God...from the beginning... Jenell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Jenell, Yes. If we remember that all things were created through the Word (Christ) and that the Word of God is love ... then from the Big Bang onward, in every quark and every photon in every hydrogen atom and in everything that’s emerging, and in the whole evolutionary universe is that Word of love being incarnated. Ilia Delio, Franciscan Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Somehwere along the line discussion switched from 'soul' to 'God'. Is there a difference? My point was only to Dutch's conclusion that hydrogen has always been with us - it hasn't. It was a product of the Big Bang. But of course, if God was the Big Bang which created hydrogen, then feasibly that could have been the creation of the soul (providing of course that God didn't have a soul or was of a different nature to our soul because 'soul' as hydrogen was yet to be created. Just to be clear, are you two saying that the Word (the Logos..Christ?) is the soul, or is God? If it's the soul (hydrogen) then it wasn't with God and couldn't have been God in the beginning, because it didn't exist simultaneously with God the Big Bang. It was a product of the Big Bang. For God to be 'the beginning' God would have had to exist prior to the Big Bang wouldn't s/he/it? Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 what exactly is the soul? I believe that it is a car driven by dancing rodents. NORM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 First, I am not going to be logical; I look for stories that make sense for me. In another thread i had raised the question of whether the soul could have evolved with us. In thinking about hydrogen, which is sometimes used to emphasize are deep connection in evolution (see Michael Dowd and others), I realized that it could be used as way of thinking about the soul if I chose to do so. Like hdrogen the soul is always present in the same form an unchanged element like hydrogen. Hydrogen is handy because it is something most people know. If I chose one of the named particles or energies earlier in the Big Bang process it would be require too much explaining. I think that First Cause arguments take us down a dark hole for no purpose - well I shouldn't say that because some here believe in Uncaused Mover or other ways to stop the relentless First Cause logic. One way I would tell the story What is now began with the desire for relationship, that is all. To have relationship what was had to became two. Nothing more. No concepts of love, or good or evil. Nothing like God or us. One of the two is us, the universe, the second is the Other, wholly other. The Other has been called Ultimate Reality, Source of all, Ground of Being and so on. Over the millennia the two have evolved. Currently our highest value is love or compassion. It is appropriate to say at this point in evolution that God is love. In this relationship is held all that was as possibilities for the next moment. In the next moment is also the possibility that something new or novel will emerge. Well that is one way I would tell the story today Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 First, I am not going to be logical; I look for stories that make sense for me. In another thread i had raised the question of whether the soul could have evolved with us. In thinking about hydrogen, which is sometimes used to emphasize are deep connection in evolution (see Michael Dowd and others), I realized that it could be used as way of thinking about the soul if I chose to do so. Like hdrogen the soul is always present in the same form an unchanged element like hydrogen. Hydrogen is handy because it is something most people know. If I chose one of the named particles or energies earlier in the Big Bang process it would be require too much explaining. I think that First Cause arguments take us down a dark hole for no purpose - well I shouldn't say that because some here believe in Uncaused Mover or other ways to stop the relentless First Cause logic. One way I would tell the story What is now began with the desire for relationship, that is all. To have relationship what was had to became two. Nothing more. No concepts of love, or good or evil. Nothing like God or us. One of the two is us, the universe, the second is the Other, wholly other. The Other has been called Ultimate Reality, Source of all, Ground of Being and so on. Over the millennia the two have evolved. Currently our highest value is love or compassion. It is appropriate to say at this point in evolution that God is love. In this relationship is held all that was as possibilities for the next moment. In the next moment is also the possibility that something new or novel will emerge. Well that is one way I would tell the story today Dutch I don't know if First Cause arguments do take us down a dark hole for no purpose, Dutch. It seems to me that many discoveries were made in the face of people saying it can't be done, there is no point questioining that, the sun revolves around the earth, etc. Perhaps one day with science we may take the Big Bang further back in time. Perhaps eventually we may discover First Cause even though our current science and way of thinking doesn't know how that might be possible. Stories that make sense to an individual are great for that individual but obviously what makes 'sense' to one person might make no sense to another. Hence debate and dialogue I guess. My logical brain kicks in because the alternative is unsatisfactory to me. Consepts such as 'ultimate reality' and 'what was, desiring relationship' make no sense to me without logic. But I accept that that is just me, others have different ways of thing, different experiences with things clicking into place for them. If hydrogen deosn't work for me as a way of explaining the soul or god, then I will seek another, or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Hate to complicate this, but...one of you is talking about The Word, The Logos, Christ....the other 'countering' with wanting Logic... uh, you do know "Logic" means pertaining to, language of, the "Logos?" Jenell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Yes, Jenell, but evolution of the words may mean that they are only distant relatives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Yes, sometimes it does. Not in this case, however. The relation of "logic" to "logos" is more readily accessable and immediately aparant if you look at 'logos' (common) and 'Logos' (Divine Logos) in the Greek meaning and usage. Christians raised with exposure to and experience with the use of "Logos" translated as "the Word" in the gospel of John, and subsequently, as interpreted and used at almost all levels of common Christian doctrine and teaching are generally going to have some real difficulties with the beliefs and understandings they've had about "The Word" if/when they ever actually make a serious study of meanings and usage of logos/Logos in ancient/biblical Greek. While I had read some on Greek meaning and usage of logos/Logos, mainly through Christian religious sources, some more or less 'enlightened' about it themselves, before I took a freshman course in kione/biblical Greek, I honestly didn't have a clue to the actual and complex and often ambiguous meanings of logos/Logos as used in Greek. It was not only me previous notions about this word that really threw me for loops when I took that very elementary intro level course in Greek, but the encounter with a challenge inherent in any effort to interpret or translate Greek to English. One of the profound 'lessons' I learned was that such descriptive claims so often printed upon bibles as "transliteration from the Greek" or "word for word translation from the orginal tongues" aren't just misleading, they are downright lies! The lack of even the possiblity of any 'word for word' translation from the Greek to English begins with there being no such direct translation of words, so few Greek words that have any even close English equivalent, and is compounded in that most Greek words can have so many different 'meanings,' there is so much ambiguity in how many words might be translated, much dependent upon context and sometimes very subtle elements in surrounding text any may be set within. That element extends well beyond any one 'sentence' as context, to the entire body of text within which the word is set. The Greek contains many grammatic forms, conjugations of verbs, declensions of nouns, and other grammatical elements, we donot have in English and are therefore quite unaccustomed to. And of course, 'sentence' itself problematic since there was no punctuation used in the Greek, all the punctuation we take for granted, setting for us boundaries of sentences and parts of sentences in biblical text, are by later translation efforts outside the orginal Greek texts. My tiny intro to Greek "made real" for me what I've heard even the most extensively studied/learned in any forms of ancient/kione/biblical/Aramaic Greek....that even the best efforts of the most learned result in translations that must be considered 'tentative' at best. Actually, "logos/Logos" might itself be an excellent thread topic here. Study of especially 'Logos", or 'The Divine Logos', really opens up some new directions of thought as any might seekto interpet and understand it's use in the gospel of John. Jenell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeorgeW Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Robert Wright, in The Evolution of God, discussed 'logos' is some depth, particularly in connection with Philo, the first-century Jewish philosopher/theologian. He says: "The word was both a part of everyday Greek speech and a technical term in Greek philosophy [. . .] by the time ancient philosophers got thorough with it, it come to have lots of meanings, such as 'reason' and 'order' [. . .] Philo's Logos was . . . the reasoning principle in universe and Natural Law for all men and matter [. . .] But, Philo's Logos had a divine depth that mere laws of science lack [. . .] The logos . . . had in Philo's view given history a direction - in fact, a moral direction: history moved toward the good. George Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 In a course I took, 'Science and Religion,' it was interesting to examine how it was actually the combining of some key elements developed within Judaism with those of Greek thought as they came together in the formation of Christianity out of which scientific thought emerged, or even became possible. The concept of a single, monotheistic creator and deity as arose most clearly defined within Judaism challenged both ideas of humans and the natural world as being merely accidental, having come about and existing as nothing more than random, disordered chance, and common religious ideas of pantheons of rivaling gods and other 'celestial' personalities making any predictabiltiy or reliablity of anything impossible, since at any giventime or situation, who knows which god or other entity is going to win out over another or is playing what games of subterfuge and deception and intrigue upon another and/or mankind, for the mere sport of it. However, Judaism's monotheistic God was himself unreliable and unpredictable, subject to human-like whims and emotions, and unlike humans, having power to operate freely at will outside any 'laws of nature' as might apply to mere mortal humans, to change, break, or suspend such 'laws' of nature and material reality, which He was prone to exercising quite freely and often. Enter the Greek concept of Divine Logos, a cosmic principle of order and reason, operating on a defined system of natural laws and principles, such as cause/effect, sequences of natural consequences, etc, that was consistent, to which, even if there were a God, that God were also subject toand obliged to act in consistency with, and therefore, as far as it could be understood, bring predictability to man's observations about nature. For any science to be functional, there must be consistency if there is to be predictablity. Consider so basic to our lives as weather forcasting...for all the jokes we make about weatherman errors, over all we are able to rely on weather reports for planning ahead in our activites unimaginable to people in pre-scientific era. Gods and angels and other celestial beings unleashing weather at whims or weather as the manifestation of great battles of the sky gods and rain gods and sun gods andwind gods and gods of the sea made any reasonable weather prediction impossible. Jenell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Hate to complicate this, but...one of you is talking about The Word, The Logos, Christ....the other 'countering' with wanting Logic... uh, you do know "Logic" means pertaining to, language of, the "Logos?" Jenell Even with your further posts I don't understand Jenell. It would seem to me that logos has a variety of meanings and ONE of these is the way the author of the Gospel of John has used the word. I haven't studied any Greek, but it would seem to me that a cursory search on the net indicates that logos has a variety of meanings (reason, a plea, opinion, speech, an account, etc) which don't neccessarily mean it pertains to "the language of the logos" and certainly not the language of the Christ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Paul, it is in a more basic underlying idea within the Greek concept of logos/Logos, that actually is more basic, underlying all of those different words you gave as examples of how it might be translated. Something all those words and meanings have in common as an underlying idea. Again, difficult to comprehend without studying it in the Greek. but yes, once you comprehend that underlying idea, the relationship, application to Christ as The Word (Divine Logos) as used by John, and Logic, as pertaining to/language of Logos, is there. Jenell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hornet Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 When I was a fundamentalist Christian, my church rarely discussed what the soul was although everyone believed in the soul. It was just assumed assumed everyone was on the same page about what the soul was and nothing was elaborated on. I had always imagined that the soul was like some ghostly gas in another dimension that preserves all our memories. But even when I read the entire bible, it also assumed the reader knew what the soul was and never explained what it was like. So my question for theists, what exactly is the soul? The soul is the non-physical aspect of a human being; it is not made of matter. The brain is a physical substance that has physical properties whereas the soul is a mental substance that has mental properties. The soul and the brain can interact with each other, but they are different substances with different properites. There are some things that are true about mental states that are not true about brain states so mental states and brain states cannot be identical. For example, some mental states such as one's beliefs have truth-values. My belief that there is a solar storm right now is either true or false, but a physical event such as an electrical or chemical discharge in the brain cannot be true or false. Some mental states such as our thoughts and beliefs have the property of intentionality, but none of our brain states have this property. Let me explain what the property of intentionality is. The word "intentionality" means "aboutness." Our thoughts have the property of intentionality which means that our thoughts are always about something. My thought of a white elephant is about a white elephant, but none of our brain states are about other things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 According to Charles Birch there 3 basic views of the mind/soul and body problem: Materialistic - what we call mind can be explained by natural biological events Dualistic - mind and matter operate differently but are related Panexperientialistic - different aspects of human evolution. At no point was a soul or mind added to humans Hornet would call your view dualistic? Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hornet Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 According to Charles Birch there 3 basic views of the mind/soul and body problem: Materialistic - what we call mind can be explained by natural biological events Dualistic - mind and matter operate differently but are related Panexperientialistic - different aspects of human evolution. At no point was a soul or mind added to humans Hornet would call your view dualistic? Dutch Yes, I would describe my view as dualistic. I believe that the mind and the brain are different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 This is an panexperientalist take on the mind/soul and body problem. [Professor W.E. Agar, the professor of Zoology in the University of Melbourne] went on to give a picture of cosmic evolution and the evolution of mind. The majority of biologists picture mind as emerging at some stage in the evolution of animals. Before that time there was no mind. From no mind comes mind. Agar proposed the alternative that there has been no moment in evolution when mind made its first appearance. Minds and bodies evolved together even though that body be only a proton or an atom. It is more reasonable to suppose that both objective and subjective have existed as long as anything has existed than to suppose that the subjective has emerged from the non-subjective or that it does not exist at all. http://www.ctr4process.org/publications/Biblio/Papers/Charles%20Birch%20-%20Why%20I%20became%20a%20Panexperientialist.html the above would not limit mind/soul to humans. The soul is the non-physical aspect of a human being Hornet, would you say that soul is found only in humans? Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 11, 2012 Author Share Posted March 11, 2012 The soul is the non-physical aspect of a human being; it is not made of matter. The brain is a physical substance that has physical properties whereas the soul is a mental substance that has mental properties. The soul and the brain can interact with each other, but they are different substances with different properites. There are some things that are true about mental states that are not true about brain states so mental states and brain states cannot be identical. For example, some mental states such as one's beliefs have truth-values. My belief that there is a solar storm right now is either true or false, but a physical event such as an electrical or chemical discharge in the brain cannot be true or false. Some mental states such as our thoughts and beliefs have the property of intentionality, but none of our brain states have this property. Let me explain what the property of intentionality is. The word "intentionality" means "aboutness." Our thoughts have the property of intentionality which means that our thoughts are always about something. My thought of a white elephant is about a white elephant, but none of our brain states are about other things. If the soul is a non-physical aspect separate from the body, what happens to your soul if you get Alzheimers and forget who you are? Does the soul also lose all its memories of you? What if you suffer a brain injury and your personality changes completely from before? Which soul goes to heaven? The one before you got a brain injury or the soul after the brain injury? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brent Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Dear forumites, It seem to me that this subject calls for an examination in more depth. Since “The participants here are, I think, interested in new and different ideas. However I don't think that most are looking for a new divine revelation with all that this entails.” (George) then, in that spirit I would recommend: UP: 111 – The Adjuster and the Soul as quite explicit regarding the subject at hand. For a better understanding of the divine Adjusters (also termed Father fragments, Mystery Monitors, Thought Adjusters) some may find all of the “Adjuster papers” (UP: 107-112) to be informative. Perspective on the energy levels which intervene between physical/material reality and pure spirit realities may be widened perhaps by using the topical index tool found in the drop-down menu under the “UB Online” tab. For those so inclined, try searching the index for morontia, morontia energy, morontia life, and mota – terms and concepts which are unique to the Urantia Papers. A Dios hasta luego, Brent "Let us be patient; the truth never suffers from honest examination. I am all that you say but more. The Father and I are one; the Son does only that which the Father teaches him, while all those who are given to the Son by the Father, the Son will receive to himself.” (Joshua ben Joseph) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 If the soul is a non-physical aspect separate from the body, what happens to your soul if you get Alzheimers and forget who you are? Does the soul also lose all its memories of you? What if you suffer a brain injury and your personality changes completely from before? Which soul goes to heaven? The one before you got a brain injury or the soul after the brain injury? One 'theory" I have encountered that addresses that 'problem' as there being some non-physcial aspect that is separate from the organic body in what is 'mind' and that some might call 'soul' is that the physical body is just an 'instrument' through which that non-materal element 'operates' within this material reality. Something like the material body, physical brain and other functioning human body components, are compared to say, a radio or television. The sounds and images do not arise from within the radio or television itself, comp to mind arising out ofthe physical brain, but are merely instruments through which radio and televsion waves, invisible to our human senses, are recieved and converted into those sounds and images. the obvious dysfunction that results from injury or damage to the brain distorts, interferes with, the reception and transmission of the "non-material" activity in much the same way a damaged component in a radio or tv set adversely affects the quality of the sound and images. The radio/tv waves haven't been 'damaged', or ceased to exist or changed in any way. Jenell Speaking of Alzheimer's...have you ever heard the theory put forth that all of material reality, all of material creation, as we experience it, are really just "God thoughts?" And just what would happen, if that were the case, if God were to start developing Alzheimer's? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hornet Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 This is an panexperientalist take on the mind/soul and body problem. http://www.ctr4proce...ientialist.html the above would not limit mind/soul to humans. Hornet, would you say that soul is found only in humans? Dutch I'm not sure if the soul is found only in humans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Brent, I looked over the info from the link, must admit I didn't follow to further chapters, but, what I did read appears to assume a sound, healthy, functional brain and CNS for the human individual's part in all that. it assumes functional capacities for reasoning and choice, in the process of the individual toward one's own growth and development. But as Neon mentioned, not every human HAS a normal, healthy, functional brain with which to carry out these tasks. Whether from birth, mental retardation or defect of the brain and its porcesses, or injury or disease, there seems to leave open the question similar in, say, christian religion, what of those for reason of dysfunctional brains, cannot process thought and make such choices? Is that soul left to be doomed for that failure? Jenell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted March 12, 2012 Share Posted March 12, 2012 Dutch, I started reading on you last link, got part way through but will have to finish it later, just getting too sleepy and my mind too stuffed to comprehend much more for now, but plan to it later. But, it is making sense to me, a lot of sense. However, there a great big problem with a lot of this kind of stuff...not meaning to sound all elitist intellectual and all that, but, I'm sure you have some idea just how few people CAN even read, let alone, really comprehend ideas like these? I keep thinking, just what are we going to do with all this mountain-top stuff, how are we ever going to be able to bring it down into something even a good portion of the population, let alone, most people, can understand? Or make relevant and meaningful? Anyway, will read more of it later, for now, I'd better get on to bed and try to get to sleep before i start writing here in my sleep and having to have someone delete my gibberish in the morning. nite, ya'll jenell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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