Do you believe we all have souls?

[painted wolf]

jonjohn....

the use of medicinal plants is natural... therefor useing them to prevent impregnation is naural birth control

Modern pain medications can't stop all pain... plus they can do as much harm as they do good...thats why they are always looking for new ones.

euthanasia traditionaly was dieing a naural death anyway... like going out into a winter blizzard

yes, those poor docters and nurses and other innocent people who died in the abortion clinic bombings were martyrs wernt they...

I'm glad people are willing to die for what they believe... I just wish so many people wern't willing to kill for it too... :roll:

by the way were does this fit the subject? :lol:

wa:-do

 

[true blood]

I believe all Monera (bacteria), Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia, Viruses, Humans have souls.

 

[Master Vigil]

They do true blood.

 

[(Q)]

I believe all Monera (bacteria), Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia, Viruses, Humans have souls.

There are so many things wrong with this statement on so many levels, I don't where to start.

Perhaps you can explain what it is you base your belief?

 

[Runt]

There are so many things wrong with this statement on so many levels, I don't where to start.

Perhaps you can explain what it is you base your belief?

It probably begins with the definition of the soul. In Christianity and many other religions, the soul is an immortal entity that resides in the body and leaves upon death with the personality intact. For Taoists, it is something more akin to the ENERGY of life, rather than something "personal", which simply becomes one with the Tao upon death. For Taoists, EVERYTHING has this soul... human, animal, plant... rock.

 

[true blood]

I base all my beliefs on the bible and science and whether it feels right deep down inside. I define soul as "life which animates an organism"

How is this wrong at so many levels? What I listed were living organisms split into their Kingdoms. You could add Bacteria and the Archaea as the Prokaryotae are now divided into two domains.

"In Christianity and many other religions, the soul is an immortal entity that resides in the body and leaves upon death with the personality intact."

I'm not sure what you mean about immortal entity of the souls for these organisms.

 

[Alaric]

It probably begins with the definition of the soul. In Christianity and many other religions, the soul is an immortal entity that resides in the body and leaves upon death with the personality intact. For Taoists, it is something more akin to the ENERGY of life, rather than something "personal", which simply becomes one with the Tao upon death. For Taoists, EVERYTHING has this soul... human, animal, plant... rock.

But you of course realise that these two definitions are so completely and utterly different that to use the same word for the two would render the word meaningless...

 

[Runt]

Yes, well, it gets a little tricky trying to translate eastern ideas into English terminology. Who the hell gets to be the one to decide which version of the term is accurate? Those who used it first? Those who use it most often? Some unknown committee that decides these things? Even among Christians there are no two common definitions of spiritual words. Going back to "God" for example... for one kind of Christian God is "one", for Catholics God is "three". And then you have the idea that the word in Hebrew is NOT God but was translated as "God". Which is right?

If we didn't have multiple meanings for terms, our language would be WAAAY broader than it is now. However, perhaps it would make you happier if Taoists referred to the soul as an "essence", since their definition of the word is not exactly the same as that of a Christian?

 

[(Q)]

I base all my beliefs on the bible and science and whether it feels right deep down inside.

I wouldn’t want to trust the bible and gut feelings for trying to understand how things work, completely unreliable and open to contradiction.

I define soul as "life which animates an organism"

Why not just call it that? The theistic definition of a soul does not follow your definition.


OH-OH - Runts ranting about definitions again.

 

[Runt]

Yeah, well, Runt wouldn't have to rant about definitions again if people could accept that there is more than one definition for each word in the English language, now would she?

 

[Master Vigil]

"I define soul as "life which animates an organism"

Why not just call it that? The theistic definition of a soul does not follow your definition."

Why, when we can just say "soul." It's so much easier. Taoists would go even further and discuss how the soul is made of chi. But then it's extrememly hard to explain chi using english words or american ideas. It's something that must be experienced. The best words for it are, breath, life, power, spirit, energy, essence, etc... But not one of those words describe it efficiently.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

I think the problem is may people have an emotional attachment/affinity for the word "soul" which conjures up feelings of meaning and inspiration, as opposed to regular (scientific) terms which don't carry emotional baggage along with the definition.

By adapting this definition of "soul" Runt (and many others) have found a solution--the definition is now such a broad generalization ("an essence") that it's virtually impossible to have a debate on its existence or lack thereof, and it's a word (soul) that inspires pleasant feelings on the definition which translate into psychological benefits. This is unlike scientific words which are supposed to be emotionally neutral and bland--the intent of these words is to describe phenomena without a connotation of good or bad--the phenomena are what they are, that's it.

It's the definition of a soul we all want to get at--not the word itself.

Let's end the soul debate--let's talk about the existence of Spinkility, which I define as a certain anger in some things. So for example, we can observe Spinkility in raging fires, tornadoes, or angry people. They are all connected in that they all desire to change in rapid motion. Who dares to challenge my belief in Spinkility? :mrgreen:

 

[Master Vigil]

HAHAHA!!! You do humor me Mr. Spinkles (I guess we all know where your name came from now.) Hmmm... Its an interesting thought, but I'm confused as to what the rapid motion has to do with the anger. Please elaborate on that.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

(I'm making this all up) There is Spinkility in all rapid motion because rapid motion has a certain anger-ness to it, which causes things to no longer be calm. Spinkility is the angerness that connects all angry things. It's hard to describe really, with all these confusing words and such.

Haha. I'm glad you enjoyed the humor. On a sidenote, I came up with the name back in 7th grade when I noticed that all online multiplayer gamers used names like "SiLenT_DeAtH" or "ELITEsniper" etc. I wanted to be original.

 

[Alaric]

If we didn't have multiple meanings for terms, our language would be WAAAY broader than it is now. However, perhaps it would make you happier if Taoists referred to the soul as an "essence", since their definition of the word is not exactly the same as that of a Christian?

As long as we all know what you're talking about, that is the important thing. It doesn't help the discussion on the existence of unicorns if you say 'I believe in unicorns, but I think of them more like elephants with two trunks'. Blank stares all round!

Like I've said, if there are multiple interpretations, then there is some kind of common feature that they all share. I would say that the soul at the very least has to be personal, whether or not memories are attached to it.

 

[Master Vigil]

Ah, so your comparing anger to rapid "negative?" change in things. And are showing that all things with this rapid change include a sort of anger. I get it, makes some sense.

 

[Runt]

But Mr_Spinkles.... your Spinkility Theory of the connection between rapid motion and anger does not take into account the "quiet before the storm" that is the anger right BEFORE it is about to break forth into the destructive behavior (the destructive behavior being the "tantrum", I guess you could say, in which the anger is actually fueled into rapid motion). Thus, we must differentiate between anger manifested in rapid motion ("Spinkility") and something else... anger manifested in stillness.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Runt-- you're right, there is a big difference between Potential Spinkility and Kinetic Spinkility. However, they are all connected by Spinkility.

And Master Vigil, please tell me you don't believe in that nonesense...I just want to hear you say it...

:lol:

 

[Master Vigil]

What nonsense? My reply? Is not the connection between all "anger?" I'm confused now.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Just tell me you don't believe in Spinkility. Even if you do, just say you don't--for me, Vig?