Resurrection and Duplication

[Brickjectivity]

I'm fine with Star Trek's transporter technology that kills you at one end and reconstructs you at the other. We are constantly changing and are never the same person from moment to moment, at least not in the sense the OP is discussing. Your body changes all the time.

 

[Harel13]

Agreed. I would say that the true person is their personality, as implanting another personality in that same body would mean that it is the other person.

I don't think I would describe it as personality. I think people can be raised to have similar or even identical personalities. It's something deeper.

 

[Clara Tea]

Scenario:

- The personality of a person doesn't survive death (the soul isn't immortal)
- God retains the information of that persons personality in his memory.
- God imprints that information of the person's personality, which is stored in his memory, on the person's regenerated body or a new body at a later stage after they have died.

Would that be considered a resurrection or a duplication?
Might that dichotomy be false?

I think that our souls (if good and go to heaven) rejoin God. That, I believe, is where the souls came from in the first place.

I think that the personality of the person is contained in the soul. So, the fact that the soul is part of God doesn't mean that it is not still distinct and a bit independent.

If reincarnation is real, and many say that it is, including the dead psychic, Edgar Cayce, then souls are sent back to earth again in another body (perhaps not a human body). But, the memories of the soul are erased.

If that is the case, I suppose the person ceases to exist.

So, why struggle to get into heaven if your soul will be data wiped and reused?

We all have souls, so we can try to remember past lives. If we can't, that past life is gone forever. Unless, of course, that info has been somehow copied in heaven. Maybe God has the ability to download the lifetime of experiences once the soul gets to heaven? If so, maybe that soul could live forever\?

 

[Mock Turtle]

I'm fine with Star Trek's transporter technology that kills you at one end and reconstructs you at the other. We are constantly changing and are never the same person from moment to moment, at least not in the sense the OP is discussing. Your body changes all the time.

Wouldn't this rely on the fact that it would have to take no time at all to do any scanning or reforming, which presumably is not possible, and hence we can never get a full copy of anything - that is living - because we are changing, even minutely, but constantly?

 

[LightofTruth]

A moment ago you were trying to tell me that having my identity destroyed was a pleasant idea. Is this shifting of the goal posts to source of ideas a subconscious acknowledgement that having one's identity destroyed is not the most pleasant option imaginable?

My source is external to the Bible and it is something I am rather proud of it since what makes you *you* won't survive either way whether your proposed afterlife is true or not.

Perhaps you're referring to some other poster. I never said your identity gets destroyed.

 

[Kenny]

Upgrade yes, but would what I am describing be considered a resurrection s according to the Bible?

Although the Bible doesn't say "how" - if one looked at it as you described it... I guess you could call it a resurrection.

 

[Thief]

Scenario:

- The personality of a person doesn't survive death (the soul isn't immortal)
- God retains the information of that persons personality in his memory.
- God imprints that information of the person's personality, which is stored in his memory, on the person's regenerated body or a new body at a later stage after they have died.

Would that be considered a resurrection or a duplication?
Might that dichotomy be false?

and the Thief said to the Carpenter.......when You recieve your kingdom

remember me

 

[Samael_Khan]

Although the Bible doesn't say "how" - if one looked at it as you described it... I guess you could call it a resurrection.

OK. Then you would say that the dichotomy I created is false?

 

[Brian2]

The Scripture uses sleep as an analogy for the dead who will rise again. When Lazarus was dead, all of his brain activity ceased. Jesus said Lazarus was sleeping and that he was dead. But when he was raised from the dead(awoken from his sleep of death) he was the same person.

Yes he was the same person but that does not answer the OP.
If someone is asleep when dead, they are still in existence.
As I have been asking elsewhere, if we are alive now and God, knowing us, made a copy of us, would that copy be us? If not, then the copy God might make after our death would also not be us.
The sleeping person, who is dead, needs to wake up and occupy another body for it to be a resurrection.

 

[Samael_Khan]

the the Thief said to the Carpenter.......when You recieve your kingdom

remember me

Memory with regards to what?

Remembering to resurrect a person or keeping that person's personality in their memory?

 

[Brian2]

When Jesus was raised from the dead Paul speaks of him as being High Priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses because he shared in them before he died. So it seems Jesus' memory had been fully restored.

That does not answer the OP, it just assumes that the scenario described in the OP is true.

 

[wellwisher]

Scenario:

- The personality of a person doesn't survive death (the soul isn't immortal)
- God retains the information of that persons personality in his memory.
- God imprints that information of the person's personality, which is stored in his memory, on the person's regenerated body or a new body at a later stage after they have died.

Would that be considered a resurrection or a duplication?
Might that dichotomy be false?

Is it possible that intuitions, of the workings of the DNA ,were around since ancient times. Our DNA is very conservative and is passed forward to our children though reproduction. This continuity of DNA, keeps part of us alive, even after death. The function of the DNA, sounds like the framework for reincarnation.

Your children and grandchildren, when born, become conscious using DNA that is very similar to yours; new soul and recycled DNA. Optimization appears to skip a generation, and then correlates closer. The DNA also contains traces of our prehistoric soul, that has slowly evolved over eons. It also contains the present day us, as well. The image becomes one of an eternal and evolving memory principle.

In terms of the DNA, the hydrogen bonded DNA double helix is very conservative. This barely changes each generation. What changes over a lifetime are epigenetic modifications. Epigenetic is where protein can be used to alter the expressions on the DNA. This does not alter the base DNA, but can impact how various genes are expressed. This can create the illusion of a new gene.

For example, I may have a natural instinct to eat; based on my DNA proper. This does not change, since the DNA is very stable and conservative. However, I can use willpower to alter the epigenetic environment that surround the genes, such that eating can be placed on a schedule. This feat of willpower is not transferred very efficiently, if at all, when the DNA is duplicated. Their child may be born with similar initial propensities to eat, but a clean slate in terms of epigenetic schedule specialty. This change will need willpower, since one needs to add soft structure to the DNA, that is not initially a part of it.

In reincarnation, karma will define which type of body, your soul will occupy after death. The idea is a fresh start where one can chose again, and hopefully not repeat the mistakes of the past. This reflects the DNA proper being a fresh start. The epigenetic changes, that willpower thinks it needs to make, will have certain genetic constraints, so the person can better reach a natural state.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Wouldn't this rely on the fact that it would have to take no time at all to do any scanning or reforming, which presumably is not possible, and hence we can never get a full copy of anything - that is living - because we are changing, even minutely, but constantly?

That could be so, but even if it weren't nobody is ever what they were two minutes ago. The old you is gone, and the new you is older, changed from what was to what is becoming something else.

 

[Brian2]

If its the same information in the same body its possibly a ressurection, but in a new body it is just a copy.

But the bodies of people from thousands of years ago are mostly all returned to plant matter and recycled. Then there are those who are cremated etc. Then there is what I assume to be fact - that the same chemicals would be subject to the same process of decomposition that causes death in the first place.

So it doesn’t make sense in my opinion for the same physical body to be brought back to life.

Our bodies get changed/replaced as we live, so the body does not count really when it comes to resurrection. But I can see where you are coming from if you do not see the body as having a spirit.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I don't think I would describe it as personality. I think people can be raised to have similar or even identical personalities. It's something deeper.

There is a certain space into which each person fits, and if you were to remove that person would leave a gap.

 

[Thief]

Memory with regards to what?

Remembering to resurrect a person or keeping that person's personality in their memory?

some use the word..... oblivion.......
as a synonym to ....hell

 

[LightofTruth]

Yes he was the same person but that does not answer the OP.
If someone is asleep when dead, they are still in existence.
As I have been asking elsewhere, if we are alive now and God, knowing us, made a copy of us, would that copy be us? If not, then the copy God might make after our death would also not be us.
The sleeping person, who is dead, needs to wake up and occupy another body for it to be a resurrection.

Do you know the difference between sleeping and being dead?
A person who is asleep is not dead.
When we say "The sleep of death" we are using sleep as an analogy for death because the person will become alive again just as the sleeper awakes again. When a person is asleep he becomes unaware of what's going on around him and time passes without his notice. So sleep is a good analogy for death of a person who will be awakened from death. Or made alive again.

When the faithful are raised from the sleep of death they will have a new body. it's referred to as a spiritual body. it's freed from sin and death. but the mind and the memories of their life in the flesh will be restored/ It would be nice to realize what they had to overcome. And nice to realize what the one who saved them did for them. The love.

 

[Brian2]

That could be so, but even if it weren't nobody is ever what they were two minutes ago. The old you is gone, and the new you is older, changed from what was to what is becoming something else.

So you seem to be saying that it is not the body that counts in a person, and which makes the person. I would agree.
I guess for this reason I would say that matter transfer (as in SciFi) or body transfer as in Star Trek would result in the death of the person.

 

[LightofTruth]

Moses is another good example for us. Moses is said to have died and been buried. However, he appeared in glory at the time when Jesus was seen in the glory he would have after he was raised from the dead and come in his kingdom. Moses was heard speaking to Jesus about what Jesus had to accomplish in Jerusalem. Moses was Moses and Elijah, who have been made immortal through translation, was Elijah.

 

[Kenny]

OK. Then you would say that the dichotomy I created is false?

I guess what I am saying is that you are creating a theologically debatable position.

Let me give you an example:

Adam and Eve were created. Does that mean they didn't have a belly button because there was no umbilical cord attached?

Scientifically you would say "no" but at the same time you could also hold the position that when God created them, He decided to add the belly button so that the children would look the same.

There are no scriptures to support either position so we end up with a theological debate - but one that we couldn't support with actual written verification.

So... does God but us in His memory bank and reinsert it into a new body? Maybe. Does God simply take the spirit/soul of man that is already created and reinsert it into a new body? Maybe.

How does He do it? No scripture to tell us... only that it is done.

I would personally think probably reinserts a spirit/soul into a body if but because of the fact it fits the mold of other scriptures. But, again, it is only my supposition. Angels are spirits and yet they are still tangible. Jesus spoke to Moses and Elijah... not to a memory bank but then again someone could say it was a vision and not real.

So we end up with suppositions that only time will tell us which way is right. IMO