What is the source of intelligence?

[tiberiusfury]

One of the things that God has taught me is that the human species is not what you think it is.
Whether you believe there are 97,000 souls, or 200,000 souls, or 1 million souls, it doesn't change the fact there are a tremendous amount of people who live and work, create children, and think that do not have souls.

So where does their intelligence come from?
DNA? Collective intelligence?

I think it comes from God's creation: a machine or planet in Heaven that gives intelligence to all humans and allows them to live absolutely as human beings.

Of course, as a person with a soul myself, I resent this. I strongly, absolutely believe that there are 97,000 souls in the world, and that the many many people I see every day are different than me, and might even be all part of a great evil.
The fact that every one of these beings feel hatred, commit crimes, have strong ideas in their head, makes the world infinitely complicated for those of us who are truly alive and have souls.
What happens when a person without a soul has a strong ideological conclusion that he is right and you are wrong? Do you give in to him?
Of course not.

Is God evil for giving intelligence and hatred to all of his creations? Is he evil for allowing all of these people to procreate and create new life forever? Is he evil for not separating us into life, and unlife, and things with less than that?

And why don't the Christian churches separate us into people with souls, and people without, and give higher privileges and care to those of us who do have souls?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Lots of strange things going on in that post.

 

[InChrist]

One of the things that God has taught me is that the human species is not what you think it is.
Whether you believe there are 97,000 souls, or 200,000 souls, or 1 million souls, it doesn't change the fact there are a tremendous amount of people who live and work, create children, and think that do not have souls.

So where does their intelligence come from?
DNA? Collective intelligence?

I think it comes from God's creation: a machine or planet in Heaven that gives intelligence to all humans and allows them to live absolutely as human beings.

Of course, as a person with a soul myself, I resent this. I strongly, absolutely believe that there are 97,000 souls in the world, and that the many many people I see every day are different than me, and might even be all part of a great evil.
The fact that every one of these beings feel hatred, commit crimes, have strong ideas in their head, makes the world infinitely complicated for those of us who are truly alive and have souls.
What happens when a person without a soul has a strong ideological conclusion that he is right and you are wrong? Do you give in to him?
Of course not.

Is God evil for giving intelligence and hatred to all of his creations? Is he evil for allowing all of these people to procreate and create new life forever? Is he evil for not separating us into life, and unlife, and things with less than that?

And why don't the Christian churches separate us into people with souls, and people without, and give higher privileges and care to those of us who do have souls?

Where did you come up with your ideas and numbers?

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Do you assume you have a complete 'soul'? Your post seems to imply as much particularly your turn of phrase to indicate possession of a soul rather than part of a soul.

If so, why do you believe you have more than 72000 times the amount of soul other people have on average (7 billion people divided by 97 thousand souls)? Indeed if you assert the existence of some other individuals who have complete souls then the proportion of soul remaining to other individuals falls even lower. If indeed they have any, your post can be interpreted in either fashion but seems to possession of souls is a binary proposition. Indeed in Seattle there are 634,500 people or so, thats 8-9 souls and most of those you likely have not met; personally I think it rather sad that you think everyone around you (friends family etc) likely dont have a soul.

I would note that even were I to ascribe to the vision you have described there is nothing that would indicate that YOU have a complete soul, indeed you seem to hold a strong idea in your head and from a purely statistical point of view I have no reason to believe that you are without hatred (indeed you certainly seem to have a certain disgust for humanity) nor do I know you well enough to determine if you have ever killed someone or shoplifted. Should I therefore conclude that you have no soul or perhaps only a fragment of soul? Should I assert that my own supposedly complete soul is therefore 'truly' alive while you are not and therefore you should have fewer privileges than I (perhaps some organisation should enforce this).

-

It simply makes no sense. Even assuming that there is such a thing as a 'soul' there is nothing to suggest that there is a limited number of such or that any individual might not possess a soul (possessing a fragment of a soul or none at all). All this idea represents is an assertion of rarity and supremacy without any objective justification. Much like saying the Aryans are the master race and other people are subhuman or <insert your favorite form of bigotry>; it heavily relies on categorizing people based on undefined but largely subjective characteristics and asserts a transcendental difference between people where no objective difference can be discerned.

Moreover even if you were to simply ASSERT that every person who had a soul was a christian (though you have given no indication that you believe Christians would be more likely to have souls than non christians) - it would mean that the overwhelming majority of christians are without souls, yet there appears very little evidence to suggest as much in sources accepted as revelation by most christian denominations that I am aware of (unless perhaps you can enlighten me on that point).

 

[Shiranui117]

Whether you believe there are 97,000 souls, or 200,000 souls, or 1 million souls, it doesn't change the fact there are a tremendous amount of people who live and work, create children, and think that do not have souls.

What makes you think this? Why are you so sure of this idea? What evidence do you have? I don't think very many folks around here would share your views. So the fact that you don't present any support for your view makes it very difficult for anyone to really see the logic behind it.

I think it comes from God's creation: a machine or planet in Heaven that gives intelligence to all humans and allows them to live absolutely as human beings.

Interesting theory. Do you have any support for this, any reason for believing it, or are they just your own personal musings?

Of course, as a person with a soul myself, I resent this. I strongly, absolutely believe that there are 97,000 souls in the world,

Why this exact number, may I ask?

and that the many many people I see every day are different than me, and might even be all part of a great evil.

How so?

The fact that every one of these beings feel hatred, commit crimes, have strong ideas in their head, makes the world infinitely complicated for those of us who are truly alive and have souls.

Are you immune to these same tendencies? Have you never felt hatred, never committed a crime, never had strong ideas in your head? Are you sinless and therefore without need of salvation?

Is God evil for giving intelligence and hatred to all of his creations?

I'm quite sure many plants, rocks, stars and other non-sentient objects are without hatred or intelligence. I also doubt the capacity of many animals to truly feel hatred or think on a rational level. So the question is sort of moot.

Is he evil for allowing all of these people to procreate and create new life forever? Is he evil for not separating us into life, and unlife, and things with less than that?

The fact that He keeps giving us all more time and opportunities to repent makes Him patient and loving, not evil.

And why don't the Christian churches separate us into people with souls, and people without, and give higher privileges and care to those of us who do have souls?

Because we all have souls. If many of us had no souls, then God is a liar for saying that He desires that ALL of mankind be saved. If many of us were created by God without souls, then that makes God evil, because He would be intentionally creating us for the sole purpose of damnation or annihilation. THAT would be unjust.

As far as why we Christians don't give special privileges to certain people within our churches, you may want to check out this from James 2:

My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. 2 For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, &#8220;You sit here in a good place,&#8221; and say to the poor man, &#8220;You stand there,&#8221; or, &#8220;Sit here at my footstool,&#8221; 4 have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

God shows no partiality, and neither should we.

 

[Shiranui117]

Do you assume you have a complete 'soul'? Your post seems to imply as much particularly your turn of phrase to indicate possession of a soul rather than part of a soul.

If so, why do you believe you have more than 72000 times the amount of soul other people have on average (7 billion people divided by 97 thousand souls)? Indeed if you assert the existence of some other individuals who have complete souls then the proportion of soul remaining to other individuals falls even lower. If indeed they have any, your post can be interpreted in either fashion but seems to possession of souls is a binary proposition. Indeed in Seattle there are 634,500 people or so, thats 8-9 souls and most of those you likely have not met; personally I think it rather sad that you think everyone around you (friends family etc) likely dont have a soul.

I would note that even were I to ascribe to the vision you have described there is nothing that would indicate that YOU have a complete soul, indeed you seem to hold a strong idea in your head and from a purely statistical point of view I have no reason to believe that you are without hatred (indeed you certainly seem to have a certain disgust for humanity) nor do I know you well enough to determine if you have ever killed someone or shoplifted. Should I therefore conclude that you have no soul or perhaps only a fragment of soul? Should I assert that my own supposedly complete soul is therefore 'truly' alive while you are not and therefore you should have fewer privileges than I (perhaps some organisation should enforce this).

-

It simply makes no sense. Even assuming that there is such a thing as a 'soul' there is nothing to suggest that there is a limited number of such or that any individual might not possess a soul (possessing a fragment of a soul or none at all). All this idea represents is an assertion of rarity and supremacy without any objective justification. Much like saying the Aryans are the master race and other people are subhuman or <insert your favorite form of bigotry>; it heavily relies on categorizing people based on undefined but largely subjective characteristics and asserts a transcendental difference between people where no objective difference can be discerned.

Moreover even if you were to simply ASSERT that every person who had a soul was a christian (though you have given no indication that you believe Christians would be more likely to have souls than non christians) - it would mean that the overwhelming majority of christians are without souls, yet there appears very little evidence to suggest as much in sources accepted as revelation by most christian denominations that I am aware of (unless perhaps you can enlighten me on that point).

What in the world are you talking about? Where is any of this coming from at all?

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Rather simple; he has made several assertions which I have taken on their face value and taken to the logical conclusion of several variations.

I took the claim of 97000 souls and looked to relate it to the current population of approximately 7 billion people; this would imply either most people do not have a soul (this interpretation is implied several times) or else that it is possible for people to have part of a soul (potentially implied by the statement that they might be part of a great evil). I then merely pointed out that using his own identified criteria (opinionated, hate and crime) for determining who has a soul I have no reason to suspect it is likely that he has a soul himself and also pointed out that merely on probability any one person who he cares about is unlikely to have a soul (1/72000 chance) given his assertions (for example, lets look at the odds for two particular people (perhaps both his parents) to have souls 1/72000 x 1/72000 - that is about a one in five billion chance). And then I compared his claims to other concepts which posit a transcendental difference between people for the sake of asserting inherent supremacy based on criteria that are subjective (and in this case also undetectable) such as white supremacy movements.

 

[tiberiusfury]

The concept of intelligence coming from planets is a very well-established idea in magick and Christianity.
It's even been said that each planet has an Angel-lord to rule over it, in our thoughts and prayers.

There are basic things that people with intelligence do, and most people do not. Like a daily health ritual. Like daily prayer with God or an Angel.
It is surprising to me the absolutely immense nature of the human species. It's almost like a joke- how smart the people are. I do know one thing for certain: the intelligence of God is far, far higher than that of a human being.

So far I can't say I've seen any great responses to my post. Why don't you open your minds a little bit to the idea of Heaven? The immense nature of creation, the absolutely huge ideas that are fought over by Angels and Demons.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

The concept of intelligence coming from planets is a very well-established idea in magick and Christianity.
It's even been said that each planet has an Angel-lord to rule over it, in our thoughts and prayers.

I have never heard of it, and you have no idea that amount of profoundly crazy garbage i've heard from believers.

So far I can't say I've seen any great responses to my post. Why don't you open your minds a little bit to the idea of Heaven?

How does one open their mind and how does it differ from pretending something is true.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

I wonder if any of those people who believe that there is only 97,000 souls to go around, think that they aren't one of those fortunate few who get a soul.