What is a soul?

Skrill · Post by **Skrill** » Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:54 pm

It is fact that the Physical Brain controls memories, personality. Thousands of other actions are all controlled by our nervous system, which is managed by our brains.

Therefore, what consensus is there for any evidence for a soul(s)? As the existence of the soul is very central to any belief or religion.

(my first post

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onewithhim · Post by **onewithhim** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:37 pm

dio9 wrote: [Replying to Monta]

Good point. When God visited Abraham with two angels on his way to Sodom , he sat and ate and talked with Abe like a man.

Those were God's representatives, seeing that no man has seen God at any time (John 1:18), and these angels from the spirit realm materialized physical bodies when they got to Earth. Just like Jesus did when he went through a locked door after his resurrection and THEN materialized a physical body.

JehovahsWitness · Post by **JehovahsWitness** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:40 pm

hoghead1 wrote: [Replying to post 144 by JehovahsWitness]

I am referring to Paul, I I Cor. 15. I did not say I didn't understand it. I just said key details are missing.

No key details are missing. Paul was a brilliant and thorough writer and he would have included all the relevant details to make his point. Futher you may not have said you didn't understand it but you did say it wasn't clear to you what exactly this means, so are you really in a position to use that passage to further your point?

hoghead1 wrote: Paul draws a distinction between our earthly body and our heavenly body, but it is not clear to me what exactly this means.

hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:43 pm

[Replying to post 145 by onewithhim]

I have amply addressed what you two have had to say about the soul and spirit. Yu may disagree if you want, but then you need to deal with the biblical passages I cited in my defense, which you have yet to do.

Paul, In I Cor. 15, make it clear he is speaking about some sort of heavely, not earthly, existence. So I don't see how he would support your "on earth" idea. Also, Paul has in mind an immanent end of the world, though he gives no real details as to exactly what happens then. So I think you are reading in a bit too much to the text here.

JehovahsWitness · Post by **JehovahsWitness** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:47 pm

hoghead1 wrote:
I have amply addressed what you two have had to say about the soul and spirit.

You have typed a lot but you haven't even began to address the points, all you have done is basically say "there are things missing" in the bible, its not clear to you and fallen back to what is essentially the classic belief of dualism of a person's consciousness surviving death because some invisible part of them is survives death, contradicting every explicit statement in scripture to the contrary.

For example, saying Paul says people "survive beyond the grave" when Paul explicitly states he is speaking about a resurrection (people coming back to life after having been dead).

hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:50 pm

[Replying to post 150 by onewithhim]

I don't follow you at all here. I Cor. 11:30 simply says, " That is why some of you became feeble and sick and died." It says nothing bout what happens when they have died. I Thess. 4:13 simply speaks of those "who sleep in death." It doesn't say how long and it doesn't necessarily mean they are not conscious. Like almost all biblical statements about the afterlife, details at 11.

hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:53 pm

[Replying to post 154 by JehovahsWitness]

I would encourage you to read my posts again. I am not a dualist. I hold mind and matter are one. I don't hold with the traditional mind-body dualism, where the mind or soul is some sort of immaterial entity trapped inside the body. The bible doesn't either, which is why Paul speaks of us acquiring a spiritual body in the hereafter.

JehovahsWitness · Post by **JehovahsWitness** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 4:57 pm

hoghead1 wrote: [Replying to post 154 by JehovahsWitness]

I would encourage you to read my posts again. I am not a dualist. I hold mind and matter are one. I don't hold with the traditional mind-body dualism, where the mind or soul is some sort of immaterial entity trapped inside the body. The bible doesn't either, which is why Paul speaks of us acquiring a spiritual body in the hereafter.

I've read your post and you seem thoroughly confused as to what you are. You believe that the soul is the whole person but you also believe that its the same as the spirit. You believe that man and god are both spirit and physical, and like christendom that has wholesale adopted the belief that death is not the end of a person (the whole person) but a transformation to another continued life, you despite your claims to the contrary, believe that a part of the person continues to live after death "beyond the grave".

In short you believe in the immortality of the soul you just call it something different.

hoghead1 · Post by **hoghead1** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 5:59 pm

[Replying to post 157 by JehovahsWitness]

I am definitely not confused as to what I am and believe. I did a good, solid dissertation on the hoy Spirit, which was published, buy the way. And believe, me, you have to have your ducks in a row when you do your dissertation. So don't give me this confused stuff.

Again, my point is that Scripture grants soul and spirit more than one meaning and often overlaps the two. There is no doubt about hat. I showed you specific passages where that is the case.

My metaphysic is that we all exist after death. God is the ground and source of the meaningfulness of life. That requires that God's eternal memory preserves us and enjoys us forever. This, however, is not merely the preservation of static, fixed occasions. We undergo a major transformation. Freed from the struggle for survival, our defenses are lowered. The narrow, rigid boundaries we have erected around ourselves melt away. We enter into a deep empathic relationship with all other beings. This is the harmony of harmonies. But it comes with a price. We share in all the pains and sorrows we have inflicted upon others. Salvation is not cheap grace. We exist as physical or material beings. Because extension is the basic characteristic of matter, and then the basic characteristic of anything that does exist. I believe that there is but one order of reality, the universe. The deceased are not way outside the universe, in some nowhereland. The deceased are still within the universe, within its depths.

dio9 · Post by **dio9** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 6:06 pm

[Replying to onewithhim]

Really you must refer to your bible here. Abraham is reported to be addressing Yahweh when he asks the moral question, will you destroy the city if there is one moral man within.. Abraham was questioning God here.

Blastcat · Post by **Blastcat** » Tue Oct 11, 2016 6:08 pm

hoghead1 wrote:
I am definitely not confused as to what I am and believe. I did a good, solid dissertation on the hoy Spirit, which was published, buy the way. And believe, me, you have to have your ducks in a row when you do your dissertation. So don't give me this confused stuff.

You seem very confused to me right now.

Are you saying that if you weren't confused in the past that you will NEVER be confused again?