Cremation Vs. Burial

[Moses Yoder]

I was talking at my parents house one time about the idea that I wanted to be cremated when I die. My dad said if I ever saw a body being cremated I would never do that, which made me wonder why that is but I knew better than to pursue it. So why not get cremated? If I get cremated I could get a friend of mine to make matching wooden urns for my wife and I and build a nice little cabinet for them ahead of time unless something unexpected happened. So what do you think; can a cremated body be resurrected? Other thoughts on the matter are also welcome.

[Danmark]

The ancient notion of the soul or spirit as something separate from the body arose [ahem] from a lack of understanding. Before we understood that thoughts, that consciousness itself, came from electro-chemical reactions between neurons and thus had its basis in the physical mass of the brain, the idea that conscious comes from matter/energy was inconceivable.

When the body is dead and buried, when the brain is mush, there is no 'spirit' remaining. Doesn't matter a whit whether the brain has been roasted and macerated, or just slowly decomposed. It's gone and with it, the 'soul'.

Your premise and supports for it are mistaken. "The ancient notion" as you call it and defined well by the ancient Greek philosophies, stated that the human was a tri-part entity. It consists of body, mind and spirit. The spirit isn't separate from the body and mind, it's a part of it; hence the modern anti-metaphysical argument. ..

You say my premise for this ANCIENT idea is mistaken, yet you admit it IS an ancient idea. And that is the very point of what I wrote. It is just one more ancient attempt to fill in ignorance with religious superstition, another of Zeus's thunderbolts. Science has answered the cause of lightning, and thousands of other phenomena of the ancient world that were formerly explained by desperate resort to religious explanation. In short, it is no longer necessary to suppose the idea of a soul, since we know where conscious comes from.

If you prefer ignorance and ancient notions to the evidence of science, that is your prerogative, but it will take more than a bald choir loft assertion to make it so. The reason even religious thinkers have to admit the mind and body are linked is because they are. The body (the brain is part of the body) causes thought, just like the legs make running possible. Why hold on to ancient ideas when science provides such elegant solutions?

Just a tiny bit of reading about neuroscience should convince any person of reason. We know that drugs and trauma affect consciousness [spirit/soul]. It has been proved over and over. You can even do your own experiment with alcohol. Just don't fall out of the choir loft like Eutychus. Alcohol can numb the spirit, just like Paul's long winded preaching.

[Choir Loft]

You say my premise for this ANCIENT idea is mistaken, yet you admit it IS an ancient idea. And that is the very point of what I wrote. It is just one more ancient attempt to fill in ignorance with religious superstition, another of Zeus\'s thunderbolts. Science has answered the cause of lightning, and thousands of other phenomena of the ancient world that were formerly explained by desperate resort to religious explanation. In short, it is no longer necessary to suppose the idea of a soul, since we know where conscious comes from.

To begin, you are incorrect in assuming that all ancient truths are incorrect just because they're ancient. How old are you anyway? Have you graduated from High School yet? Are you still playing with your brand new iPhone - whatever version is newest? Try reading. I know its an ancient art, but its worth a try now and then. NEW is not necessarily true or good just because its new. Old is not necessarily bad or incorrect just because its old. Tell your parents that they're no good because they're old. I'd like to learn their response.

"A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Ancient religious explanations gave rise to philosophy, which in turn formed the logical basis of every legitimate institution of the modern world from politics to science. Did you miss your history class when they covered that subject? Political science class would have mentioned that as well as language arts. The history and science of modern civilization rests on the firm ground of ANCIENT religious and philosophical reasoning. We suffer from political disorientation in America today primarily because of a lack of understanding of the philosophical and logical basis of government, the proper employment of science and because we have forgotten God.

"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism."
- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The reason the Russian people suffered so much is because they forgot God."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

When you divorce religion from science, the resulting aberrations of governmental policy can be disasterous. One such example I can point to is the US government's 1940's imprisonment of Japanese Americans, genocide against Native Americans and the enslavement of the African race. Another example is German(*) self-justification of the 1940's mass murder of Jews, political malcontents, homosexuals, and handicapped persons. Russian(*) gulags, Chinese(*) murder of its own people in the 1960's and the Japanese(*) rape of Nanking in 1937 are additional examples. I could go on forever with examples, but the main point is Kings' reflection that religion restrains the abuse of science while science keeps religion rational. The two disciplines are a mated pair.

(*) Atheist governments, by the way.

If you prefer ignorance and ancient notions to the evidence of science, that is your prerogative, but it will take more than a bald choir loft assertion to make it so.

What 'evidence' are you referring to, sir? That mind and body and soul are one? I, as well as philosophy, agree with that point.

Just a tiny bit of reading about neuroscience should convince any person of reason. We know that drugs and trauma affect consciousness [spirit/soul]. It has been proved over and over. You can even do your own experiment with alcohol. Just don\'t fall out of the choir loft like Eutychus. Alcohol can numb the spirit, just like Paul\'s long winded preaching.

Your misplaced references to neurological behavior only mentions the affects of mind altering drugs. What is your point?

Drugs and trauma affect mind and body, which in turn affect the spirit. I'm not arguing that point at all.

Eutychus was disinterested in the truths being taught by St. Paul. They were beyond his childish understanding. Because of that he slept and fell out of the window. Eutychus was a child. Are you?

Beware lest you sleep and miss some important point that may cost you everything you hold dear. You seek excuses to satisfy your own lusts, not truth.

"It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

but that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

[myth-one.com]

When the body is dead and buried, when the brain is mush, there is no 'spirit' remaining. Doesn't matter a whit whether the brain has been roasted and macerated, or just slowly decomposed. It's gone and with it, the 'soul'.

The core of the issue is not whether a man may survive physical death, but who or what entities may affect his eternal destiny.

The Bible is (or once was) the authoritative source for this subforum.

Under that source, Danmark is more correct. God is a Spirit:

God is a Spirit:

Man has no preeminence over any other animal -- all are physical bodied beings which die:

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

When man assumes to himself the attribute of immortality, he commits blasphemy against God.

Nonetheless, many Christians who supposedly use the Bible as their source still believe in the immortal soul myth. For example:

The Bible teaches that you are an immortal soul.

No it doesn't!
============================================================================

Science has answered the cause of lightning, and thousands of other phenomena of the ancient world that were formerly explained by desperate resort to religious explanation. In short, it is no longer necessary to suppose the idea of a soul, since we know where conscious comes from.

Historically, man has created and believed in many different gods. There was a Moon God, Sun God, God of War, God of Love, God of Fire, a God of This, and a God of That. As you state, when we came to understand these mysteries, the associated gods vanished and the number of gods steadily decreased.

If it is correct that the number of gods decreases as knowledge increases, and knowledge continually increases, then the number of gods should eventually approach zero -- and the atheists will have prevailed. This will be the final outcome when, and if, man understands all things.

At that time there will be no cause to explain the unknown via a god -- as there will be no unknown. In a sense, man, will have become god -- knowing all things.

But if there remains even one unknown which mankind cannot understand, and man continues to create myths to explain that which he cannot understand, then there will always be a reason for at least one "god."

And I think there will always be things man cannot understand.

In fact, new knowledge creates new questions. New questions add to the ignorance base, until they are answered. But answering them creates more questions.

It's a Catch-22.

I see it as a logical progression to one or zero.

And I believe the answer will be one.

[Danmark]

You say my premise for this ANCIENT idea is mistaken, yet you admit it IS an ancient idea. And that is the very point of what I wrote. It is just one more ancient attempt to fill in ignorance with religious superstition, another of Zeus\'s thunderbolts. Science has answered the cause of lightning, and thousands of other phenomena of the ancient world that were formerly explained by desperate resort to religious explanation. In short, it is no longer necessary to suppose the idea of a soul, since we know where conscious comes from.

To begin, you are incorrect in assuming that all ancient truths are incorrect just because they're ancient. How old are you anyway? Have you graduated from High School yet? Are you still playing with your brand new iPhone - whatever version is newest? Try reading. I know its an ancient art, but its worth a try now and then. NEW is not necessarily true or good just because its new. Old is not necessarily bad or incorrect just because its old. Tell your parents that they're no good because they're old. I'd like to learn their response.

"A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Ancient religious explanations gave rise to philosophy, which in turn formed the logical basis of every legitimate institution of the modern world from politics to science. Did you miss your history class when they covered that subject? Political science class would have mentioned that as well as language arts. The history and science of modern civilization rests on the firm ground of ANCIENT religious and philosophical reasoning. We suffer from political disorientation in America today primarily because of a lack of understanding of the philosophical and logical basis of government, the proper employment of science and because we have forgotten God.

"Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism."
- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The reason the Russian people suffered so much is because they forgot God."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

When you divorce religion from science, the resulting aberrations of governmental policy can be disasterous. One such example I can point to is the US government's 1940's imprisonment of Japanese Americans, genocide against Native Americans and the enslavement of the African race. Another example is German(*) self-justification of the 1940's mass murder of Jews, political malcontents, homosexuals, and handicapped persons. Russian(*) gulags, Chinese(*) murder of its own people in the 1960's and the Japanese(*) rape of Nanking in 1937 are additional examples. I could go on forever with examples, but the main point is Kings' reflection that religion restrains the abuse of science while science keeps religion rational. The two disciplines are a mated pair.

(*) Atheist governments, by the way.

If you prefer ignorance and ancient notions to the evidence of science, that is your prerogative, but it will take more than a bald choir loft assertion to make it so.

What 'evidence' are you referring to, sir? That mind and body and soul are one? I, as well as philosophy, agree with that point.

Just a tiny bit of reading about neuroscience should convince any person of reason. We know that drugs and trauma affect consciousness [spirit/soul]. It has been proved over and over. You can even do your own experiment with alcohol. Just don\'t fall out of the choir loft like Eutychus. Alcohol can numb the spirit, just like Paul\'s long winded preaching.

Your misplaced references to neurological behavior only mentions the affects of mind altering drugs. What is your point?

Drugs and trauma affect mind and body, which in turn affect the spirit. I'm not arguing that point at all.

Eutychus was disinterested in the truths being taught by St. Paul. They were beyond his childish understanding. Because of that he slept and fell out of the window. Eutychus was a child. Are you?

Beware lest you sleep and miss some important point that may cost you everything you hold dear. You seek excuses to satisfy your own lusts, not truth.

"It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

but that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

My goodness! All that and a personal attack as well, just because you made a false inference about what I wrote?

I never said, nor implied, that an ancient belief is false simply because it is old. I asserted that the ancient belief in the soul is yet another example of an idea that emerged from an absence of knowledge.

If you had more confidence in your arguments you might not need to resort to personal attacks. But I forgive you. I'm guessing you are just projecting.

[amptramp]

Your premise and supports for it are mistaken. "The ancient notion" as you call it and defined well by the ancient Greek philosophies, stated that the human was a tri-part entity. It consists of body, mind and spirit. The spirit isn't separate from the body and mind, it's a part of it; hence the modern anti-metaphysical argument. ..

You say my premise for this ANCIENT idea is mistaken, yet you admit it IS an ancient idea. And that is the very point of what I wrote. It is just one more ancient attempt to fill in ignorance with religious superstition, another of Zeus's thunderbolts. Science has answered the cause of lightning, and thousands of other phenomena of the ancient world that were formerly explained by desperate resort to religious explanation. In short, it is no longer necessary to suppose the idea of a soul, since we know where conscious comes from.

Just a tiny bit of reading about neuroscience should convince any person of reason. We know that drugs and trauma affect consciousness [spirit/soul]. It has been proved over and over. You can even do your own experiment with alcohol. Just don't fall out of the choir loft like Eutychus. Alcohol can numb the spirit, just like Paul's long winded preaching.

We don't know the first thing about consciousness. Is there a fundamental particle for it? Does a certain combination of proteins and enzymes cause consciousness? Is it limited to humans? (My dogs and the cat say no.) Is it limited to the dimensions of the body or is it capable of moving outside of it, like the silver cord and golden bowl described in the Bible? When a sunflower moves to track the sun across the sky, is this a mindless servomechanism like a power steering system or is the sunflower conscious of the sun and capable of forming the intent to follow it? Is there a progression of consciousness ranging from almost none in amorphous materials, more in crystals, more in plants and more in animals as some have suggested?

I understand that certain cases of trauma or drug-induced conditions allow us to gather enough information to catalog states of consciousness and deficiencies caused by these external effects, but as for fundamental understanding, we have none.

[bernee51]

This is all a bit off-topic...however...

We don't know the first thing about consciousness.

Who is this ‘we’ of which you speak?

Are you aware of the work done in this area by such people as Daniel Dennett (Consciousness Explained), Nicholas Humphrey (Seeing Red and Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness), David Chalmers (The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory) to name but three.

Is there a fundamental particle for it? Does a certain combination of proteins and enzymes cause consciousness? Is it limited to humans? (My dogs and the cat say no.) Is it limited to the dimensions of the body or is it capable of moving outside of it, like the silver cord and golden bowl described in the Bible? When a sunflower moves to track the sun across the sky, is this a mindless servomechanism like a power steering system or is the sunflower conscious of the sun and capable of forming the intent to follow it? Is there a progression of consciousness ranging from almost none in amorphous materials, more in crystals, more in plants and more in animals as some have suggested?

I understand consciousness to be an evolving continuum rather than an end-point. In humans (at least) it has evolved to a point of self-awareness…not only do we know but we know that we know. We have the ability to as “Who am I?� The fundamental ‘I’, awareness, is the ground from which ‘you’ has emerged.

I understand that certain cases of trauma or drug-induced conditions allow us to gather enough information to catalog states of consciousness and deficiencies caused by these external effects, but as for fundamental understanding, we have none.

The work done by the three mentioned above show ‘understanding we have none’ to be not quite accurate.

[Danmark]

We don't know the first thing about consciousness. Is there a fundamental particle for it? Does a certain combination of proteins and enzymes cause consciousness? Is it limited to humans? (My dogs and the cat say no.) Is it limited to the dimensions of the body or is it capable of moving outside of it, like the silver cord and golden bowl described in the Bible? When a sunflower moves to track the sun across the sky, is this a mindless servomechanism like a power steering system or is the sunflower conscious of the sun and capable of forming the intent to follow it? Is there a progression of consciousness ranging from almost none in amorphous materials, more in crystals, more in plants and more in animals as some have suggested?

I understand that certain cases of trauma or drug-induced conditions allow us to gather enough information to catalog states of consciousness and deficiencies caused by these external effects, but as for fundamental understanding, we have none.

This whole area of work is fascinating, probably because the brain is so complex as almost seem to approach the infinite, but to say we 'don't know the first thing?' Are you saying we know nothing about consciousness because we don't know every thing?

Here's a snippet from an article more than 3 years old, simply the first hit I rec'd on google:
This new work addresses the neural correlates of consciousness at an unprecedented resolution, using intra-cerebral electrophysiological recordings of neural activity. These challenging experiments were possible because patients with epilepsy who were already undergoing medical procedures requiring implantation of recording electrodes agreed to participate in the study. The authors presented them with visually masked and unmasked printed words, then measured the changes in their brain activity and the level of awareness of seeing the words. This method offers a unique opportunity to measure neural correlates of conscious access with optimal spatial and temporal resolutions. When comparing neural activity elicited by masked and unmasked words, they could isolate four converging and complementary electrophysiological markers characterizing conscious access 300 ms after word perception.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 201459.htm

A more fascinating story on consciousness can be accessed from that same page:
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2011) — The human brain works incredibly fast. However, visual impressions are so complex that their processing takes several hundred milliseconds before they enter our consciousness. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main have now shown that this delay may vary in length. When the brain possesses some prior information − that is, when it already knows what it is about to see − conscious recognition occurs faster. Until now, neuroscientists assumed that the processes leading up to conscious perception were rather rigid and that their timing did not vary.

You seem to be comparing flowers and inanimate objects like crystals to the brain. Why? I'm sure you're aware our postulations on consciousness rest at a most basic level on the theory that neurons are involved. I've even heard of people being 'as dumb as a rock,' but I don't think they meant rocks have brain cells.

[amptramp]

There was an interesting story that I read several decades ago. A detective with the Metropolitan Toronto Police borrowed a polygraph (lie detector) to take home and determine how fast a tomato plant that he was growing in the house responded to adding water. He connected electrodes at various points along the stem and got a progression of changes after watering it. But he noticed the poolygraph readings changed when he entered or left the room the plant was in.

At this point, he wanted to determine whether the plant recognized him, so he tried an experiment: he got a neighbour to abuse the plant, cutting and tearing leaves and even burning one of them with a lighter. The readings on the polygraph swung wildly. The plant calmed down and resumed its normal pattern when this person left. Some time later, he was still conducting the experiment and he hosted a party at his house and the friend who had previously abused the plant was invited. As soon as this person entered the room, the polygraph swung wildly again and did not stop until this person left the room.

I believe consciousness is more widely distributed than is commonly known, uses senses we may not be aware of and it need not remain in the body that it is associated with.

[Moses Yoder]

There was an interesting story that I read several decades ago. A detective with the Metropolitan Toronto Police borrowed a polygraph (lie detector) to take home and determine how fast a tomato plant that he was growing in the house responded to adding water. He connected electrodes at various points along the stem and got a progression of changes after watering it. But he noticed the poolygraph readings changed when he entered or left the room the plant was in.

At this point, he wanted to determine whether the plant recognized him, so he tried an experiment: he got a neighbour to abuse the plant, cutting and tearing leaves and even burning one of them with a lighter. The readings on the polygraph swung wildly. The plant calmed down and resumed its normal pattern when this person left. Some time later, he was still conducting the experiment and he hosted a party at his house and the friend who had previously abused the plant was invited. As soon as this person entered the room, the polygraph swung wildly again and did not stop until this person left the room.

I believe consciousness is more widely distributed than is commonly known, uses senses we may not be aware of and it need not remain in the body that it is associated with.

Pardon my skepticism. Especially considering the fact I am a believer.

[bernee51]

There was an interesting story that I read several decades ago. A detective with the Metropolitan Toronto Police borrowed a polygraph (lie detector) to take home and determine how fast a tomato plant that he was growing in the house responded to adding water. He connected electrodes at various points along the stem and got a progression of changes after watering it. But he noticed the poolygraph readings changed when he entered or left the room the plant was in.

At this point, he wanted to determine whether the plant recognized him, so he tried an experiment: he got a neighbour to abuse the plant, cutting and tearing leaves and even burning one of them with a lighter. The readings on the polygraph swung wildly. The plant calmed down and resumed its normal pattern when this person left. Some time later, he was still conducting the experiment and he hosted a party at his house and the friend who had previously abused the plant was invited. As soon as this person entered the room, the polygraph swung wildly again and did not stop until this person left the room.

I believe consciousness is more widely distributed than is commonly known, uses senses we may not be aware of and it need not remain in the body that it is associated with.

Wow that is amazing…

I heard a story about a guy who was tortured, killed and then came back to life.

Pity there was no substantial witnesses to either.