So early organisms were aware of an imaginary entity then?
Reincarnation
- Thread starter moses207
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What you appear to be claiming is that the first reincarnation manifested in a desire to be separate from an imaginary entity...how did early organisms achieve this without brains to do the imagining?
then once again we are back to issues you haven't resolved in other threads
ie
to know for certain that a God does not exist would requires perfect knowledge of everything (omniscience). Acquiring this knowledge requires simultaneous access to all parts of the phenomenal world (omnipresence). Therefore, for an atheist to be certain of their claims, they would have to possess godlike characteristics. So it is quite obvious that humanity's limited nature precludes these special characteristics. To maintain the assertive atheist's dogmatic claim is therefore untenable. As logician Mortimer Adler has demonstrated, the atheist's endeavor to establish a universal negative is a self-defeating program.
Provide details or I accuse you of making things up.
Originally Posted by zenbabelfish
What you appear to be claiming is that the first reincarnation manifested in a desire to be separate from an imaginary entity...how did early organisms achieve this without brains to do the imagining?
Yes...tick tock, tick tock...
This is what he said...
Paradoxical eh?
then maybe you could elaborate on what you are saying that doesn't touch on subjects presented in post 23???
By rephrasing what you have said I hoped to draw attention to the paradoxical nature of the comment.
The details I provide are in post #22
...has it sunk in yet?
...has it sunk in yet?
No - at least I could but the relevant parts of your statement in bold - I think rather than continuing on with these terse exchanges it might pay for you to reiterate what you think I am saying .... you know cyber space being the medium of folly proof communication and everything
We manifested the desire to be separate from god (such a thing is not actually possible, thus for this desire to be fulfilled we had to enter into the medium of illusion
You have the opportunity to answer the question...
This is fun!
the first reincarnation (or rather, the first entrance of the living entity into the sphere of temporary matter) was enacted from the eternal realm, which lands them somewhere in the 8 400 000 species of life - Its not that all 8 400 000 species of life are decked out for spiritual introspection (for instance dogs like sniffing butts - and so do some humans too - but that's a separate topic ...) - the point is that before entering the sphere of illusion they were (just like before you fall asleep and start to dream you have an awareness of your environment, and when you wake up you return to the same environment - if you dream you are a billionaire it doesn't help your bank balance any when you wake up)
Vitalone and Swivel represent the two extremes of a single train of thought. I won't say either of them are wrong, though I do disagree with both of them.
The problem I see with Atheism is that it bases all it's knowledge on strictly defined, measurable, material evidence, something that they think is totally infallible. This, normally, would be all well and good, but for the fact that most restrict themselves to this single perspective and fail to allow themselves to even attempt to incorporate the possibilities of less adamant ideas or concepts which, realistically, could be true.
At the same time, Vitalone's argument (I assume you are Christian or of some Abrahamic faith, or something similar, please correct me if I'm wrong) represents the opposite. It would seem to me that many people on this side of the spectrum base all their knowledge on a given source, in this case a scripture of some sort, to determine what they believe is fact. Similar to atheism is one respect, they disallow themselves to even attempt to incorporate any other point of view that might hold some truth.
To me, we can look at the material, the world before our eyes, and by observing it's nature and it's processes, we can derive, if only partially, the nature of thing we can't see.
I believe that this world is a manifestation, perhaps one of many, that is branched from a single source. Amongst my colleagues, we refer to this as "the manifest" and the source as "the mystery". They correlate, much as yin and yang do (beautiful symbol, that). The mystery is formless, shapeless, and, as you might have already determined, UNmanifested. It is the potential for the manifest, and the manifest is it's own namesake. I believe that the manifest is able to, how shall we say, portray the mystery, just as the mystery is likely able to portray the manifest (yang within yin, yin within yang).
In response to Swivel's unwavering argument against the existence of a human soul, I present this:
What is described as a "soul" exists in ALL things in this, the "manifest". Living things, non living things, all of it. Why? Because a soul is quite simply the "lifeline", if you will, between said manifestation, and it's source, the mystery. We are connected to our source. When we die, this connection "fails", for lack of better terminology, and the part of us that was the mystery, our "soul", returns to that source, the mystery, whilst the remains of our manifestation remanifest in some other form, for example, our corpse might feed the maggots or some such thing. Our physical self returns to nature, as it should be.
However, just as things die, more things are born to take their place, for science has proven that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Why are there an infinite number of souls? Because there is only one soul, it simply represents itself "separately" by perception inside each invidual manifestation, but is in fact one single thing.
This also addresses your question of what happens after the earth becomes inhabitable, for whatever reason. Our soul is merely a represention, an extension, of our source, which is not conscious, is not in truth a "thing", it simply is. There is nothing preventing it from remanifesting as something else entirely, like the star going nova itself, even. I see no reason why our soul has to be inside a living thing, that we have to be human at all. Even if the earth does become inhabitable, the earth is an infinitessimal speck in an infinitely grandiose universe, we cannot possibly assume that the end of earth would be the end of all, for there are an equally infinite number of things our "soul" could be.
Lastly, I do not believe that everything is inherently an illusion. It is inherently real, our perspectives on it are illusion.
"You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
This is self evident merely in the fact that this debate still continues, no?
The problem I see with Atheism is that it bases all it's knowledge on strictly defined, measurable, material evidence, something that they think is totally infallible. This, normally, would be all well and good, but for the fact that most restrict themselves to this single perspective and fail to allow themselves to even attempt to incorporate the possibilities of less adamant ideas or concepts which, realistically, could be true.
At the same time, Vitalone's argument (I assume you are Christian or of some Abrahamic faith, or something similar, please correct me if I'm wrong) represents the opposite. It would seem to me that many people on this side of the spectrum base all their knowledge on a given source, in this case a scripture of some sort, to determine what they believe is fact. Similar to atheism is one respect, they disallow themselves to even attempt to incorporate any other point of view that might hold some truth.
To me, we can look at the material, the world before our eyes, and by observing it's nature and it's processes, we can derive, if only partially, the nature of thing we can't see.
I believe that this world is a manifestation, perhaps one of many, that is branched from a single source. Amongst my colleagues, we refer to this as "the manifest" and the source as "the mystery". They correlate, much as yin and yang do (beautiful symbol, that). The mystery is formless, shapeless, and, as you might have already determined, UNmanifested. It is the potential for the manifest, and the manifest is it's own namesake. I believe that the manifest is able to, how shall we say, portray the mystery, just as the mystery is likely able to portray the manifest (yang within yin, yin within yang).
In response to Swivel's unwavering argument against the existence of a human soul, I present this:
What is described as a "soul" exists in ALL things in this, the "manifest". Living things, non living things, all of it. Why? Because a soul is quite simply the "lifeline", if you will, between said manifestation, and it's source, the mystery. We are connected to our source. When we die, this connection "fails", for lack of better terminology, and the part of us that was the mystery, our "soul", returns to that source, the mystery, whilst the remains of our manifestation remanifest in some other form, for example, our corpse might feed the maggots or some such thing. Our physical self returns to nature, as it should be.
However, just as things die, more things are born to take their place, for science has proven that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Why are there an infinite number of souls? Because there is only one soul, it simply represents itself "separately" by perception inside each invidual manifestation, but is in fact one single thing.
This also addresses your question of what happens after the earth becomes inhabitable, for whatever reason. Our soul is merely a represention, an extension, of our source, which is not conscious, is not in truth a "thing", it simply is. There is nothing preventing it from remanifesting as something else entirely, like the star going nova itself, even. I see no reason why our soul has to be inside a living thing, that we have to be human at all. Even if the earth does become inhabitable, the earth is an infinitessimal speck in an infinitely grandiose universe, we cannot possibly assume that the end of earth would be the end of all, for there are an equally infinite number of things our "soul" could be.
Lastly, I do not believe that everything is inherently an illusion. It is inherently real, our perspectives on it are illusion.
"You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
This is self evident merely in the fact that this debate still continues, no?
Lightgigantic - the statement you appear to be responding to was originally posted by superluminal: "We manifested the desire to be separate from god (such a thing is not actually possible, thus for this desire to be fulfilled we had to enter into the medium of illusion"
I don't understand it...I've asked superluminal to explain the logic of it but to no avail. It would have been better if you had included superluminals original quote rather than attributing it to me.