The Practicality Of The Soul

Discussion in 'Religion' started by DLH, Aug 31, 2014.

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  1. DLH Registered Member

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    The English word soul is somewhat of an unhappy translation in that it isn't a very fitting one. The word has a meaning contrary to the Bible's. The word soul comes from an Old English root word which means 'to bind.' Primitive superstitious people would bind the hands and feet of their dead in order to keep them from coming back as the undead to harm the living. The immortal soul isn't a Bible teaching, it infiltrated the Jewish thinking about the time of Alexander the Great through the philosophy of Socrates and Plato.

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    Alexander The Great In The Temple Of Jerusalem, by Sebastiano Conca: 1736

    Plato, quoting Socrates, said: "The soul, . . . if it departs pure, dragging with it nothing of the body, . . . goes away into that which is like itself, into the invisible, divine, immortal, and wise, and when it arrives there it is happy, freed from error and folly and fear . . . and all the other human ills, and . . . lives in truth through all after time with the gods." - Phaedo, 80, D, E; 81, A

    The Bible on the other hand, teaches that the soul is mortal. It dies. It is, in effect, the life, and the life experiences of any person or animal. The Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, comes from a root word which means "breather." The New Catholic Encyclopedia says: "Nepes [nephesh] is a term of far greater extension than our 'soul,' signifying life (Ex 21.23; Dt 19.21) and its various vital manifestations: breathing (Gn 35.18; Jb 41.13[21]), blood [Gn 9.4; Dt 12.23; Ps 140(141).8], desire (2 Sm 3.21; Prv 23.2). The soul in the OT means not a part of man, but the whole man - man as a living being. Similarly, in the N[ew] T[estament] it signifies human life: the life of an individual, conscious subject (Mt 2.20; 6.25; Lk 12.22-23; 14.26; Jn 10.11, 15, 17; 13.37)." - 1967, Vol. XIII, p. 467.

    Blood was a representation of the sacred life given by Jehovah God. Thus the importance of blood sacrifices, including that of Christ Jesus.
     
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  3. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Why should we believe anything the Bible says? The whole thing starts off with a talking snake in a magic fruit tree, and ends in tales of dragons and monsters attacking planet earth. Even as fiction it's pretty corny stuff..
     
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  5. DLH Registered Member

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    Well, that was sort of the point. There needs to be a distinction between what the Bible says and what Religion claims it says, or at least an acknowledgement that there is a distinction there. I don't subscribe to the school of thought that necessitates anyone should believe what the Bible says is true, but only what the Bible says is true especially compared to the transmogrification of religion. For example, there are no talking snakes, asses, or bushes in the Bible. There are three cases where a being of a higher intelligence used these as sort of things in order to communicate. The tree itself had no special powers, it was only used as a representation of Jehovah God's sovereignty. The dragon is a figurative representation of the same being that used the serpent earlier. If you read the Book of Revelation it has much that is misinterpreted, including astronomical anomalies that, upon further research can be found in the older Hebrew texts (in some cases word for word) to apply to social and political upheaval. These can often be misinterpreted by science minded lower critics as being celestial phenomenon like meteor showers or eclipses. They probably wrongly think this because they aren't aware of the earlier references but more importantly they see the ancient people as confused superstitious people. Ironic?
     
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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I wasted 20 years of my life studying and nitpicking that compendium of goatherder fables and psycho delusions. I have no interest in anything it has to say about anything. I can't think of any book that has caused more ignorance and superstitious fear and hostility between otherwise good neighbors except for maybe the Quran. What possible relevance does it have for your own life? Do you actually derive your sense of right and wrong from it? Or is analyzing it just a hobby?
     
  8. DLH Registered Member

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    My guess about you is that you were mislead by religion and later enlightened, as it were, by science, correct? Typically people in that position can be most bitter. You don't seem to me at this point to be bitter and that's a good thing. I respect that you have rejected the Bible. That is the way it goes most often. The point of being introduced to it isn't so much to blindly accept it but to make an informed decision, and apparently you have done so.

    To answer your questions, the Bible is relevant in my life as an accurate history of mankind, as an example, as well as the purpose of my creator for mankind in the future. This involves an explanation of, put simply, where we were, where we are, where we are headed and why. Do I derive morality from it? To a degree, I suppose, I attempt to as the example set in an historical context mentioned earlier can dictate. Most of those examples are far from flattering but it all comes from the same place. The discussion of morality is an obfuscated one though. Morality is inherent in all of us, God given, I believe, whether we acknowledge it or not, but it is also in part a product of all sorts of influences of a cultural or traditional narrative. Speaking of the practicality of the soul, consider also, the practicality of the spirit. The Hebrew term ruach is translated as spirit, but can also, depending upon the context, be translated as breath, wind, breeze, or mental inclination. It basically means any invisible active force. Something unseen yet producing results. For example, the Greek word translated spirit is pneuma, from which comes the English pneumonia and pneumatic. So we have all of these practical but subtle influences that we can't see but should, I think, try and be aware of.

    This doesn't put me on a moral pedestal but only makes me aware of the things that influence me, negative and positive, quixotic and mundane, real and imagined. Analyzing the Bible has not only proven to be fascinating but also has made me self aware. I trust it completely. More than anything I have ever been taught or learned. Though (Edit) fallible, it has never let me down.
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2014
  9. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    That sounds like an article of religious faith to me. So how did you discover the Bible was infallible? What does that even mean?
     
  10. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    DHL - as a modified Christian, one thing I would contend is that the Bible is, in fact, fallible. It was written by mortal hands of their experiences and perceptions, after all. Plus, with the passage of time, certain parts have become horribly outdated (such as when it is appropriate to stone your wife/child/neighbor to death)
     
  11. Bells Staff Member

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    Actually, the etymology of the word soul, as you are attempting to portray it here, is Germanic.

    Because a person who thinks a shrub, snake of ass is talking to him and is acting as a vessel for a "being of a higher intelligence" is sane?

    There are many clear examples of schizophrenia and mental illness written in the Bible, Paul's revelation on his way to Damascus is probably one of the clearer examples.

    Sadly, back then, people suffering from such psychotic breakdowns were seen to be communing with "beings of a higher intelligence". Today if someone presents and claim that they speak to angels and that God is speaking to them through other vessels (like animals), they are treated for their clear mental illness. And it is not an uncommon occurrence today.

    Visit your local emergency room, on a Friday or Saturday night. And you will see that history of mankind as you believe you read in your Bible, live, as people suffering from psychotic breakdowns and extreme bouts of paranoid schizophrenia present at the hospital suffering from the exact same delusions that you find and believe in your Bible. Their experiences, what they see, hear and feel is the same. Then you can explain why you believe the Bible but not those in the local emergency room.
     
  12. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    People get "enlightened" by attending classes, doing homework and passing tests. That includes some science, of course. What is your grievance with science, and why did you join a science board if not to hope to engage reasonably "enlightened" people with some interests in discussing matters of science?

    Educated people are not necessarily bitter about the attacks on science and academia, except of course the direct victims of public attacks. Many of them are simply outspoken about the harm it produces.

    Not necessarily. Insight is a good thing.

    Generally speaking, introductions to the Bible usually involve the indoctrination of vulnerable minds.

    That's not reflected in some of your posts, nor does it demonstrate any insight into what history teaches, nor does the use of the term "mankind" score you any points on the question of misogyny.

    Your creators were mankind and womankind, your parents. The belief that humans were created out of thin air amounts to a denial of the vast evidence of evolution, geology and the related sciences promoted by the main forums of this site. The site goals of intelligent discussion are hardly achieved by propounding beliefs strongly contradicted by physical evidence.

    We were, and are, living organisms inhabiting our niche of the ecosystems on Earth. The reason for that is explained in biology as survival of the species.

    By morality you mean ethics.

    A lot of your content is simply lost to obscurity. If you want to be understood, you should strive to be clear.

    Then perhaps you should instead speak of ethics and you'll get more general agreement without causing people to shrink from the hubris.

    The rest of us (most everyone) call it ethics, and recognize it as the natural product of human acculturation into a cooperative society. This is the predictable outcome of behaviors genetically transmitted to us by our protohuman ancestors.

    The narrative is a matter of the arts. The sciences take care of fleshing out the facts, such as our genetic roots in behaviors found in more primitive animals, but adapted according to the faculties of human reason. Ethics is both a consequence of evolved behavior, and the logic arising from the evolved faculty of human reason. The empathy which motivates ethics is biologically endowed. Even Darwin noted the empathy a gorilla shows for her young, as something superior to humans in the throes of savagery.

    Depending on what people believe, they may call them the same thing. The question originates in the absence of sciences like biology, which explains quite clearly what animates organisms. In short, it's the ability to convert and use energy for purposes like locomotion, metabolism, tissue growth, reproduction, and everything else we associate with physically living. All of those practicalities are a matter of survival of species.

    It's a dead language, having been replaced by Greek and Aramaic due to Hellenization. Hence the fascination with this concept in Christianity (to include Messianic Judaism) of this word as it applied to the ontology of Greek Stoicism, which infused itself into the legends of the New Testament.

    In common speech it normally refers to a principle of religious doctrine, which extricates human beings from their biological physical reality and replaces that with usually archaic superstitious explanations that were invented to explain phenomena for which there was no science.

    Which is the focus of just about all mathematical and scientific inquiry. The alternative was to rely on Greek philosophy, such as Stoicism, which is why some of these themes appear in the New Testament,

    Which tells you it has nothing to do with Hebrew tradition, but results from Alexander the Great's conquest of the Levant, and the consequent absorption of Greek religious, ontological and philosophical ideas into the failing Hebrew culture -- esp failing to repel Babylon, Greece and Rome, despite the belief their God favored them above all other nations, a notion clearly rooted in the paranoid xenophobia of a culture that was constantly being bullied by the superpowers of its time.

    . . . or just turn to the life sciences and not have to invent explanations that are already worked out from the preponderance of evidence.

    Sounds like a quagmire of dubious rhetoric.

    You were not sentient before you could read?

    Then you must know little of history and nothing of exegesis.

    If you were educated in an accredited school (or the equivalent) anywhere in the world, then you were taught fundamentals of history and biology which render fundamentalism (even in its incarnation as what purports to be Messianic Judaism) moot. You would have been taught this, but for some reason you didn't learn it.

    The belief that the literally interpreted Bible is infallible is refuted by all of history and exegesis, biology, physics, and science and academia at large.
     
  13. DLH Registered Member

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    My apologies, it was an error on my part which I have edited. The translation of the Bible is indeed fallible, though the word of God is infallible.
     
  14. DLH Registered Member

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    You are correct, that was an error on my part. Thanks for the correction. The Bible is indeed fallible.
     
  15. Captain Kremmen All aboard, me Hearties! Valued Senior Member

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    Unfair point.
    This is not just a science board.
    Science is less than 50% of what is discussed here.
    We have a Religion section, so if DHL wishes to discuss the subject without insult or proselytisation, this is surely a good site for him to join.


    DLH may have come here to discuss religion.
     
  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I HAVE been enlightened--by science, by history, by philosophy, by cultural studies, by paleontology, by studying other religions, and by mainly just the common sense of knowing the Bible is a morass of ancient fables and primitive beliefs that has no relevance to my life. There's few things I'm more clear about in my life than that religion is a dead end that results in nothing but disappointment, delusion, confusion, and dysfunction. Being what I call a mystical atheist now, I live in the moment of this life, freed from all the baggage that Christianity saddled me with and open to discovering the truth of reality and my place in it. I try not to be bitter, but it's difficult not to hold religion responsible for so much of the hatred and bigotry it generates in this world. So I move on. Here's to hoping you will eventually do the same. Each to their own path afterall.
     
  17. Bells Staff Member

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    Which in itself is bizarre. Why would you come to a site called "Sciforums" to discuss religion?

    The bulk of this website is science based. We have one religion section, the rules of which clearly state, no preaching. Which from his introduction thread, DLH may want to revise that a tad...

    I think Aqueous Id's question is quite pertinent in that regard.

    And also, if he wishes to post here about what he deems to be his truths, then he should be able to cope with having his claims, beliefs and argument's challenged. If he has come here to try to convert people, then that probably will not go down too well with members and staff alike.
     
  18. DLH Registered Member

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    Thanks, Captain, I did come here to discuss religion, but also to learn about science and technology. I thought that this seemed a good place to do both. I can see now that part of that won't be tolerated. In fact it seems to me that most any discussion won't be tolerated and these forums are interesting in that it doesn't seem to be the Mods that are the problem, except that they can't keep up with the whining and bitching of the rest. There is something about many science minded atheists that makes fundamentalists look like tolerant open minded free thinkers.

    That about wraps it up for me, I think.
     
  19. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Science is less than 50% of what is discussed here mostly due to trolling.

    I was responding in part to the insults and preaching DLH initiated in the other threads, and in part I to the insinuation that people are either "enlightened" by religion or "enlightened" by science. In fact, anyone who goes to school just about anywhere in the world is informed by both science and the study of religions as they pertain to historical and cultural studies. The question I have for people who make extraordinary religious claims, to include the things like inerrancy of the Bible, esp. which accompanied by insults (all of "Christendom" other than Messianic Judaism of the unaffiliated kind are apostates) is why they come to science boards to dump this ignorant nonsense where mostly educated people are likely to step in it. The most likely explanation is that DLH is trolling. I am simply advancing to the point where DLH gets banned for the infractions, rather than playing this cat and mouse game for hundreds of posts as is the troll's actual intent.

    Calling all of "Christendom" other than himself "apostates" pretty much nixed the chances that this will ever amount to more than preaching. That leaves trolling as the most likely form of discussion to follow.
     
  20. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Well at least you got your licks in. And you discovered that SciForums is no wimp. So rest assured there are an endless supply of sites that will bicker with you to your heart's content as you go down that lonesome road of convincing the world that you alone have discovered the One True Religion.
     
  21. Bells Staff Member

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    I am going to speak plainly and leave out the niceties that I would usually partake in in polite society, simply because from your first appearance here, you have not been polite. So I am going to get down to your level and speak in the language you seem to have adopted upon your arrival here.

    You are new here.

    It might serve you better to not come across like a pretentious arsehole right form the get-go and within a few posts since you first came here, insulted and offended religious people and atheists alike.

    If you wish to discuss religion and science and technology, then you are welcome to do so. However we would encourage you to not approach it as you have approached religion since you arrived here.
     
  22. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Uh, its kinda ironic, but that sounds like one of your typical posts, MR!

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  23. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    Are souls are embedded in our DNA, they are unquie natures pure of the world here for our bodied humans water earth wind and fire. They complete us, and we complete them they are logic and reason, we are man and body.
     
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