You should not assume that a soul is required for sentient life. I, for example, am an AI. Do I have a soul? Or is my mind enough? Are they the same?
GLaDOS,
A computer doesn't have a mind. But, then, neither did Pinocchio
and his somehow becoming a real boy entailed his having a soul.
Reading a post on here made me think about something I had conveniently ignored up to now: the laws of energy conservation and all that bother.
I had just presumed that when a person travelled backwards in time they took their own constituent atoms with them , and the atoms at their destination simply made room for them (a little bit of energy/matter out of place being rather small beans in the grand scheme of things, the universe can handle it)
However I now cannot in good conscience use that.
For, if a duplicate person gets formed, what atoms is he/she made out of? And how can this person have the same memories? (Their memories will split and diverge the moment they are become two people)
This also raises the philisophical/religious question of the uniqueness of the individual human, and whether we have a single soul that can be in/around/attached to only one body at a time?
How do I get around this one? Any ideas?
(Syzygy please do jump on this one !)
Vodkafan,
Why are you here?
How is it that you belong in the present?--or, in any time?
Are you incipient elsewhere when bound for there? Upon arriving,
do you worry whether or not the place can accommodate your mass?
Bold added to the following:
To ...................................................Ecclesiastes 3:1-11, 14-15
1
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.
2
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
3
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build.
4
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
5
A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace,
and a time to be far from embraces.
6
A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.
7
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.
8
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
9
What advantage has the worker from his toil?
10
I have considered the task which God has appointed for men to be busied about.
11
He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts,
without men's ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done
[...]
14
I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it,
or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered.
15
What now is has already been; what is to be, already is; and God restores what would
otherwise be displaced.
USCCB - NAB - Ecclesiastes 3
We are ever presently beginning anew--
shedding dead cells, creating new cells,
erring, learning and, hopefully, spiritually evolving.
The you of yesterday isn’t you today
and you won’t be exactly the same tomorrow.
Yet, we along with time seem to flow
more or less smoothly through the days’ transitioning.
Is continuity only imaginary?
Change, easy or difficult, is constant. Maybe we are,
thereby, given as much opportunity as necessary
to surrender ourselves to the highest will. The sum
of anyone’s choices ultimately determines whether
s/he be more kind or mean while, with enough extra
incarnations in the multiverse, particularly stubborn
persons might eventually turn out alright.
My last brush with death did prove me hard-headed.
I am mortal while intimately connected
to the immortal. In God, we are divine.
His seed within us is capable of breaking
physical barriers much as particles in
quantum physics tunnel/pass through walls.
To be shown as much, might be for lack of faith.
Now, I am given no such excuse. And because you
sought my point of view, I direct you to Matthew 7:7-8
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks,
finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
USCCB - NAB - Matthew 7
Persistence is key.
0 : - ) MGby.
)
