No one in heaven or hell

[Gareth]

All these atheists!!! They are like trolls. I think they are coming from another website. How annoying. Thread after thread after thread… about the same thing…

It took me a while to notice this. but my questions were genuine at the time.

In your view are athiests and agnostics not allowed in these forums? Is so that is it at variance with the aims of Catholic Answers.

I assure you my questions were genuine and not the result of a campaign from another website. There are a lot of atheists out there thats the fact, either you want to discuss your faith with them or you don’t thats up to you… other people are happy to discuss questions like mine, they consider it one of the tenants of their faith.

If you don’t like these threads, and can’t be bothered discussing other view points don’t read them.

In closing I suggest you “go away and expire”.

 

[cranster]

I Later in your life you develop Althziemers desease. At first you forget things. Later you become nasty and hateful. (sadly it happens). You forget God.

I lost my mother to alzheimers 3 years ago, and as someone who has worked with alzheimers patients I feel qualified on a rudimentary level to speak to this. An alzheimer’s patient becomes nasty, and seemingly hateful alot of times because of sundowners that develops as the disease progresses. Ususally around twilight they can get pretty agitated. That’s just the disease process. It is a disease of the brain, not a moral lapse.

My mother said to me years ago at the funeral of a very saintly Bishop who died of alzheimers himself and was one of the rude ones toward the end. She said, “There is no greater gift that one can give of oneslef to God than their mind”. She lived a very saintly life and thought she would get agitated she did not become rude and I would’nt have been concerned if she had. She became just like a baby totally dependant on others. Toward the end they lose the ability to even comunicate and the rudeness is gone.

Jesus told us we must “become like children” if we want to enter Heaven.

God is perfectly capable of being able to both read a person’s heart and see through a disease process. It was how she loved and lived her life I firmly believe is what she stood before God with, and was not judged by a diseased brain. The truth is, the last week of her life, on her deathbed the peace and presence of God was palpable in her room. I heard people say over and over… “God is in this room”.

 

[By_His_Mercy]

I firmly believe there is nobody in hell… or heaven. Why?

Because we don’t have souls and when electricity stops moving throught our brains we are gone forever.

There is no demonstratable evidence that we do have souls. …

Hi Gareth,

Just some of my previous thoughts on this part…

If all we are is matter, circuits, energy, information storage, etc. then this could be comparable to a very sophisticated computer in a sense. Not that we could build something this complex, but in essence, we’ve got the same thing. Now, can you build a computer that feels pain…actually suffers? You can keep on adding processors, circuits, data storage, more sophisticated software, etc., but when does it actually suffer? I refer to real agony. I propose that that never happens…you have lifeless circuitry. Sure, you can do more “integration”…more feedback loops, and make it bigger, more complex, and conceive the whole thing in an “integrating” fashion…but I don’t think you’ll ever get to real pleasure or real pain. There’s “something else”. All of this feeds into something “other”.

What do you think?

 

[eva6206213]

thank you for the sahring!
i need to think of it for a long time~ hmmmmmmmmmmmm~

 

[Astaldo711]

To those with faith, no proof is neccesary, for those without faith, no proof will do.

 

[saieditor]

I firmly believe there is nobody in hell… or heaven. Why?

Because we don’t have souls and when electricity stops moving throught our brains we are gone forever.

My take on your statements above is you are confusing soul with consciousness. Consciousness is a function of mind. Soul and mind are not synomymous. Soul and body are not synonymous, either. Soul is spirit, emerges from the realm of spirit and returns to spirit. Spirit does not have to follow the laws of our three dimensional reality, this galaxy, this universe.

Spirituality is a science also. Spirituality is the science of love. Science is the split of love. Spirituality is the science of the soul, the roadmap of man on the journey of his return to the Divine. You come to a Catholic forum and ask these questions, then you have to listen to the replies which oblige the courtesy and respect you extend your reader. You are going to get replies which address man and his relationship with God and his life with God.

There is no demonstratable evidence that we do have souls.

You and the Prophet Job, suing the Divine and ordering the Divine into court for the mystery of suffering and evil. Nothing has changed, has it Gareth?

Can anyone say “My soul is dead”? The physical body perishes with the passage of time, but the soul is eternal. One can see the reflection of the sun in a well, in a water tank, in the river, and also in the ocean. Without water, there can be no reflection. Each human being can be compared to a flow in which the reflection of the same soul is seen.

Later in your life you develop Althziemers desease.

Yes, Alzheimers’ is to do with the mind. Man is mind, body, and spirit, and you are confusing the three. You are not the body, you are not the senses, you are not the mind. You are something much greater than all of this; you are the eternal soul, on a journey of return to the divine. Be careful here, you are confusing mind, body and senses.

Still later your brain forgets about your body and it dies. when did your soul leave your body?

Catholicism in the application of sacraments, particularly the last sacrament, allows up to one hour after cessation of breathing. Other traditions say it can take up to three days before the soul leaves the body.

is your soul in your body? if so where?

On the right hand side opposite the heart is the spirtual heart, the domain of the soul.

Second question:

A child is born. It dies on the second day of life. Where does it go?

This is speculative, and others have addressed your speculation. You can say all sorts of things in reply to you but they require some foundation, a little like option explicit.

What happens when a person is in a coma, and then dies. when does the soul depart?

No different to any other time when the soul departs. A coma is not a good state, you are not alive, and you are not dead. I make no opening here for anyone to use the word zombie. That is to do with Rastafarianism, not Catholicsm or any other form of Christianity.

Is there a link between the soul and the mind? or are the two totally seperate?

They are separate. The teaching is extrabibilical, that is to say, I am not going to give you a citation from the Bible. Look to the theology of the human person, and do not mix mind, body, senses, spirit. They are all separate.

• Body is from the elements and returns to the elements
• Senses are simply the organs of perception and and a function of the body
• Mind is a bundle of thoughts
• Consciousness and perception are functions of the mind animated by the soul; soul animates the body, not electricity. Electricity comes from the activity of the soul within.

Will there be memories in the afterlife? If so how will they be stored / carried accross without the brain?

An interesting question. I suppose it depends on which point of view you anwer this from. Memories are from the dimensions of time and space. Heaven, Paradise, Beatific Vision, these are all outside time and space.

You seem to having great difficulty with the spiritual realm (which is what religion is all about, the presence of the spiritual, the divine, here and now, and the afterlife. That is to say, life after life. That you can use that terms infers that you accept that there is some form of awareness or consciousness after life in a body. Christianity and all other religions - Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Sikkhism, all these religions [and others that I have not mentioned] posit an afterlife for man.

Perhaps you limit the science of consciousness to the brain. The mind is not the brain, and the brain is not the mind. You speculate on the science of consciousness and imtimate that consciousness emerges of its own account. Man is homo sapiens sapiens; that is, man is sapienta, capable of wisdom and insight, and the second sapiens in that indicates that man has self awareness. Man is aware of who he is. That awareness is an activity of the mind, animated and informed by the soul.

You need to be a good scientist, examine all the evidence, and examine the evidence of spirituality ,also. You need to be really clear about what it is you are asserting.

 

[Gareth]

Ok now look.

I appreciate the well thought out replies especially those who posted when I first opened the thread.

However its obivous that some later posters have not bothered to read through the thread and are merely covering the same ground already covered.

Also please note at no time have I not listened or been incourtous.

This is my last post. This thread like the church can now go on with out me.

Best wishes
Gareth.