Parts of us

[billcu1]

I don’t know if the church is an authority to go to on this or not. Or who would be but I will ask the question. And btw I don’t think I mean reincarnation about this but are attributes of us scattered through time and space or outside of it? What is getting me to consider this is for example sexual attraction. So many of us have the same history, background and childhood but even with that some of us are straight, some bi, some gay. And even bestiality and pedophilia. All this can’t be answered by the simple question “How did you grow up or how were you treated?”. Could it be that our minds are in different spaces and times? Buddhist Psychology might answer this but does Thomism or augustinianism say anything?

 

[christofirst]

I don’t know if the church is an authority to go to on this or not. Or who would be but I will ask the question. And btw I don’t think I mean reincarnation about this but are attributes of us scattered through time and space or outside of it? What is getting me to consider this is for example sexual attraction. So many of us have the same history, background and childhood but even with that some of us are straight, some bi, some gay. And even bestiality and pedophilia. All this can’t be answered by the simple question “How did you grow up or how were you treated?”. Could it be that our minds are in different spaces and times? Buddhist Psychology might answer this but does Thomism or augustinianism say anything?

As a child of the '60s, I first thought of the song Woodstock, “We are stardust…” in that the matter of our physical bodies - the very atoms - is the stuff of creation: recycled, so to speak, but I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at. It sounds more like you’re wondering if some particles of consciousness from previous lives come along with the matter, and I’m sure the Church says no. Someone with more knowledge of Augustine or Aquinas can answer that better than I.

I think that what causes sexual orientation (or deviancy), since you mention this specifically, is our individual mix of nature and nurture. Nurture you already covered in how we were raised and our life experience, which matters a lot. For nature, I would include our unique genetic make-up; unique, but still a combination of genes from those who came before us: our parents and grandparents and on back. These are the parts which determine how our brains will function, and lead to what we might consider a predisposition.

 

[billcu1]

As a child of the '60s, I first thought of the song Woodstock, “We are stardust…” in that the matter of our physical bodies - the very atoms - is the stuff of creation: recycled, so to speak, but I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at. It sounds more like you’re wondering if some particles of consciousness from previous lives come along with the matter, and I’m sure the Church says no. Someone with more knowledge of Augustine or Aquinas can answer that better than I.

I think that what causes sexual orientation (or deviancy), since you mention this specifically, is our individual mix of nature and nurture. Nurture you already covered in how we were raised and our life experience, which matters a lot. For nature, I would include our unique genetic make-up; unique, but still a combination of genes from those who came before us: our parents and grandparents and on back. These are the parts which determine how our brains will function, and lead to what we might consider a predisposition.

I wasn’t thinking so much about consciousness from “previous” or “future” lives as much as these lives being lived at the same time. The same “instant”. I know we are all a part of the same soul Adam and his “sin” is what we all have and have inherited spiritually. God sees us as the soul adam and individual souls. I know a little about past lives and dealings with angels concerning myself in my own case but I didn’t necessarily purposefully mean to hit on reincarnation. Past lives involve the past tense. With time being an illusion maybe we are all the same. Some say a set of “temporal sequences” I believe the Dalai Lama has said.

 

[GEddie]

I wasn’t thinking so much about consciousness from “previous” or “future” lives as much as these lives being lived at the same time. The same “instant”. I know we are all a part of the same soul Adam and his “sin” is what we all have and have inherited spiritually. God sees us as the soul adam and individual souls. I know a little about past lives and dealings with angels concerning myself in my own case but I didn’t necessarily purposefully mean to hit on reincarnation. Past lives involve the past tense. With time being an illusion maybe we are all the same. Some say a set of “temporal sequences” I believe the Dalai Lama has said.

Time is not an illusion. It is a property of matter, and therefore of our material bodies; as embodied minds, we are subject to it.

We can only function mentally as allowed by the entropy in our bodies, which drives collinear time. There is some bending backward (memory) and forward (precognition or prophecy), but not sideways.

We will not be free of time until eternal life, and the pneumatikon soma.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[billcu1]

Time is not an illusion. It is a property of matter, and therefore of our material bodies; as embodied minds, we are subject to it.

We can only function mentally as allowed by the entropy in our bodies, which drives collinear time. There is some bending backward (memory) and forward (precognition or prophecy), but not sideways.

We will not be free of time until eternal life, and the pneumatikon soma.

ICXC NIKA.

I know Tibetan buddhism teaches “Everything is some form of mind” now exactly what is meant by this and how far reaching it goes I don’t know. I know you can and there are ways of going into the past and into parallel lives. Of course I don’t know them Entropy and aging can be stopped too. The “two in the garden” the story tells us we were originally immortal and had divine awareness. But were not self-aware. It always happens this way.

 

[GEddie]

I know Tibetan buddhism teaches “Everything is some form of mind” now exactly what is meant by this and how far reaching it goes I don’t know. I know you can and there are ways of going into the past and into parallel lives. Of course I don’t know them Entropy and aging can be stopped too. The “two in the garden” the story tells us we were originally immortal and had divine awareness. But were not self-aware.

In which case, you should be doing your asking on a Tibetan Buddhist list rather than this one.

I for one have zero competency and less interest in Buddhism, and on a list with a Catholic perspective, you aren’t likely to find the answers you are looking for.

FWIW, Catholic teaching is that the human soul is indivisible. It cannot be spread between bodies; there can be no “parallel lives.”

GOD Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[billcu1]

In which case, you should be doing your asking on a Tibetan Buddhist list rather than this one.

I for one have zero competency and less interest in Buddhism, and on a list with a Catholic perspective, you aren’t likely to find the answers you are looking for.

FWIW, Catholic teaching is that the human soul is indivisible. It cannot be spread between bodies; there can be no “parallel lives.”

GOD Bless and ICXC NIKA.

True if I had a buddhist question I’d do that. But you’re exactly what I’m looking for. So the soul is indivisible. What about the spirit? Consciousness. If God divided would all things also have to be divisible? Atleast in a sense? No FWIW. I want the catholic prospective.

 

[Beryllos]

I don’t know about the Catholic perspective, but in the OP it sounds like you are wondering how people from similar backgrounds can have such varied personalities. Even fraternal twins raised together in the same family often have quite different personalities. (I’m not sure about identical twins.)

I think the simplest explanation is natural variations of neurological structure and chemistry, due to genetic diversity. You just have to look at the faces in a family to see that even closely related humans are highly varied in outward appearance. I suspect they are similarly varied on the inside.

 

[GEddie]

True if I had a buddhist question I’d do that. But you’re exactly what I’m looking for. So the soul is indivisible. What about the spirit? Consciousness. If God divided would all things also have to be divisible? Atleast in a sense? No FWIW. I want the catholic prospective.

The soul and the spirit are one.

I think of the “spirit” as the breath of God, making us alive (as when He breathed into Adam’s nose). The Greek word pneuma, Hebrew word ruach and Latin word spiritus, all of which are translated as spirit, literally mean breath!

In Ezekiel and again in Revelation, resurrection does not happen until “spirit” (ruach/pneuma) is breathed from God into the dead bodies.

Spirit makes us alive, soul is the life itself, held in our bodies (somas). They are one.

Consciousness is not spirit, it is the output of our cognitive mind, which is a process of our human or “rational soul.” Your spirit remains even if you are unconscious, as long as your body holds life.

God cannot divide, neither can our soul. If God could divide, He would not be eternal because He would then be subject to death; separate the head from body, the neck bones, or blood from body and the human being dies. Only the indivisible is eternal.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Ryuji_Yamazaki]

Read carefully the books of Revelation & Ezekiel. The Spirit teaches us that the 6 days of creation are a rotating universe. Hint: all the fowls were filled with their flesh, Gog & Magog.

These 6 days are a nightmare. Those who live on earth die the second death which consists in falling asleep in that nightmare only to dream that nightmare again. A bottomless pit indeed. Those who live in heaven, who see the light of the Spirit, wake up & rest in the eternal seventh day, the Son, the temple of the tabernacle. But because only God is Him which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty, those who live in heaven fall asleep i.e., dream the six days. The difference is that, unlike those who live on earth, they have 2 alternating standpoints. In the one they are the 2 witnesses clothed in sackcloth. In the other they are the 6 first angels clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles, here they have a lucid dream, they rule those who live on earth with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers. Both occur in the same dream. The 7th angel is Christ, the book of life, the Logos. The 1000 years marriage supper consists in the synthesis of the contradictory standpoints hence, in the seventh day, where they wake up, rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.

That an integer i is a j means that j is a factor of i. 144000 = 2 * 12 * (7 - 1) * 1000 = 24 * (7 - 1) * 1000.
The 144000 are the 2 witnesses, the 12 judges of the tribes of Israel, the 24 elders sitting on thrones, the 7 - 1 = 6 first angels that lived and reigned with Christ a 1000 years.

He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints (Revelation 13.10)

 

[billcu1]

God cannot divide, neither can our soul. If God could divide, He would not be eternal because He would then be subject to death; separate the head from body, the neck bones, or blood from body and the human being dies. Only the indivisible is eternal.

ICXC NIKA

I think you would agree with this I think it’s Thomism. The unlimited in order to create has to become limited. To do a work like creation a state must change. This wouldn’t be division would it? Just a change of state?

 

[Ryuji_Yamazaki]

A cube has 6 faces. The cube is 3-D, its faces are 2-D.
The 6 faces are the 6 days of the court which is without the temple. The cube is the temple of God, the Son, the Logos, the seventh day.

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty [and] two months. (Revelation 11.1, 2)

And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. (Revelation 21.15, 16)

 

[GEddie]

I think you would agree with this I think it’s Thomism. The unlimited in order to create has to become limited. To do a work like creation a state must change. This wouldn’t be division would it? Just a change of state?

Creation implies a change in what is created (from nonbeing to being), but not a change on the part of the Creator.

ICXC NIKA