Souls With Bodies vs. Bodies With Souls

[davidv]

Why don’t you elaborate then.

Because I asked you to justify your claim of illogic. From what has been provided, it is an unjustified claim.

So what is the difference that leads to the conclusion you claimed?

The difference is that humans are different in kind, not degree, from the rest of creation. This difference, on its own, does not lead to any conclusion. It needs to be considered with the totality of the creation story and the revelation from God.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Because I asked you to justify your claim of illogic. From what has been provided, it is an unjustified claim.

Here is my justification: The conclusion (man’s soul was specially created by God. And not the result of some physical process) does not necessarily follow the premises (man was created in the image and likeness of God).

I honestly do not see why you believe this.

And apparently you agreed because instead of defending that you alluded to something not included: “I think you are missing some of the premises.”

Well, ok, what are those missing premises that justify your belief?

The difference is that humans are different in kind, not degree, from the rest of creation. This difference, on its own, does not lead to any conclusion. It needs to be considered with the totality of the creation story and the revelation from God.

Again, what is the “kind” of difference that leads to the conclusion you claim?

 

[davidv]

Here is my justification: The conclusion (man’s soul was specially created by God. And not the result of some physical process) does not necessarily follow the premises (man was created in the image and likeness of God).

I honestly do not see why you believe this.

I think that because you are not considering the whole story.

And apparently you agreed because instead of defending that you alluded to something not included: “I think you are missing some of the premises.”

Well, ok, what are those missing premises that justify your belief?

The whole story of creation and the Church’s interpretation thereof. Check out this section of the Catechism. “Paragraph 6. Man”

Again, what is the “kind” of difference that leads to the conclusion you claim?

Humans have an intellect and a will that animals and plants do not have.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I think that because you are not considering the whole story.

The whole story of creation and the Church’s interpretation thereof. Check out this section of the Catechism. “Paragraph 6. Man”

Humans have an intellect and a will that animals and plants do not have.

I can only assume from this and your previous response that you are no longer interested in defending your position. I’m sorry if this has become too tedious.

 

[davidv]

I can only assume from this and your previous response that you are no longer interested in defending your position. I’m sorry if this has become too tedious.

Another faulty conclusion, lacking evidence. What didn’t you understand in my reply?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I did a little searching on Google to see if anyone had a good answer to the question: why did God create a material universe. Interestingly, nobody seems to have a good answer and few seem at all interested in the question.

Here are a few oblique references:

desiringgod.org/articles/if-our-souls-are-immortal-why-do-our-bodies-need-to-be-resurrected

gci.org/prophecy/resbody

bible.org/seriespage/8-consciousness-soul-after-death

krishna.com/if-souls-and-bodies-are-different-why-do-we-have-bodies-all-do-perfect-souls-not-have-them

(Note the last is from a Krishna source suggesting that non-Christians are no better at dealing with the question.)

GCI poses the question clearly: “Why bother with the body?” But the answer is not so clear:

I do not claim to have a complete answer. I do know that God created physical matter, and it is therefore good. God did not make it just to destroy it later. He will keep the physical world in a renewed form, in a new heavens and new earth.

Which is pretty much the best that has been offered here so far.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I don’t see the logic in that. It sounds to me like the “Made by hand” sticker on tourist merchandise that is supposed to raise the value of it. Wouldn’t it be interesting if human souls were natural products like human bodies and still ended up being in God’s image?

I don’t have a pat answer to this but it doesn’t seem as absurd to me as it must to you. But Aquinas seemed to be of the opinion that animals have souls of some sort. (Plants too?) It’s possible, of course, that God forms these souls “by hand” but it also seems entirely reasonable to imagine that animal souls are just the animation of material bodies. At some point sophisicated chemical reactions cross the threshold to animate beings with presumable pretty simple souls. How life arises from cheical reactions is still not well understood but that doesn’t mean that it must be supernatural. And if animal souls can be natural, why not human souls?

I think we’re still debating the ‘immortality’ of the soul. If the soul is a property of a physical body then it would not have an existence apart from the body and we would not be conscious after death, only upon resurrection. If the soul is an emergent property of the physical body then it would be conceible for it to evolve with the evolution of the body.

It’s precisely why the soul is not an emergent property in humans that makes souls immortal. If souls were produced from the body then they could not survive the death of the body. Also, how could a physical thing produce something immaterial? There is no logic offered by you for such a process. You are asking if human souls are emerging from bodies and I am saying no.

For Aquinas the intellect and will is a power of the soul. An intellect is something that can not come from a material substance because it is immaterial. And because physical things can not think about something else. Physical things can have processes. But you would not consider electricity running through a circuit board as thinking would you? Likewise would you consider electrical impulses in brain matter as thinking? It would seem some kind of immaterial mind is necessary for immaterial thoughts. A physical body alone is not adequate. Perhaps this is one reason we were created as a composite by God of body and soul. Without a body we could not interact with the physical world as part of that world. But without a soul we could not have the powers of intellect and will.

 

[fisherman_carl]

For Aquinas the form of a thing is just an abstraction. The form of a triangle for instance might be having 3 sides. Now if a particular implementation of a triangle is drawn on a chalk board we see the illustration of that form. Now if someone were to erase it the form no longer exists on the board, but only as an abstraction in our minds. The soul of an animal is just its form. And for Aquinas neither does it survive the death of its body. Since the animal is purely physical. And its soul completely corrrsponds to every part of the body.

However, for the human, it is precisely because the human soul has the God given immaterial powers of will and intellect for which there is no corresponding organ that matches completely 1 to 1 that means that the soul could survive the death of the body. Because it has this power that already exists apart from the body. Therefore it does not need the body for its existence, and thus can survive the body’s death.

So you can see how the human soul with its unique powers of intellect that makes it somewhat detached from the body. Now every property of the brain is described in the soul as the soul is the form of the body. And thus it is no surprise how the brain and the mind are closely linked. It is though that the human mind can do things no physical brain could that gives the mind its independent power from the body. This is not an emergent property since there is nothing in the brain that could correspond to it. And since it could not come from the body it must come directly from God.

Hope this helps.

I recommend reading this
edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2011/01/against-neurobabble.html?m=1

Note also the above article talks about also how we need our bodies in order to think, that we are not complete without them.

 

[Lynxdk]

I love Fisherman Carls answers.

Just to add my own two cents, Man as Animal has the animal instincts not just from primates, but from all else that came before, built in, leftovers of things that one might consider a “Human Being” has grown beyond the need for, in some sense.

The way people React instinctively to violence, fight. flight, or freeze… or if one maintains control of oneself (and has the skills) can choose to balance the equation, so to speak and try to calm the situation down with submissive behavior, via body language and tone of voice, or by restraining a violent person, gently, so as not to hurt them, all things that would generally not be in the realm of many animals; Although there are also many that express dominance in their “tribes” without fighting to the death, as well, I wouldn’t call that as much an Act of Free Will, so much as biological imperatives.

Problems people have with emotional regulation often stem from what they learn from their parents and/or the people around them, society, et al, and these, too, can be overcome with ones Will, patience, practice, and the Choice to change ones own self for the better, with many varying reasons to start from.

I like to point out the way people argue on the Internet, as examples at times of animalistic behavior patterns that are not fully under the Will of the person. A conversation is a better place to be, in my experience, but even then people will pick out nits they’ve interpreted in their own minds, with their own feelings, and throw those bits back at the person in the form of a Straw man that was never intended by the first person, to start with.

To often it’s simply confusing to the original speaker how the other person came to that conclusion, and the conversation devolves into people simply defending each others positions, and not even attempting to listen and understand, honestly, where the other is coming from. It’s difficult to relate to each other, if we’re caught up in attack and defense, using words, instead of barks and growls.

Worse still, when people decide that this barking and growling constitutes “this is what debate is” without even knowing the proper Rules of debates, logical fallacies, etc so it’s always good thing to research such things, if one finds themselves constantly involved in arguments, rather than discussions

 

[fisherman_carl]

As far as Evolution is concerned I will quote Feser’s blog here.

On the subject of human origins, both the Magisterium and Thomist philosophers have acknowledged that an evolutionary explanation of the origin of the human body is consistent with non-negotiable theological and philosophical principles. However, since the intellect can be shown on purely philosophical grounds to be immaterial, it is impossible in principle for the intellect to have arisen through evolution. And since the intellect is the chief power of the human soul, it is therefore impossible in principle for the human soul to have arisen through evolution. Indeed, given its nature the human soul has to be specially created and infused into the body by God – not only in the case of the first human being but with every human being. Hence the Magisterium and Thomist philosophers have held that special divine action was necessary at the beginning of the human race in order for the human soul, and thus a true human being, to have come into existence even given the supposition that the matter into which the soul was infused had arisen via evolutionary processes from non-human ancestors.

edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2014/12/knowing-ape-from-adam.html?m=1

 

[Lynxdk]

As far as Evolution is concerned I will quote Feser’s blog here.

edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/2014/12/knowing-ape-from-adam.html?m=1

Thank you =)

That seems to go along with the idea regarding that we are a Soul with a Body, along with my thoughts on Evolutionary “leftovers” that we need to overcome… people often talk of “Satan” for which there is no cure, as an outside agent, other than God’s direct intervention; but really, the fight is Internal, an expression of our nature of “dust” so to speak… Stardust, of course, but still, with the way some people struggle with overcoming “the flesh” and rather than being fully able to take responsibility for themselves and their own thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and actions, blame the outside agent, Satan, instead of the Inside agent of Themselves, for one, but what about God?

I could get sidetracked pretty easy here, but we have The Father, outside of us, as Jesus often spoke to The Father, outside of himself, and the Holy Spirit within each of us, at Baptism, to guide us when we choose to accept that, or deny it by allowing ourselves to be lead by the “world” …

A coupla more cents, if they make sense… sometimes my thoughts get difficult to verbalize.

I didn’t read the whole blog yet. The first bit started my mind rolling.

 

[Lynxdk]

After reading the linked blog:

Hmmm… I hate sound uncharitable, but it seems there’s a bit of a distinction between what I would call Rational Human Beings, and those who reason only at an Emotional level, regardless of how many words they’re able to use and rules they’re able to follow…

Language is a function of the Brain (a biological computer), in any case, being designed to incorporate language as part of communication. Some still seemingly use it merely for expressing and determining dominance and control, rather than sharing understandings with, and learning from, each other at a level beyond mere behaviors. Many folks seem to simply “live what they learn” and follow the same patterns of behaviors as their parents, and theirs before them, rather than choosing to live the Opposite of worldly learning, such as those who’ve grown up with abuse or domestic violence.

Not saying it Doesn’t happen or that people Can’t change, but in My experience, it’s usually the abused that overcome obstacles easier than the abusers. Those who’ve been taught they are “powerless” vs those who learn they are “powerful” seem to find it easier to overcome the “desires of the flesh” and seek paths of reason, intelligence and knowledge and put more effort into effective communication, over arguing and dominating, turning conversations into “debates” without even really understanding the rules (as I mentioned earlier).

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Just to add my own two cents, Man as Animal has the animal instincts not just from primates, but from all else that came before, built in, leftovers of things that one might consider a “Human Being” has grown beyond the need for, in some sense…

This, and much else that you write in your post, seens quite correct to me. There is a term in common usage: human nature. One way to approach this topic is to inquire whether, and to what extent, human nature is inherited from animal instincts through evolution. That seems, at least, highly plausible.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

As far as Evolution is concerned I will quote Feser’s blog here.

On the subject of human origins, both the Magisterium and Thomist philosophers have acknowledged that an evolutionary explanation of the origin of the human body is consistent with non-negotiable theological and philosophical principles. However, since the intellect can be shown on purely philosophical grounds to be immaterial, it is impossible in principle for the intellect to have arisen through evolution. And since the intellect is the chief power of the human soul, it is therefore impossible in principle for the human soul to have arisen through evolution. Indeed, given its nature the human soul has to be specially created and infused into the body by God – not only in the case of the first human being but with every human being. Hence the Magisterium and Thomist philosophers have held that special divine action was necessary at the beginning of the human race in order for the human soul, and thus a true human being, to have come into existence even given the supposition that the matter into which the soul was infused had arisen via evolutionary processes from non-human ancestors.

There is a lot packed into that paragraph that is worth examining critically.

Is the intellect purely immaterial? If the physical brain is destroyed what happens to the intellect? Does it survive?

Is the intellect immaterial in the same sense that a shadow is? Certainly you cannot find any material constituting a shadow. And, yet, the shadow exactly reflects the object blocking the light source. Immaterial intellect could well be such a tautology without actually contributing anything to the debate.

I gave a simple description previously how the human soul could evolve from more primitive animal souls. Nobody argued with my description. I’m curious, where is the defect in it?

There is an important difference between a special action at the poing of evolution of the human soul and the creation of human souls in each birth. The Church has always kept open the door to “theistic evolution” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_evolution) without endorsing “intelligent design” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design). This seems to be an intententionaly subtle and ambiguous position.

And perhaps most curiously, where is the Christian account for why we have material bodies? I have searched in vain for one.

 

[Lynxdk]

This, and much else that you write in your post, seems quite correct to me. There is a term in common usage: human nature. One way to approach this topic is to inquire whether, and to what extent, human nature is inherited from animal instincts through evolution. That seems, at least, highly plausible.

I sometimes like to look at things in terms of Psychology vs Psychiatry, The Mind vs The Body.

Behaviorism vs. Cognitivism.

The Medical model would suggest that people have “mental” problems as a result of “brain chemistry” and yet they have no brain chemistry “tests” to determine if a person is bi-polar, schizophrenic, etc. This enables them to treat people as Animal Bodies, and as such, they need to be “stabilized” or controlled, with psychical medications that often don’t work any better than placebos.

They don’t work the same, for all people, along a spectrum of a diagnosed disorder, and often drugs intended for “depression” will actually Increase depression and thoughts of suicide, as they say in the warnings that people don’t always pay attention to.

On the Other hand, Psychology treats a person as a Mind First, and then as a body. Emotional problems(wounds) as a result of Trauma, that can be overcome(healed) by a person learning how to cope and change the way they think. Self-determined unlearning and reprogramming their own minds, so that the “brain/body” stops “reacting to stimuli” the way an animal would.

True enough, an unhealthy body can be an indicator of an unhealthy mind, and healthy body contributes to the overall well-being of the individual as a Person, but the therapeutic model for that goes along the lines of psychotherapies, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, and various other forms of Thinking, Rationally, about how one feels about themselves and the word around them.

That’s not to say there aren’t decent Psychiatrists that understand the difference, and are able to work with a patient to find medicines that will actually help them deal with the Worst of the symptoms of problems, enabling them to work through their issues, and help them overcome them, by Will, thought, and practice. There are just too many of the Other sort that just drug people up, shut their minds down, and essentially keep them crippled and dependent, rather than assist them in healing themselves so they can function well in greater society.

A lot of the available diagnoses listed in the DSM are just Observational descriptions of Subjects, and as we can see clearest with Quantum Physics, the Observer effects the outcome. Many (Most if not all. Everyone experiences trauma at some point in life. Autism and Schizophrenia are Biological traumas, adding insult to injury) “psychiatric patients” have had a history of abuse or neglect at some point in their lives, physical or emotional trauma, and will re-experience that at some later point in life (PTSD) in the form of flashbacks and emotional problems currently labelled “mental illness.” It’s hard to argue with people who “know what’s wrong with you” when you’re in the position of having to “submit to an authority” that can control your personal freedom.

In the case of Child abuse, I would consider it a function of the Brain(computer) to protect the Mind(Soul) from pain and suffering that the child was too young and inexperienced to deal with effectively, so often these problems go “unnoticed.” Except that they don’t. Problem children, acting out in various ways. The quiet kids that huddle inside themselves with various anxieties or tendencies to isolate.

A lot of that is “animal instinct” and sometimes “the burned hand teaches best” with regard to socializing with the other “animals”, and an isolationist personality would do best to avoid all the others who tend towards violence, physical, emotional, or psychological.

I’ll hazard a guess towards kids that “act out”, who these days would be diagnosed with ADHD and medicated to calm them down, that in their experiences they react in an Opposite way, Daring people to try and hurt them worse than they’ve already been hurt, with some, and others who learn to Dominate others with violence, or threats of violence, who more quickly tend to learn the “rules of animal dominance/submission” based on physical strength and ability.

Not describing stereotypes to lump all people into, just different ends of spectrum to highlight problems that occur along them, depending on the person, what they learn, and what they Learn from what they learn.

Modern Psychiatry and the changes to the DSM are not “advances in Science” they’re misdirections from Actual Science, snake oil sold by people who believe man is a mere animal, religions are the substance of uneducated primitives, and that people can be controlled with force, and the threat of violence. Something many Saints of the Church have proven false, time and again.

 

[Lynxdk]

I wanted to put that out, first.

I gave a simple description previously how the human soul could evolve from more primitive animal souls. Nobody argued with my description. I’m curious, where is the defect in it?

I want to get back to what you said, but continuing on from where I left off, in the case of many Abused and “victimized” people, like myself, we hide from the world and other people, and spend time learning from books. Books to hit your for “acting smart” or mock you for “being a nerd” I didn’t just huddle in corners reading SciFi and Fantasy, although there’s been plenty of that on my reading list over the years, I started learning about Psychology when I was 9, and helped type up my mothers papers, sometimes reading her books a bit. I got my first computer, and learn to program my own games when I was 11. This is back in the 80’s, before there was an Internet to use casually, and I still had to carry books home from the library.

I’m familiar with Many religions, beliefs, philosophies and sciences; Knowledge, wisdom, “guidance” vs “data” that show people throughout History that have rationalized, thinking things through with their subjective feelings, as well as thought Rationally, distancing themselves from them, and sometimes sort of both, with mistakes in understandings that have been later corrected or adjusted over time, with more strict Scientific applications and maths as they’ve become available.

Do we have Souls because because we were Imbued with Souls? Or have they grown as a Result from becoming more complex than animals?

Let me go look for your description, and think on it a bit more. I already know the answer, but not sure if I can state it in a way that would satisfy the answer you’re looking for… that and it’s almost time for church =P

P.S.
I just noticed that you’re a Pagan Catholic, which means that you’re more open to “ideas of the other” and better able to see God as having Always existed, throughout the ages, and not as much inclined to stick directly to the “religion” of being Catholic as much as the Spirituality of Following Christ… so that could lead to quite a difference in understanding, too.

 

[Lynxdk]

I think I addressed a fair bit of what you said/asked already, from psychological points of view.

People live what they learn. The Cycle of abuse, perpetrated by parents, friends, neighbors, Society, the Medical model of “Psychiatry” treating bodies, rather than Beings.

You seem to be looking for an answer no one can actually just ~give~ you, to the extent that are we immortal souls, with material bodies, or are we dependent on our existences for the bodies we wear?

That’s my interpretation of reading through your previous posts. Feel free to define it clearer/differently after this post.

My answer is Yes, we are immortal souls that can exist (they do, and we will, when we’re done here), made in the image of God, and God expects, hopes and Wills for us to live as Christ taught. You use Pagan as part of your religion, for the forums. Have you studied other cultures and religions more than just one or a handful? Most religions understand that there is a Spiritual world beyond this one, not the just visible material one we all see and share.

I have Schizophrenia, and have survived just about every kind of abuse as a child, and some as an adult as well. I can Cope with the voices and things I sometimes see, without medication, because I understand things at a Rational Scientific level. “random noise” in my mind, in the parts of the brain that translate sound and vision, interfering with my normal sight and hearing, such that these things seem to come from Without, and only I can see them, because they probably come from Within (in the brain) and that’s ~why~ only I can see them… and then dismiss them as “figments of imagination” to a large degree.

From that, rather than learning how to be a slave to the conditioning I grew up with, behaving like an animal and carrying on that cycle, rationalizing and excusing my behaviors, I Chose to Think about the things I survived, forgiving my step-father, when I was a teen, for example, because I understood the kind of person His father was, and so on. I also had read a fair bit of the Bible and plenty else besides by then, too (the “sins of the father”, to 7 generations idea from the Bible), but we all have to start with what we have, when we decide/choose to “own” our own life =)

However… and I’m sure there’s plenty of Atheists who believe the universe “simply happened” and there are no gods, or spiritual nonsense of Any kind… that would tell me my Spiritual experiences are also, just “figments” when I would say otherwise. But hard to share ones subjective experience with folks who either don’t have, deny they have, or rationalize away such things.

People think only in the dimensions they’re familiar with much of the time. People Live and Exist in the Material world, time space, matter energy, the forces that hold it altogether, etc… Mathematically, and in our imaginations, we can understand more dimensions than that. Enough that even if there ~were~ no God (or gods) there likely eventually ~would~ be, if this were the first “accidental” creation to exist with the properties to create life that could think and act of it’s own volition… and such a God would probably become a lot more than just the Universe, imbuing “itself” through all of creation, Material, Spiritual, and beyond.

Buddhist understood a Multiverse long before Science came up with the idea, more recently. Hinduism starts from the concept of One god, and then 3, and then, all the others. They still only have “One” God. All the other “gods” are more akin to aspects of that One, similar to the way a Christian might describe God’s Attributes, just using a different vernacular.

So it would seem that God existed well before we did, or after, or both… The Alpha and The Omega, The Beginning or The End… and yet, we’re still here, living lives, in accordance or not, to the Will of God, as we choose.

I think it’s pretty clear that a great Many people from Many cultures and religions understood God (or the gods) to be quite certainly Real, and Experienced communion with God, to varying degrees… and over time the “messages” have been refined. Christ has one of the most clearly defined, down to earth ways I’ve ever read, even in plain mistranslated to English, examples of how to Exist in Union/Communion with God, as we live our own self-driven lives, depending on how much we allow God to lead us, in our own ways, or His(Hers, Pagan ).

So Ultimately, I think you’re gonna have to find the answer you’re Seeking for, yourself.

Or… you could just Ask God =)

Asking Nicely, for answers that you need/want, and taking the care to understand, you may not always “like” them as much as you thought It all works out, though, In my experience.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

The Medical model would suggest that people have “mental” problems as a result of “brain chemistry” and yet they have no brain chemistry “tests” to determine if a person is bi-polar, schizophrenic, etc. This enables them to treat people as Animal Bodies, and as such, they need to be “stabilized” or controlled, with psychical medications that often don’t work any better than placebos…On the Other hand, Psychology treats a person as a Mind First, and then as a body.

I think you make some interesting points here but I wanted to make sure we are not beating a dead horse.

There are those who argue a reductionist view, that the soul, mind, intellect, conscience are nothing more than brain chemistry, that these constructs are illusions, and that neuroscience or similar brain sciences can replace psychotherapy directed at the soul. That is not the position that I am taking here, even speculatively.

I have argued, speculatively, that perhaps the soul is not immortal, that it cannot survive the body, that the human body is essential to the existence of the human soul. That is a very broad position and would include almost any manner of body/soul connection. Why are we body/soul composites in the first place and why are we promised a resurrection instead of a purely spiritual afterlife?

I have searched in vain for a Christian account. All I have found so far are assertions that the soul is immortal. I have not researched the matter deeply but it’s my recollection that the idea of the immortal soul was more Helenistic than Hebraic. I have nothing against Helenism but it is interesting that the Hebrews were focused on resurrection.

I’ll also save you the trouble of finding my speculation on the evolution of the human soul: If the soul were an emergent property of organic materiality then you would have an evolution of humanoids with increasingly sophisticated souls until, at some point, fully rational human beings were born (Adam and Eve for our discussion). They would have a human soul from birth. If souls are, in this way, tied to organic materiality it would be fair to say that our souls evolved in parallel with our material bodies.

 

[Lynxdk]

I
I’ll also save you the trouble of finding my speculation on the evolution of the human soul: If the soul were an emergent property of organic materiality then you would have an evolution of humanoids with increasingly sophisticated souls until, at some point, fully rational human beings were born (Adam and Eve for our discussion). They would have a human soul from birth. If souls are, in this way, tied to organic materiality it would be fair to say that our souls evolved in parallel with our material bodies.

I mentioned at one point, and Science and Science Fiction have already considered these questions, too, that if that speculation is correct, that the soul is a product of a natural evolution, Bodies evolving and then “growing” souls, that eventually evolution would lead to a “singularity” of a “God Soul” that would essentially Become the God people believe in…

If we didn’t destroy ourselves, first… With as big as the Universe is, one would think eventually that would happen, in any case.

Are you’re looking for some kind of “proof theory” that God exists, Already? Before such an evolution? I’m not sure you can get one, past dying and finding out first hand, Or, as I’ve experienced God, as a child, first, even though I was always told “god doesn’t talk to people anymore, not since Biblical times” and then, again, as an “adult” during my First Communion. Religions have rituals, but they aren’t just for rote performance, as common acts to achieve some later spiritual rescue.

But that goes a bit beyond the bounds of philosophy, doesn’t it? Are ~we~ beating a dead horse? Or are you just going to keep wrapping your mind around the subject in avoidance of an answer you’re not going to get, without personal experience? That’s a bit solipsistic, to my mind. I believed in the experiences I read of Saints, and that Transubstantiation was a Reality, not just a ritual, and things like that, and I was also quite an Atheist for a time, only “believing” in Science for a time, too…

No offense intended. It just seems like no matter how someone tries to answer the question for you, you’re gonna find a way to dodge any answer you could gain from the conversation…

 

[Lynxdk]

Mentioning the Atheism part actually brings up another point… When I Did go there, I did it trying to treat what Christ had to say as a Philosophy that I took Very Seriously, so even then, there was a lot more to it than simply indulging myself in “animal behaviors” so much as exploring the boundaries of “sins” I was “comfortable with” one might say… things that didn’t hurt anyone, other than my own physical body. I still smoke cigarettes and I’m in a coffee shop drinking coffee all day, for example, but what can I say, I’m human =P

And you also claim to have searched for a Christian account, that simply turns out to make the statement that souls exist after the body dies… What about Christ? Christ was Fully Human, and lived in Communion with The Father and The Holy Spirit. You might have more research to do on others, as well, but that’s not precisely my area… As a Pagan, you also have a lot more lee-way on what accounts you can decide are credible or not, strictly speaking…