by teel 45 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
all this reasoning seems logic, however, IF the bible is Gods word (for the sake of further discussion, we just assume this now), then it speaks of a resurection (biblical examples given Lazarus, jesus etc)
so, there is a difference between recreation and resurection, the later being a technique God uses, where he does not make a copy, but really restores the "old" person itself, how, we dont know, its a miracle, but since God is also master over time, who knows, maybe that way.....
inbetween: right, the Bible clearly speaks of resurrection. So to follow the Bible we have two choices: either accept that something of you does survive death, or resort to some sort of "sacred mystery" that JWs like to point out and laugh when talking of other's faith in trinity with no logical explanation.
My take on this is that you could actually twist together both the teaching "there is nothing that thinks" after you're dead, and still having a part of you surviving death. Simply put, your do have a "soul" (for lack of a better word), yet not in the sense that it can think, act or anything in itself, but something intangible inside yourself, that makes you you. This soul could be kept intact - not a copy, but by itself - and given back to a recreated body. This sounds a bit "sacred mystery" too, in the sense that there is nothing pointing to this in the Bible, but it's the only way I see that keeps both JWs beliefs. Or they could just drop the whole "mortal soul" altogether.
moggy lover
In order for the person to be resurrected, there has to be a clear biological and organic link to to the original. You can call this enduring link a "soul" a "spirit" an "id" "ego" whatever, but that link must survive physical death to make resurrection meaningful.
Wondering by what definition of "biological" and "organic" can the "soul" (or whatever it stands for) be either, or both... :)
"The little man within" -- whether I call it "soul" or "ego" -- I prefer to qualify as mythological, with the provision that nobody, no matter how "materialistic," can escape mythology at this point.
teel,
One interesting thought on this is that we may be holographs. In that case, all you need is one little part of the body in order to re-create the whole.
I do not think there will be any paradise on this earth. It is way past being able to be "cleaned up". Jesus never said anything about establishing a kingdom here. As a matter of fact, he said his kingdom was not of this world. He also said you must die first in order to see the kingdom of heaven.
Another thing that is worthy of mention is that he said "flesh and blood" could not enter the heavens. So this tells me that there is a transformation to another kind of 'body' later. And it will not be the transhuman imitations that are planned for those remaining on earth.
What WT says "millions living will never die" sounds just like what the snake said in the garden. "You won't die."
We will be re-created in the resurrection. We will be recognizable. I imagine that our bodies will be different and improved.
What about the life force returning to God? Is not that the non-physical part which then makes it all start ticking once again? And if you recognise yourself as YOU, is it then not of lesser importance whether it is a resurrection or a recreation?
By the way, the holograph theory is indeed interesting. I believe it originated partly because they were unable to find a definite spot where memory was stored, was it not? Memory was stored in each and every one of the cells - sort of.
A bit scary. I'll stop by a shop and buy some wine on my way home.
I don't necessarily care about this physical body. My perfect clone would recognize himself as ME, but would I be recognizing myself? Comparing to holograms you say that in a hypothetical case of God "resurrecting" me while I was still alive, I would actually be in two places, both selves being me - something along the line of trinity. Yet God would still need at least something that can be unmistakenly called me - bones don't cut it (for really long dead people they may not exist either), because all the atoms in my body are replaced after a while (I think it was about 7 years?) so there can be nothing physical that I can call myself.
Then there is the theory that the whole image of self is just a function of the brain, theory which is by some thought to be supported by "out of body experiences". For example placing a helmet with rotating magnetic field on your head can trigger this experience. The magnets disturb the functions of the brain, and with it the feeling of self. Of course it could be as well that the magnet disturbs your soul in an unknown matter as well :)
Maybe our brains just aren't cut out for this. We only use 2%, so there's a whole other 98% waiting to be used. IF we were to one day be perfect, then perhaps we would gain full function of our brain and be able to understand all the things we don't currently. Right now we just can't comprehend and fathom much of the logistics of 'what is to come', regarding resurrection, bringing back the person as he/she was etc. But if we were using a higher percentage of our brain, then maybe we could.
I don't know. Just throwing some thoughts out there. I have struggled for many years on thoughts like these, things the human brain cannot presently understand. It all becomes ' what if' and alot of guesswork. But if Jehovah did create this earth, then he certainly has the power to do anything he so wishes. Whether that be bring those he chooses back to life, or to cause heavenly events or bring on the tribulation/armageddon.
Yeah, the JW version is resurrection is nothing special...man has done it. It is called cloning. My question to the dub quite simply is if God were to clone 2, or 3 of a person which one would be that person? The answer is none- that person ceased to exist, according to the dibs version of life.
I have pondered this same line of thought for many years. I recently began reading some books by Ervin Laszlo . He is one of many authors/scientists that study quantum mechanics' role within the brain. Im still skeptical about the concept of a "Quantum Soul", but it seems that the research is at least continuing on -- maybe they will uncover something significant in the near future?
Darth Fader
wantstoleave: I just want to clarify this, not because you're technically wrong, but because JWs often take that 2% way too literally, and they argue that this is a proof that man was not created to live such a short life. In short: technically speaking you do use 100% of the brain. If you wouldn't, then you shouldn't mind me taking out 90% of your brain right?
However the brain does have the capability to do more. Here's an example (saw this on an other webpage): think of a stereo system. When you're listening to music, are you using the whole system 100%? However you have a knob to turn the volume up and down. When the volume is at 2% are you using 2% of the stereo? No, you're still using it fully.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you from using more of your brain right now! There are no blocked brain cells, that are waiting for God to release them. Technically with hard learning, and perseverence you can use much more than you are using now, and this was proved true by many who just wanted to best themselves. Our short lifespan is sort of a limiting factor, we start to decay way too early, but the average life expectancy is continually increasing, and some say the average intelligence is increasing too.
So I just proved that indeed our lives are too short to use our brains But long life is not equal to fully using brains, because it only gives you the time to best yourself, it won't come automatically. However one could argue that such mechanisms are present at the animals too, and they are not expected to live eternally even in Paradise.
On the other hand you have a point there, as someone said: "If our brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't"
