Psac: Thanks - makes sense...
The Sleeping Spirit Doctrine...Can "You" Survive?
by Cold Steel 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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PSacramento
SOme people get caught up in the whole immortal thing, is the sould immortal? is it mortal?
First of, immortal doesn't mean eternal, it means that it can't die unless it is killed, basically, just watch Highlander, LOL
Something that is immortal is not subject to natural death or decay, I don't think that the soul can decay liek the body does, yet it can die, ie: get killed.Of course the Hebrew understanding of death chnaged from genesis to the NT, from ECC with the "dead know nothing" to the different views held by Jews when Jesus arrived to the views they had after he left, till today.
Jesus warend us about what can kill the soul so we know it can die, it is a christian belief that this final death of the soul ( since the soul is either asleep or in heaven, depending on hos some relate soul with spirit) is after the ressurection when all are judged.
But the issue tends to be the relation between soul and sopirit, between dead and asleep, and whether one believes that there is activity while dead or that there is "life after lifer after death", or whehter we just sleep until judgment day, or whatever.
Biblically we know this:
The soul is alive when the person is alive, when the person dies/falls asleep the soul dies/falls asleep.
The spirit is what animates the soul and the spirit returns to God when we die/sleep.
The soul can be killed, forever.
Ressurection involves the return of the spirit to the body and reanimation of said body AND soul.
Paul felt that a person of spirit (spiritual) was above a person of the flesh, of the soul.
Yeah, I know, its kind of a mismash at times because of the mixing ( it seems) of soul and spirit in the OT and NT at times.
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nelly136
Then Jehovah, years later, puts you back together. Or at least you think you're the original. You have all the same memories and thoughts.
.........apart from the stuff thats lobotomised. but then if you remove parts youre not all there
http://www.watchtower.org/e/dg/article_10.htm
God's Kingdom rule will undo all the damage done to the human family for the past six thousand years. The joys at that time will far outweigh any suffering that people have experienced. Life will not be disturbed by any bad memories of previous suffering.
and the former things will not be called to mind, neither will they come up into the heart. But exult, you people, and be joyful forever in what I am creating." "The whole earth has come to rest, has become free of disturbance. People have become cheerful with joyful cries."—Isaiah 14:7; 65:17, 18.
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PSacramento
Well, there is NOTHING in the OT or NT that gives weight to that view.
Our spirit is all that we are, our love, memories, joys and sorrows, when it returns to our bodies and we are ressurected, we will remember all.
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Think About It
But was it you, or was it a carefully meticulous copy? Your atoms were dematerialized and then they were sent miles away, down to the planet, and then put together again.
In all the Bible accounts, people thought it was the same person who died that was resurrected. They lived the rest of their lives as that same person.
Think About It
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PSacramento
Lazarus was still lazrus, as was the child Jesus resurected and the boy that Elijah did.
The whole "
17 “Behold, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind. "
Doesn't say or imply a "memory wipe", just that the hardships after the final judgment will be forgotten and not brough to mind, sort of like that old New Year's song.
And that is only after the Final judgment and when the New "Jeruslem" will be created.
the rest goes:
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
20 “Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
he who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere youth;
he who fails to reach a a hundred
will be considered accursed.
21 They will build houses and dwell in them;
they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 No longer will they build houses and others live in them,
or plant and others eat.
For as the days of a tree,
so will be the days of my people;
my chosen ones will long enjoy
the works of their hands.
23 They will not toil in vain
or bear children doomed to misfortune;
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord ,
they and their descendants with them.
24 Before they call I will answer;
while they are still speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent’s food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,”
says the Lord .
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Cold Steel
Here is a link where a pair of old IOMEGA Zip Drive commercials may be viewed. The question to ask is this, "Why should the originals expect to experience in the future what the future copy of themselves will experience?"
I hope Jehovah-God is better at data recreation than. . .click. . .click. . .click. . .Iomega. . .click. . .click. . .click.
I basically mentioned the same thing to an elder. I told him that if I took a photo with my digital camera, it thus became an original. Then I would e-mail him the photo as an attachment. Soon thereafter my computer crashed and I lost the original photo. But he would have a copy. Not the original. Only a copy of the original.
Nice! And if it was a JPEG, every time it's edited and saved, some of the data is lost. I just hope we're all TIF files! Yet the file you sent him via e-mail isn't the original, as you say, it's a copy. So if God can make a perfect copy of you, maybe Dr. McCoy was right. The person who's reformed on the planet has all the memories and is a perfect copy, but the one who steps into the transporter on the space ship no longer exists. (Remember when Kirk, McCoy, Spock and maybe Scotty (can't recall) start to get old super fast? Someone then remembers the transporter memory contains the last saved data and they all get into the transporter, it glows, buzzes and click. . . click. . .brp. . .and everyone's back to normal. . .only they lost all memory of getting old! The fellows who got out of the transporter remembered only everything before the incidents cited. The ones who aged essentially. . .click. . .click. . .well, you get the. . .click. . .point.
First off, immortal doesn't mean eternal -- it means that it can't die unless it is killed, basically, just watch Highlander, LOL Something that is immortal is not subject to natural death or decay, I don't think that the soul can decay liek the body does, yet it can die, ie: get killed.
Debatable. Edith Hamilton made this point in her book on mythology. The Norse gods couldn't die unless they were killed; however, the Olympians literally couldn't die, period. In the battle of Armegeddo...er...Ragnarok, the ultimate end of good and evil, Thor is killed by the Midgard Serpent, Odin is killed by Feris the Wolf (who is then dispatched by Thor). Everyone dies, though the gods were "immortal." The gods of Olympus, on the other hand, were incapable of experiencing death. They could be driven away, as Uranis and Cronos, but never killed. Even Prometheus could not be killed, though he was detained.
I believe the spirit is immortal, and that it existed before we came to the Earth and will continue on afterwards. Jesus' disciples asked, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents that he was BORN blind?" There was no rebuke at not knowing the scriptures and they had spend more than enough time around him to understand such basic concepts of whether people slept at death. Jeremiah also was told, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." I also believe that animals have immortal spirits. In many near death experiences, people see plants and animals in the spirit world. They can even communicate.
Lazarus was still Lazarus, as was the child Jesus resurected and the boy that Elijah did.
That's because Lazarus and the child both had immortal spirits that never ceased to exist. It's very simple. If the spirit can discard the body as a man discards a garment, then it must continue on. If Paul said he knew a man in Christ "whether in the body...or whether out of the body, I cannot tell...such an one caught up to the third heaven," then that person must have been able to depart his tabernacle of flesh, right?
Anyway, I was able to convince my grandmother that the Witnesses were were wrong on this subject and that she would indeed be seeing her late husband, my grandfather, upon death. And speaking of my grandfather, he saw and spoke to his parents just before he died. Not only that, but just moments before his death, he took my mother's arm and pointed towards the foot of his bed. He couldn't say anything, but he clearly saw something the others in the room could not see.
While undergoing a sleep test a few years ago, I asked the nurse who was wiring me up if she had had any experiences with people who had claimed to die and then come back. She said yes, many, and told me of the latest one -- a man who had been electrocuted while doing some work in his bathroom. He thought the juice was off, but found out differently when he touched some live wires and was hurled back into the empty bath tub. He said he had a clear recollection of standing over his own body and looking down. He saw the burn marks that went from his hands to just below the elbows; yet he suffered no pain. He reported that he felt total peace and saw his wife and son rush into the bathroom and begin trying to revive him. He said there was no disassociation, and that he could see in three dimensions as well as see color. He watched his wife and son, and then said he suddenly heard the voices of his parents, both of whom were dead. He was told that his time was not yet and that he would have to return to his body. He didn't want to, but the next thing he was aware of was feeling intense pain and looking up at the faces of his wife and son. He said the experience wasn't at all like a dream, but rather, like an experience in the flesh. These things aren't rare at all, and if you visit emergency rooms or hospitals, you can come away with an impressive number of similar stories.
Again, the Witnesses are wrong on this point and I think may JWs become fearful as they approach death because they think they're going to blink out of existence, until spiritually or physically resurrected by Jehovah. A number of people having these experiences report meeting people they knew before they were born into mortality, and even know their names.
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VM44
The Watchtower simply does not know what it is talking about, and the JWs mostly don't care.
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Vanderhoven7
What's wrong with sleeping? I do it every night. :o) Whether we go directly into the presence of Christ at death as some scriptures indicate or sleep until the resurrection (as others seem to indicate) will make no difference to those who die in Christ. Our times are altogether in His hands anyway.
I will say however, that I believe that the soul is not immortal until the resurrection when this mortal puts on immortality. But then there are those who will be raised for destruction, whose bodies and souls God will destroy in Gehenna (metaphor for the second death).
Vander
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Ding
This thread ties in with the WT's view of the resurrection of Jesus.
If order to have a resurrection from the dead, you have to have something die and then get raised to life again.
But in the WT view, what was raised? Not Jesus' body. Not his "soul' because they believe that's the same as the body. Not his spirit, because they believe that's just an impersonal life force, and that's... impersonal.