NN - at last!
What is spirit, exactly?
by Viviane 609 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Twitch
Those are great questions that we can discuss. If you are interested, start a thread and I will join in. Not related to this thread, though.
Well, it is related to this thread. You asked what spirit is.
spir·it
: the force within a person that is believed to give the body life, energy, and power
: the inner quality or nature of a person
: a person
My answer, as well as a few others posted, are relevant to the question, as commonly defined by Merriam-Webster at least.
Is any person defined only as a body and substance that is measurable or is there something immaterial that makes them "who" they are?
Full Definition of SPIRIT
1 : an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms
2 : a supernatural being or essence: as a capitalized : holy spirit b : soul 2a c : an often malevolent being that is bodiless but can become visible; specifically : ghost 2 d : a malevolent being that enters and possesses a human being
3 : temper or disposition of mind or outlook especially when vigorous or animated <in high spirits>
4 : the immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person
5 a : the activating or essential principle influencing a person <acted in a spirit of helpfulness> b : an inclination, impulse, or tendency of a specified kind : mood
6 a : a special attitude or frame of mind <the money-makingspirit was for a time driven back — J. A. Froude> b : the feeling, quality, or disposition characterizing something <undertaken in a spirit of fun>
7 : a lively or brisk quality in a person or a person's actions
8 : a person having a character or disposition of a specified nature
9 : a mental disposition characterized by firmness or assertiveness <denied the charge with spirit>
10 a : distillate 1: as (1) : the liquid containing ethanol and water that is distilled from an alcoholic liquid or mash —often used in plural (2) : any of various volatile liquids obtained by distillation or cracking (as of petroleum, shale, or wood) —often used in plural b : a usually volatile organic solvent (as an alcohol, ester, or hydrocarbon)
11 a : prevailing tone or tendency <spirit of the age> b : general intent or real meaning <spirit of the law>
12 : an alcoholic solution of a volatile substance <spirit of camphor>
13 : enthusiastic loyalty <school spirit>
14 capitalizedChristian Science:god 1b
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spirit
Your question seems very specific in terms of definition, where only #2 and #14 seem relevant. Of course, these are by nature, subjective and open to interpretation and belief. Good luck with getting any answers that are satisfactory from a scientific perspective. Of course, none will be.
Which makes this thread less than genuine and sincere if you have no interest in answers given to such an philisophical question.
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villagegirl
Twitch - you are right of course - it is transparently insincere - Its a "bait and mock" thread.
Atheists on this forum have a lock step mentality. Lie in wait for a new shaky person trying
to escape the cult and then try to squash any hope they might have of finding anything else
to connect them to God. Just bash them into the ground. Viviane likes to throw around the
word "ignorant" or start threads like this one and mock people. The premise is: if you can't
see it or touch it or explain it, it does not exist. For thousands of years right up to the 1990's
it was only theory that other galaxies existed, from earth we thought our galaxy was the only
on and was the entire universe, because we couldn't see any further into space. Now since
the launch of the Hubble we can see there are 100 billion galaxies. Did our inability to see
these galaxies or understand they existed mean they did not exist ????
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talesin
Well said, Twitch.
May I ask that you say *some* atheists on this forum? Thank you, villagegirl.
:)
tal
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Viviane
Technically speaking, it is anhydrous Unobtainium Imaginate and Aetherium Phogistonide in almost equal proportions.
Exactly! This is basic science, people.
Don't let the streams cross. That would be bad.
Twitch - you are right of course - it is transparently insincere - Its a "bait and mock" thread.
Other than your ill-informed and incorrect rant of childish name-calling, no has mocked anyone. You are the only offender of the thing you are whining about.
Well, it is related to this thread. You asked what spirit is.
Unless you are saying that's what spirit is made of, it's not related. Feel free to start your own thread.
My answer, as well as a few others posted, are relevant to the question, as commonly defined by Merriam-Webster at least.
You misunderstand the question again.
Everything else is just metaphor that STILL is not telling anyone what it is. That's telling us what it can be used to mean.
If an angel is made of spirit, what is that spirit stuff? It's a quite simple question that no one who asserts it exists has been able to answer.
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jgnat
It should be patently clear by now that viviane is looking for tangible stuff. You know, the kind of things scientists can test and measure and stuff.
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Viviane
Yes and no, jgnat. That, of course, would be lovely, but in another sense, I am fundamentally trying to raise a question about how it can be absolutely asserted as true that something exists, can exert power, influence thinking, physically interact with the world, experience emotions and be killed and yet cannot be be described in any fundamentally meaningful way.
It's not the same as dark matter or energy as villagegirl attempted to suggest. Those are hypotheses about what could exist given the discrepancy between observations and functional mathematical models, similar to the discrepancy between quantum and relatavistic physics. Dark matter and energy is a name given to something that could be loosely described as "something that we don't know what it is that appears to be having a large scale and measurable effect on the structure of the universe". The implicit response and understanding of that is we DON'T know what it is and it is being researched very diligently.
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jgnat
Fundamentally meaningful means tangible, right? As in being able to run it through an accelerator and have something go blip.
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Viviane
No, not at all like that, Jgnat.
Oh, and one other point, villagegirl, galaxies were observed almost 100 years before hubble. Here is a picture taken in 1899.
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