by ButtLight 73 Replies latest jw friends
God created "bugs" for a certain purpose, so they may not have spirits.
well, he created us for a purpose too. where do you draw the line? humans and fuzzy cute mammals? what about reptiles? amphibians? crustaceans like crabs and lobsters? large insects like beetles and acorn weevils?
I bet God gave the seals souls. Seals are cute. Insects are too small to have souls.
GBL
well, he created us for a purpose too. where do you draw the line? humans and fuzzy cute mammals? what about reptiles? amphibians? crustaceans like crabs and lobsters? large insects like beetles and acorn weevils?
Oh, who the hell knows! If you go by what the bible says, humans do have spirits, thats all I know! Other than that, just hearing people say they have felt pets and have seen pets, it could be a possiblility! Especially when you hear it from a former witness.
Derek,
Great questions.
So there are spirit rats? And spirit worms? And spirit cockroaches?
Energy isn't destoyed. I believe that at death, the soul (which to me means conscious energy) becomes more connected to other spiritual energy (which isn't as possible in physical form and that in itself serves a purpose). Therefore the energy or spirit rejoins the collective energy which is most "like" theirs (like attracts like). This doesn't mean that you'd have conscious spirit beings who used to be earth-worms, you'd simply have energy, which beings of their nature rejoin (and are reborn for that matter).
Imagine no disconnection between spirit beings. The way we interact with such beings however is that they manifest in ways in which we'll recognise them. For instance, my great granny lived a life as my great granny, but she didn't live ONLY that life - she has been incarnated however many times. Therefore, how is she going to appear to me? She'll appear how I remember rather than how her spirit (or energy) really is.
Imagine how infested with spirit-vermin the spirit world must be! It must contain the spirit of every creepy-crawly that has ever lived.
That sounds silly unless you remember that the energy of every creepy crawly that ever lived did continue on and was recycled. So you don't get spirit creepies, just energy.
Evolutionarily speaking, I believe that humans have evolved to have self-consciousness and that when we die, that self consciousness isn't eliminated.
Sirona
Just to clarify,
In my view, we reincarnate. That reincarnation is part of evolution.
Therefore the creepies who have died are not residing somewhere, their energy has been recycled, or reincarnated.
I don't think that once a someone incarnates as a human, they go back to an animal incarnation. I believe that once human, we reincarnate as human until it isn't necessary anymore. Just my opinion and that is largely based on the theory that all of this is a process of evolution.
Therefore, if your dead loved one has not reincarnated, they may visit you in the form you remember. Your dead pet might do so aswell.
Sirona
Hmm.. nobody's tried to answer my question yet. Just once I'd like to have an intelligible conversation with, say, my dead great-grandfather. Yet his spirit and everyone else's that are dead either sit in silence, act like the bogie-man, or most probably simply don't exist and the phenonenae attributed to them can be explained in other ways.
Sirona:
Energy isn't destoyed.
True, energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
I believe that at death, the soul (which to me means conscious energy)
I'm not really sure what this means. There is no clear consistent definition of the word "soul" but you have defined it as "conscious energy", two words which are both clearly defined, but together mean nothing. Energy is not conscious. The energy used in consciousness is generated by the body and is measurable. The body stops generating this energy on death. The energy doesn't have to be destroyed. The body simply ceases making the matter-energy conversions it did while alive.
becomes more connected to other spiritual energy
This is something that, to the best of my knowledge, has never been measured. How exactly do you define "spiritual energy" and how does it relate to actual real energy, of the kind that commonly exists in our universe?
(which isn't as possible in physical form and that in itself serves a purpose). Therefore the energy or spirit rejoins the collective energy which is most "like" theirs (like attracts like). This doesn't mean that you'd have conscious spirit beings who used to be earth-worms, you'd simply have energy, which beings of their nature rejoin (and are reborn for that matter).
Imagine no disconnection between spirit beings. The way we interact with such beings however is that they manifest in ways in which we'll recognise them. For instance, my great granny lived a life as my great granny, but she didn't live ONLY that life - she has been incarnated however many times. Therefore, how is she going to appear to me? She'll appear how I remember rather than how her spirit (or energy) really is.
So essentially you believe that every living thing has some sort of "energy" above and beyond what can be seen, felt or measured by any known instruments, which "energy" survives the death of the organism and joins with that of other beings but can at times form into facsimiles of the various beings which it was a part of, and interact weakly with the physical universe. Is that a reasonable description?
That sounds silly unless you remember that the energy of every creepy crawly that ever lived did continue on and was recycled. So you don't get spirit creepies, just energy.
To be honest, I really wish you'd get a word other than energy to describe what you're talking about. Energy has a real precise meaning in the scientific world, and that ain't it! The actual energy present in a closed environment that contains a life form will remain exactly the same when that life form dies. There is no net loss of energy. What you're talking about - the "spirit" has never been measured. It is the matter that used to be part of life forms that gets recycled.
Evolutionarily speaking, I believe that humans have evolved to have self-consciousness and that when we die, that self consciousness isn't eliminated.
While consciousness isn't fully understood, it appears in every measurable way to be a function of the brain. Physical or chemical changes to the brain alter consciousness in ways that are well-understood (and indeed, some that aren't). It is not at all clear to me how consciousness could continue to exist when the brain that caused it does not. To me, it's like saying that when you write off your car, that as well as some of the metal being recycled to repair other cars or to make washing machines, that there is a sort of intrinsic "car-ness" that lives on, independent of any matter or substance driving around in a car spirit world without an internal combustion engine. When talking about machines, the idea seems patently absurd. I consider it no less so when applied to life forms.
FunkyDerek: But seals are cute.
GBL
Derek,
You assert that our consciousness is 100% caused by our physical body. That has not been proven scientifically. In fact, I read that a certain woman lost most of her brain (by a disease, I think) and she still functioned well. Scientists couldn't figure out how she was functioning with such a large part of her brain missing. I'll need to look that up and provide a reference, of course. (going to work in a minute). This was followed up by experiments where parts of rats brains were removed to ascertain the effect. In the end, scientists are still baffled by the nature of "consciousness" and what it really is.
You are correct that my use of the word energy isn't ideal.
My point is that our consciousness exists before we are in a physical body and after our body dies - that is my opinion.
So essentially you believe that every living thing has some sort of "energy" above and beyond what can be seen, felt or measured by any known instruments, which "energy" survives the death of the organism and joins with that of other beings but can at times form into facsimiles of the various beings which it was a part of, and interact weakly with the physical universe. Is that a reasonable description?
I don't believe the physical universe is separate. I think that this is all around us, all of the time. This "spirit". I also believe that there is a reason why we don't interact with them in an obvious way.
Sirona
It dawned on me one day: if life hands us good things and down right sucky things in this world, how do we know it won't be the same when we die?
My boss says she doesn't think we're in hell. She says she wonders if this is a sort of purgatory. I wonder, too. Maybe we're sent here as punishment and to be refined, then we get relief when we die.
