That's a physical definition of life. I'm not talking about that.The word "life" means many things. Do you have a heartbeat? You're alive by one metric. — Derrick Huestis
That's an insult. Not talking about that."Get a life" is a saying directed towards people who aren't alive by a separate metric. — Derrick Huestis
Is that a Christian teaching?When a soul is "alive" it follows morality, when it is "dead" it does not. — Derrick Huestis
Those are just greetings. Not talking about that.What do you do for a living? How's life? Are you lively? — Derrick Huestis
And it is my judgement that they could be different things.Talking about life and talking about the soul may not be different at all if you don't specify how to use the word "life." — Derrick Huestis
Back to the twenty first century, we are seeing more people break away from religion, and from my point of view, there is less religious talk. And instead of talking about souls, many of us are talking about our lives (at school or at work, for example). — Wheatley
How do you know that "soul is subsumed under identity and individuality?" I don't know that. — Wheatley
All of which (IMO) promote and pressure conformity to certain (particularly monotheistic) religious values and traditions.I think your observation is correct, more or less. The term "spirit" and "spiritual" are sufficiently vague that they could just as well be replaced by identity, individuality, or personhood. — Bitter Crank
Some implications of this ghostly fetish:Like the eye that is necessarily absent from its own visual field, the brain, lacking internal sensory organs, is functionally brain-blind, and therefore cannot immediately perceive any source – mechanisms – of its own thoughts even as it is thinking so that the cognitive illusion of an "I-self" floating free and "essentially" disembodied persists and variations of a "soul"-of-the-gaps (or more sophisticated gap-of-the-gaps aka "nonduality") are psychologically (& culturally) confabulated to (transcendentally) tether down our "thoughts". — 180 Proof
Christian: "For Heaven's sake, save your soul from Hell!" (Suffer as Christ suffered.)
Buddhist: "Reduce suffering here and now." (What soul?) — 180 Proof
Back to the twenty first century, we are seeing more people break away from religion, and from my point of view, there is less religious talk. And instead of talking about souls, many of us are talking about our lives (at school or at work, for example). Which is more in line with twentieth century existential thought rather than traditional concepts of souls. — Wheatley
That's interesting. I bet there are christians now plotting to keep Christianity as the dominant belief.No matter what people believe, or do not believe, people tend to conform, and promote conformity to whatever is the dominant scheme of belief. — Bitter Crank
An atheist can also be more effective at helping humanity by adopting secular ethics and values rather than bronze age myths.An atheist can be as or even more concerned about the future of humanity as a theist. Focusing on the here and now can also be the interest of the theist. — Hanover
I bet there are christians now plotting to keep Christianity as the dominant belief. — Wheatley
bronze age myths — Wheatley
While others serve no purpose and are even pernicious.This is an old issue, but mythologies serve many functions, some o them quite useful. — Bitter Crank
An we are not even supposed to scrutinize nor criticize religion. Yet religion has been given a free pass here in America (and other places around the world).And many others are also plotting to promote their various views. Good on some, a plague on others. — Bitter Crank
Yes – cursed (blinkered) literal-mindedness, and therefore "our myths" are more often than not taken out of context (i.e. language games of one form-of-life misused (generalized) for / in another form-of-life) such as e.g. Iron Age myths misapplied to and/or (retro)interpreted in terms of the Information Age.We 21st centurions also have mythologies. Some of our myths are invisible to us because we think they are true. — Bitter Crank
According to Spinoza: "I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of established religion." Gadflies, iconoclasts, contrarians, dialecticians, skeptics-fallibilists, freethinkers, no?A[nd] we are not even supposed to scrutinize nor criticize religion. — Wheatley
I see religion as cover for a lot of human nastiness. Hate groups, ant-gay, anti-Semitic, bloodthirsty people(kill the infidel and the atheist!), often use the bible as a guide to their moral systems etc.. Who needs ethics when you can just follow the bible? There's still animosity between the Christian west and Islam (apparently we still never got over the crusader spirit!) The Iraq war (killing brown Muslims). Not to mention, indoctrinating kids with the bible promotes irrational thinking (I'm thinking about conservative Christians) such as gullible anti intellectualism. There's also the glorification of sin, which indices some Christians into doing horrible acts.You seem to think of religion as an irresistible steam roller. True, there are some folk who would like to run the steam roller over their enemies. They tend to be fundamentalists (in whatever faith tradition they are in). Think conservative Baptists or the Taliban. — Bitter Crank
There's also the glorification of sin, which indices some Christians into doing horrible acts. — Wheatley
I see religion as cover for a lot of human nastiness — Wheatley
Who needs ethics when you can just follow the bible? — Wheatley
There's still animosity between the Christian west and Islam — Wheatley
indoctrinating kids with the bible promotes irrational thinking (I'm thinking about conservative Christians) such as gullible anti intellectualism. — Wheatley
I see religion as cover for a lot of human nastiness. — Wheatley
The soul is what gets incarnated, not resurrected.↪baker Interesting fact, it isn't the soul that is resurrected (should there be such a thing) but the physical body. As it says in the Creed: "I believe in the resurrection of the body". — Bitter Crank
Sure. Also, even people who don't believe in a "soul", but who are big advocates of identity, individuality, place considerable value on what is, in effect, the "afterlife". Many self-help theories try to orient its audiences with questions like "How do you want to be remembered after you die?", "What do you want to be written on your tombstone?"↪baker I think your observation is correct, more or less. The term "spirit" and "spiritual" are sufficiently vague that they could just as well be replaced by identity, individuality, or personhood. Still, a residual belief in an afterlife is pretty common, and "something" is thought by many to continue on indefinitely. At least that's how I read the 21st century.
"The human body is the best picture of the human soul." ~Witty — 180 Proof
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