Are you serious...You buy that crap about a soul???
and offers very little protection to them...
People walk out of church thinking about how they can help to kill a Muslim and the thought that the life and soul of the MUslim might be the property of their God never enters their mind...The form of their religion allows them to conceive of the other objectively...All you need to do is conceive of some one as an object, and the conception of them as spirit can float away on the wind for all anyone cares...I neither see people as objects nor as spirits...I see them as people suffering a common life which is all we have together to experience anything...I do not need a soul to not hurt them and soul would not protect them if I did... All I need is some human sympathy... I just need to feel my way through life with them...
Are you serious...You buy that crap about a soul???
The idea has some history, but as it survives in mankind, the belief that people have souls offers no protection to nature
Can't we find kinder ways of communicating, Fido?
It can stand in line with all the other things we do and believe that offer no protection from nature.
But that's sort of a cop-out. If you want a survival machine, take a look at cockroaches, horseshoe crabs, crocodiles, and archaebacteria. No souls, right, but they don't worry about it either.
Not everything about us can / must be explained in terms of survival.
MUCH more likely than the soul being a sort of natural survival mechanism is that belief in it is a natural expression of a particular stage in human social/societal development. And this, in particular, was the axial age, classically from 800-200 BC. As the world urbanized, as people became more analytical of other humans, ideas about a soul simultaneously became elaborated (variably) in Greek and Roman philosophy, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, and Daoism.
Something about communal living caused thinkers of that age to start wondering about the self in metaphysical terms.
Well, traditions stick, and we're not exactly that removed from this kind of self-reflection. That's why people are interested in it.
Isn't it time to give up the metaphysical nonsense for good and all, and start taking care of business rationally???...
Makes perfect sense to me. But what's that worth when you consider the following:
1) We are not fundamentally rational -- we are partially rational
2) It may be an inescapable part of our nature to generate metaphysical nonsense
Rationality is a moral choice; and it does not just happen....
Fido I would love this statement to be fact, as it would suit my personal compass when it comes to making the individual carry the onus of personal ownership for their actions. We know the choices we make are an amalgam of environmental upbringing, individual character, and the extent to which we will be selfless in that particular transaction (ie. what we do for some we will not do for others even given identical scenarios).
I as most have an expectation of reciprocal morality to the morality I practice, but it isn't always forthcoming....why? Is it that they did not have the environmental upbringing I had that engenders the basis for moral rationality? Do they perhaps not have the even nature of character that I possess that gives you more than a myopic view of the situation. Do they carry biases that affect their decision making......usually all of the above is what we face when we are making decisions.
My point is that we are not generated to a decision based on our souls, which if there is such a critter he must be at the base of human consciousness, and if one human has it we all do. I do not believe that "rationality and irrationality" are as "objective and subjective" are in juxt of each other. Rationality is open ended based on position of view, that is why we fight, and the moral compass swings on circumstance.
None of this really addresses "do we have a soul" so to that end I will mention that three thousand years before Aristotle pondered on the soul they called the soul the "vital breath" so it's been around as long as we have been able to ponder and in all civilizations.
I think the question could be....did our consciousness begat the soul....or did our soul begat consciousness.
Rationality is a moral choice
The better of all the fair and investigated (thus shown valid) evidence out there, as it has accumulated over time, and effort, far more leaves us at the conclusion that we (H. sapiens), just like all other animals, and other life forms, are souls (if we wish to use that word). Therefore, it is more accurate to say that I, KaseiJin, do not have a soul, but, rather, AM a soul. (even if I don't dig soul music that much....hee, hee, hee.....)
I think the question could be....did our consciousness begat the soul....or did our soul begat consciousness.
You cannot slip a blade between a man and his morals, and to behave morally when there is no obvious reason to some times takes effort, thought and choice... Rationality may well be considered as a state of mind, and when the common current in most lives, and our own is toward irrationality, -acting without rational consideration, it is clearly a choice, and like all choice, it is suffered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Psycobabble
I think the question could be....did our consciousness begat the soul....or did our soul begat consciousness.
sometime sun; Or are they same thing because we cant remember/realise which came first?
(if ever there was time?)
---------- Post added 12-25-2009 at 08:20 PM -------
I do not consider human holistic consciousness in the same vein as animal consciousness, including the apes and other top mammals. That we can wonder and know of our mortality are attributes that set us apart from the animals who have a consciousness employed totally for the survival of the species, there are no other levels to it.
What I meant by the above is did we, when we knew that we were "unique" on earth explain it by inventing a soul that further distanced us from the genetic cousins we share this globe with. Or are we spiritual beings and the soul is the imperative and our holistic consciousness a morality test allowing us to venture somewhere after we die (the basis for most faiths).
Sometimes to answer your question, whatever consciousness and souls are, they are not the same thing to my mind.
It is all 'consciousness' for me or none at all, animals have a degree of soul if i am correct in attributing KaseiJins words and meaning as my own.
But what i hear form from you is that you if you were to ascribe soul to anything it is moralisation, to know right from wrong, which we may be wrong, maybe the animals know better than we for they have no need to ask or doubt, dose this give them more hold upon soul or again doe sit in a way disprove the whole argument?.
Where does 'inspiration' come from if not from something a part of but not fully recognised/realised by that which holds it in their frame, still suprised. Making it 'a' unique soul rather than 'the' soul unique. 'The' soul makes it not unique at all to the person to the indivudal rather than the uniqueness that we all share.
I think i've got you wrong here but what what makes us moral does not make us survivors.
We do not share when we are these individuals, we own, this is where we have gone wrong with the realisation of the soul, that we own the understanding therefore we own the universe and all who obey are owned.
I like your term 'holistic consciousness' even if i am confused by it.
Holistic; adj, denoting an approach to medical treatment that considers a person as a whole, and takes social and psychological factors into account as well as the pysical symptoms.