From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!tekmdp!bronze!randals Newsgroups: net.philosophy Title: Re: The Soul of the Matter Article-I.D.: bronze.472 Posted: Thu Feb 10 13:02:10 1983 Received: Sun Feb 13 06:39:36 1983 From tekmdp!tektronix!ucbcad!ucbvax:decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!crose Tue Feb 8 16:30:52 1983 Subject: The Soul of the Matter Newsgroups: net.philosophy I was wondering ( isn't that how it all starts?), what if man doesn't have a soul. What if when he dies, that's it, no reincarnation. Then that also brings up the question, if man does have an eternal soul, then why try so hard to prove he does? My question to you is, what is your real question? Let's go both ways... A) assume man does not have a soul: Each day that you live is simply a day that you live. You go through life, having experiences of one flavor or another, and then you die. That simple. So, what's the opportunity? You can either: 1) live life as a jerk, messing up everyone else's opportunities, or 2) live life as if life mattered, and assist *everyone* at whatever you choose, or 3) a little of both as you see fit. Remember, assuming that you are without a soul also puts everyone else in the same boat; that is, they can do (1), (2), or (3) above. B) assume man *does* have a soul: Now what? If you follow a religious model, you are told that when you do "the right thing", you get to go to "heaven", or something like that. What are those "right things" usually like? Love your neighbor, live in peace, be one with the nature of reality, etc. etc. So you get guidelines about how to live, and you do them (or don't do them) because of how you want to spend eternity. So what? Doesn't eternity start *right now*? What forces us to think that the rewards for behaviour patterns don't happen until death, or the next round-about (reincarnation stuff), or the final judgement day? The real point is, does it matter whether you are going to live for 20 or 200,000 more years? All you have is *right now*! There's no other moment of time that you can directly experience! This is it. You've lived your whole life to get to this point. Now, just be here. Ask yourself... "how good am I willing to have it be RIGHT NOW?", and "What's my opportunity, RIGHT NOW?" And notice what your answer is, and more importantly, "who" is talking when you give the answers? You, or your past? Food for thought, in a finally appropriate newsgroup... Randal L. Schwartz (former) Tektronix Microcomputer Development Products (now) Tektronix Engineering Computing Systems (the UNIX people) Wilsonville, Oregon, USA UUCP: ...!{ucbvax or decvax}!tektronix!tekecs!randals (ignore return address) CSNET: tekecs!randals @ tektronix ARPA: tekecs!randals.tektronix @ rand-relay