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From: padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Souls
Message-ID: <542@utastro.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 21:10:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: utastro.542
Posted: Tue Aug 13 21:10:24 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Aug-85 05:48:04 EDT
References: <1195@umcp-cs.UUCP> <540@utastro.UUCP> <1206@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX
Lines: 31

> >If you do not accept the existence of souls, why do you bother with the
> >new testament, christianity, and things like god? I was
> >under the impression that the whole thrust of christianity was 
> >salvation. What's to be saved if there is no soul? 
> 
> How about the person?  People throughout the ages have erroneously gone from
> "There is life after death" to "Something of the person must survive death."
> This idea is strongly associated with spiritualism, in particular, and can
> be traced back to ancient Egypt.  Even if we allow the possibility of life
> after death (resurrection, whatever), however, I think it's safe to say that 
> we know essentially nothing about what it is like, or, more importantly, the
> method taking us from this life to the next.  Even if you accept all manner
> of spiritualist evidence, or all of the Bible as Fact, I don't think you
> need souls as an explanation.
> 
> Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe

SOUL: The spiritual or immortal element in a person. [Oxf. Am. Dict.]

You say we know nothing about "the method taking us from this life to the
next". Implicit is the concept of something that survives us after death.
This has been traditionally identified with the soul. You can't have it both
ways. You cannot say that the soul does not exist, and then say that
something survives us after we die and goes into the next life.

Now you may have a new definition of "soul" that is completely different
from anything like the above, but this is just pussyfooting around.

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

Padraig Houlahan.