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From: jim@ISM780B.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Re: Souls
Message-ID: <27500099@ISM780B.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 13:24:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ISM780B.27500099
Posted: Thu Aug 15 13:24:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 21:36:22 EDT
References: <542@utastro.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:utastro:-54200:ISM780B:27500099:000:2654
Nf-From: ISM780B!jim    Aug 15 13:24:00 1985


[padraig]
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?

[wingate]
How about the person?

[balter]
Saved from what?  Salvation in Christian theology has a specific meaning:
saved from eternal damnation, which is presumably an unpleasant state
(so it gets down to Christians being afraid of long-term pain).
If there is no soul, there is no point to salvation.  (How did we get back
to religious themes?)

[padraig]
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.

[wingate]
Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  How about NOTHING survives????  How
about we die completely?   Why is there this need for continuity?  That's
precisely the point!  It's YOUR assumption that life after death implies
survival of death.  On what metaphysical basis do you intend to prove
this?

[balter]
Metaphysical basis?  What about simple semantic coherence?  What in the
world does it mean to have "life after death" without "survival of death"?
Life of *what*?  If not life of that which died, then you are being incredibly
silly; of course after my death there will be some other life, not necessarily
mine.  But if we are to identify something following a death with that which
died, then certainly the something that died survived in order to be
identified; if you deny that then you are using some bizarre and unacceptable
notion of "survive".  You define a soul as the immortal portion, and then
say a soul isn't necessary, and say continuity isn't necessary, but this
is just semantic confusion.  If I die completely, there is no continuity,
but I am later reconstructed (resurrected somehow), then I have *survived*;
continuity is irrelevant.  But this whole discussion is silly from the
point of view of net.philosophy; there is no philosophical basis for presuming
life after death.

Some New Age types talk about dying and then becoming
part of the ALL.  But just what does this *mean*?  If my *ego* does not
survive my death, then just what is it after my death that we are identifying
with *me*?  Those who claim remembrance of past lives at least have some
means of identifying the continuity; others are just playing word games.

-- Jim Balter (ima!jim)