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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Souls
Message-ID: <1220@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 10:43:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1220
Posted: Wed Aug 14 10:43:42 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 21:59:54 EDT
References: <1206@umcp-cs.UUCP> <542@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 33

In article <542@utastro.UUCP> padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) writes:

>> >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.

>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.

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?

Charley Wingate