Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utastro.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!mhuxn!mhuxr!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!utastro!padraig From: padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Foolish me on souls again Message-ID: <592@utastro.UUCP> Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 17:52:59 EDT Article-I.D.: utastro.592 Posted: Fri Aug 23 17:52:59 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 26-Aug-85 00:56:55 EDT References: <1322@umcp-cs.UUCP> <588@utastro.UUCP> <1357@umcp-cs.UUCP> Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX Lines: 53 > In article <588@utastro.UUCP> padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) writes: > > >> I see. At A I have X, and at B I have X, so there must be a continuity > >> of X between the two. There are so many assumptions implicit in this > >> that it's hard to know where to start. > > >Well let me show you: > > > 1) Let A be life before death, and B life after death, > > 2) we have X at A where X is the "we" in "we are resurrected" > > 3) we have X at B where X is the "we" in "we are resurrected" > > >These assumptions are implicit in the resurrection claim. These are not > >being challanged here. Now X forms an uninterrupted succession, therefore > >it is continuous. > > The assumption I was particularly referring to was the principle that > existence of something at two different points implies continuous existence > of the same thing between them. Since this isn't even true in the physical > world, which Padraig claims to have knowledge of, why should this principle > be accepted for supernatural phenomena? This is garbage. We are talking about life, and life after death, according to your scenario. The continuity is there throughout our lives - you are not trying to say that there have been times throughout your life that you didn't exist, are you? > Many phenomena appear at isolated points in time without any intervening > existence of the same substance. We tend to assert that the two isolated > occurances are different entities. Now, the problem I see is that even if I > accept Padraig's intuition that life requires this kind of continuity, he > neglects to consider the possibility that whatever it is that characterizes > a person could be transformed into a supernatural being at death, and then > back to a material, living person again down the road. I'll even let him > call the supernatural being a soul. It should be quite apparent that the > soul as so defined did not exist before the person's death, and ceased to > exist when the person lived again. So in fact, you still have the > continuity, but living people do not have souls. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like the work of Maxwell's demons to me. > ...This is exactly analogous > to a person driving a car at points A and B (let a be California, and B be > Maryland). There's no implication that the person was driving a car in > between those points, even if it is the same car. The person could have had > the car shipped to Md., flew to BWI, and got back into the car. I think > the analogy should be quite clear enough. > > Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe Yes, but in your analogy the person never ceases to exist. Padraig Houlahan.