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Author Topic:   Life experience and the soul
Logic
Member (Idle past 5014 days)
Posts: 31
From: Australia
Joined: 02-11-2008


Message 1 of 50 (533100)
10-28-2009 7:09 PM


I'm an atheist - just to set everyone straight
My question is when someone dies what happens to their soul’s mental state?
This is the problem I’m encountering with the idea:
Lets assume your soul goes to heaven as its current intellectual level, so assuming you die as a 30 year old you go to heaven as yourself a 30 year old with your current level of life experience and beliefs. Now this is all well and good except what if you die as a 2 year old and go to heaven? Are you forever in eternity stuck as a 2 year with a 2 year olds mental capacity, after all you have no life experience and no beliefs? Can you mentally age in heaven?

Replies to this message:
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AdminNosy
Administrator
Posts: 4754
From: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Joined: 11-11-2003


Message 2 of 50 (533102)
10-28-2009 7:21 PM


Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread copied here from the Life experience and the soul thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
Meldinoor
Member (Idle past 4808 days)
Posts: 400
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 02-16-2009


Message 3 of 50 (533116)
10-28-2009 9:59 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Logic
10-28-2009 7:09 PM


Interesting question, and sadly, one I doubt you will get any definite answers to.
Logic writes:
My question is when someone dies what happens to their soul’s mental state?
Before we discuss what happens to the soul's mental state, we must first determine whether it has one to begin with. And if it does have one, is it the same as the living individual's? After all, a human being's mental state emerges from his brain. You mess with my brain, you could change my mental state entirely.
So a good starting point would be to agree on what a soul is (assuming it exists). You'd be surprised at how many soul concepts exist, not only among differing religious faiths, but even within the Christian church.
Respectfully,
-Meldinoor

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Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 4 of 50 (533216)
10-29-2009 11:41 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Logic
10-28-2009 7:09 PM


Can you mentally age in heaven?
For many, the petinent question is the opposite: can you de-age in Heaven? I've had the unfortunate experience of someone dying in my finacee's family recently, and she was entirely cogent right up until the end. My own grandmother, however, suffered a series of strokes so that by the end, she was not the same strong person she had been for my whole life and presumably hers.
I know a lot of people whose minds have started to go long before their bodies, especially with Alzheimer's and other mental declines associated with old age. I'd hate to think that you're stuck in Heaven constatntly living in the past, or unable to remember who you are.

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 5 of 50 (533228)
10-29-2009 12:12 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Logic
10-28-2009 7:09 PM


Some believers think that your personality is stripped of its sinful nature and it is rendered in its natural 'prefall' type state. Mental illnesses are caused by the brain - so all of those would be gone. All that would be left is the part that loves God and you spend all your days wandering around a city made of gold worshipping Yahweh for eternity.

I might once have felt it prudent to keep silence, for I perceive that the race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity; but just now, happily, in this breathing-spell of toleration, there are so many varieties of belief that even an unbeliever may speak out.
--Carl Van Doren, 1926

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Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 6 of 50 (533233)
10-29-2009 12:28 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Modulous
10-29-2009 12:12 PM


Some believers think that your personality is stripped of its sinful nature and it is rendered in its natural 'prefall' type state. Mental illnesses are caused by the brain - so all of those would be gone. All that would be left is the part that loves God and you spend all your days wandering around a city made of gold worshipping Yahweh for eternity.
Sounds a bit boring...but then again, presumably boredom is a function of our past-fall biology and will stripped away.

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Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 7 of 50 (533234)
10-29-2009 12:33 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Modulous
10-29-2009 12:12 PM


"you spend all your days wandering around a city made of gold worshipping Yahweh for eternity."
Sounds like Hell to me ...

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Logic
Member (Idle past 5014 days)
Posts: 31
From: Australia
Joined: 02-11-2008


Message 8 of 50 (533781)
11-02-2009 7:53 PM


I'm just shooting this one for all out there,
But assuming we go to some pre-fall state then what’s the point of free will in life if we lose everything we know and become some generic robot for god? Or have I got it all wrong

  
Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 9 of 50 (533806)
11-03-2009 12:58 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Logic
10-28-2009 7:09 PM


Logic writes:
I'm an atheist - just to set everyone straight
My question is when someone dies what happens to their soul’s mental state?
Ecclesiaties 9:5 "For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all"
According to Gods word the bible, the dead have no consciousness. Death is the end of life, its the cessation of the living soul. The soul, which is the living breathing person, ceases to exist both physically and mentally.

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Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 10 of 50 (533854)
11-03-2009 8:17 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Peg
11-03-2009 12:58 AM


According to Gods word the bible, the dead have no consciousness. Death is the end of life, its the cessation of the living soul. The soul, which is the living breathing person, ceases to exist both physically and mentally.
So there is no heaven? Won't all the xians be a bit disappointed?
Edited by Larni, : Fixed quotes.

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Domino
Member (Idle past 3958 days)
Posts: 53
Joined: 11-06-2009


Message 11 of 50 (534267)
11-06-2009 12:10 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Larni
11-03-2009 8:17 AM


Larni writes:
So there is no heaven?
What if heaven is a state of unconsciousness? After all, when you're having a bad day, sometimes all you want to do is go to sleep. So would an "eternal sleep" really be such a bad thing?

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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 12 of 50 (534268)
11-06-2009 12:25 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Domino
11-06-2009 12:10 PM


Dreaming Of YOU
What if heaven is a state of unconsciousness?
Then I would suggest that heaven is over-hyped.
After all, when you're having a bad day, sometimes all you want to do is go to sleep.
However most of us would prefer to wake up again at some point.
So would an "eternal sleep" really be such a bad thing?
I guess it depends what dreams you are having.
If in heaven you are stripped of everything that makes you YOU then I am not sure what the point of it is.

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 Message 11 by Domino, posted 11-06-2009 12:10 PM Domino has replied

Replies to this message:
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Domino
Member (Idle past 3958 days)
Posts: 53
Joined: 11-06-2009


Message 13 of 50 (534273)
11-06-2009 12:41 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by Straggler
11-06-2009 12:25 PM


Re: Dreaming Of YOU
Straggler writes:
However most of us would prefer to wake up again at some point.
We prefer that right now, but do we prefer it while we are sleeping? Think about someone or something waking you up in the morning from a deep sleep. You probably get annoyed, and wish you could stay in bed for just a few more minutes. Similarly, during our lifetime we may enjoy being alive, but what's to say that when we die we realize that nonexistence is much better?
Straggler writes:
If in heaven you are stripped of everything that makes you YOU then I am not sure what the point of it is.
This poses something of a dilemma. If, as was previously mentioned, you go to heaven as a 2-year-old or an Alzheimer's patient, you would probably rather take some other form than the one you died in. Also, if you keep your original human form when you go heaven, some people would be smarter, stronger, or more virtuous than others, which could lead to conflict (after all, being admitted to heaven doesn't necessarily mean you're perfect and won't ever get angry or jealous). So perhaps to avoid these problems, people are returned to their "pre-fall state," or perhaps they are even returned to their "pre-existence state," which would be a state of non-being.

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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 14 of 50 (534274)
11-06-2009 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Domino
11-06-2009 12:41 PM


Re: Dreaming Of YOU
Similarly, during our lifetime we may enjoy being alive, but what's to say that when we die we realize that nonexistence is much better?
Well if non-existence is the aim let's cut out the middle man of exietence. All those potential people that never were must be having a whale of a time?
So perhaps to avoid these problems, people are returned to their "pre-fall state," or perhaps they are even returned to their "pre-existence state," which would be a state of non-being.
In which case it isn't YOU that is in heaven. As far as I can see anyway.

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Perdition
Member (Idle past 3237 days)
Posts: 1593
From: Wisconsin
Joined: 05-15-2003


Message 15 of 50 (534277)
11-06-2009 1:12 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Domino
11-06-2009 12:41 PM


Re: Dreaming Of YOU
perhaps they are even returned to their "pre-existence state," which would be a state of non-being.
This would be exactly what most atheists believe. You return to the non-existence from which you caim. However, as a consequence, you are no longer able to enjoy the non-existence since you don't exist to enjoy it. Sort of a tautology, that.

This message is a reply to:
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