souls

[cainam_nazier]

Now there is a subject.  I have a long winded explination of how I percive the whole soul thing to work.  But I give you the skinny version.

In short.  Every one has one and it is with you since the time of your conception.  It may be new or old, good or evil.  It is a part of you and you can not give it away.  Only parts of it and this is done all the time wether you are aware of it or not.  It guides you through your life but it does not control you, you can change it, and you can be changed by it.  You life and its experiences add to that soul sometimes making it stronger and sometimes making it weaker.  I could ramble on and about this.  But in short do not worry about loosing yours just becareful who you give the pieces to.  One more quick note.  God or the Devil do not enter into the equation for me at all.  Since I am a none believer, or rather a believer of a different faith.



"Step out of line...You might form a new one."


David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com

[Winged_Wolf]

My own take on the whole thing--it's a diamond-dense compressed bundle of energy which contains all of your experiences and is, in fact, your "self", apart from your physical body.  This is what leaves your body when you die, and goes elsewhere....to where?  No one I know has ever had the presence of mind to follow one, as witnessing a death tends to be pretty traumatic.


--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

[cainam_nazier]

Winged_wolf

I believe that the souls get reused.  Hence when I said new or old.  I have found that by looking at a person I can guage the age of there soul and it's relative nature.  Hence the good/evil.

A penny for your thoughts.



"I once had rabbit named George, I would hold, and sqeeze him, and pet him, and ......."


David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com

[Winged_Wolf]

I don't know...I can't see that it necessarily matters much.  What if the new soul is more clever?  What if it has a more thorough interface with the mind and body than the old soul?  The age of the soul doesn't strike me as making a whole lot of difference when you're dealing with living people.
Where do souls come from?  It once struck my fancy to consider that they might reproduce the way other spirits do--by combining their energy to create a new one, or budding, or whatnot.
Hey, does a newly budded soul have all the memories of its parent?  That would REALLY negate the old/new soul thing.

Should I even go into good and evil?  I don't believe it exists objectively.  From what I can see, it's just a convenient label people stick on things to denote whether they like them and find them beneficial or not.  And that can change drastically from person to person.
Certainly there's nothing in the world outside our own heads that would suggest some cosmic concept of good and evil.



--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

[Kristen]

Hi Winged Wolf -

>Certainly there's nothing in the world outside our own heads that would suggest some cosmic concept of good and evil.


Terrible evils exist in the cosmos right here in our physical existance - genocide is evil, rape is evil,  abuse/assault/neglect are evil... and I believe that everything is templated before it manifests physically, and physical manifestation is a creative force too, impressing itself into the astral - and so on and so forth, we all know this dogma...

Sure, bad things make us fight for what is right, and that's good, but the fighting for what is right doesn't make evil something other than what it is.  

I've been assaulted/abused/neglected and know many people who have gone through similar and worse, and supported some of them through it.  My daughter has been talking with me about what she's learning about in history - the holocaust.  They showed the class pictures of stacks of emaciated bodies and dead babies thrown in ditches among other things.  Hilter was evil.  What's happening in Isreal and Palistine right now is evil.  People starving to death because warlords take internationally donated food is evil.  Junkies dying with needles sticking out of their arms is evil.

Just a few examples - but the bottom line is that value judgements and appropriate action around what is right and wrong, what is evil and good, are relevant and necessary.

Sorry to be such a downer -  but I would like to add too that conducting oneself with grace in the face of evil of whatever shade, is an act of courage - depending on the degree of evil the courage necessary can be unfathomable - and doing so is much harder than giving in to hate.  I've learned this through experience.


Kristen *love and light*

[PeacefulWarrior]

I must chime in on this one.  I have to back up Kristen in her remarks about good and evil.  Saying that they don't exist objectively is like saying that light and dark don't exist objectively.  It's simply not true.  

It is true, however, that there are likes and dislikes as well as "gray areas", but there is, in the end, always a definite line between good and evil.  We may see darkly now, but in the future we will all be able to dicern perfectly between and two and choose.

-Daniel

fides quaerens intellectum

[cainam_nazier]

I agree with the whole good and evil as far as it existing but it is bassed on my view of things.  But for just for the good conversation. A question.
A person with absolutly no concept of good or evil commits an act of violance(which is considered evil).  Does that make him evil?  The concept is not there so for him it is not wrong or right.  Good and evil if I may re-word the point Winged_wolf was trying for, and correct me if I am wrong Wolf.  Good and evil, a question of beliefs and concepts.  For instance....The sea lion.  The male sea lion when getting in fights over the herd will often end up killing the challenger.  Due largly to the manner in wich they fight.  But does that make it an evil creature?  No because that is the nature of the beast.

Winged_Wolf.

As far as where they come from I have not figured out yet.  But I do think the age is important.  I have met people who are so purely fasinated by so many things it would seem as if they were forever stuck at age 5.  Hence the belief in new souls.  A soul that has not experienced many lives and drives a person to investigate every thing.  And I have met other people who nothing ever excites, and they have concepts, and ideas well beyond the grasp of norm.  I feel as thier soul is older, it has been there and done that.  They know things beyond the grasp of thier physical age.  My neise is a good example.  I know that she has been here before.  She knows too many things and she is only 4.




"sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you are one."


David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com

[goku22]

I feel that the soul is more than just what leaves your body when you die. I think that is all of your subtle bodies going down the line (astral, mental, buddhic,etc..). The soul is what's left when all the layers are peeled away. It's the part of us that is everything. On the good/evil issue, I really don't think either exist. Everything just "is". If we had no emotions and our bodies experienced no pain, things like rape and murder wouldn't be considered evil. It would just "be". And pain is really only our nerves reacting a certain way, it just is, it's not an evil thing. But all of that is on more of cosmic scale, which we don't realize most of the time down here. So, I think we have to use what we're given, and if a sense of good/evil is part of that, we might as well go with it, there's got to be some reason for it. I just think we need to realize that it is a subjective thing, everything in my mind screams out against what Hitler did, but at the same time, I know that his evil comes from my mind, it doesn't simply exist objectively, it's there because I'm a normal, caring human being with lots of stuff in my brain (including past-life memories and stuff) that predetermines alot of my beliefs and behavior. Most of this isn't coming out quite right, because I'm trying to express and feeling that really isn't in words in my head, or even set up in a logical order, so there's some faults in the translation.  Ben

[cainam_nazier]

Goku22.  
I think if I got that correct you were agreeing with me?  
Basically It is our beliefs that make it exist not the univers.
But sense it is there for most of us it is easier to describe hings in that manner.

Did I get that correct?





"I'm running out of things to put here."


David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com

[Winged_Wolf]

There is a certain type of sea-slug that mates by the male violently stabbing a large needle into the body cavity of the female.  She does not, of course, cooperate with this procedure.
Is this evil?  Certainly doesn't look nice to us.  This is how evolution has shaped these animals.

In praying mantids, the female will often eat the male DURING intercourse...this in fact has been shown to raise the fertility of the mating, though of course the male would much prefer it not happen (it doesn't, always).  Evil?

Male sea lions often crush pups to death during their beachmaster battles, they couldn't be bothered to watch where they were going.  Evil?

Male lions eat cubs when they take over a pride from another male.  This ensures the females will become fertile again faster, and the new cubs will be theirs and not the old male's.
Evil?

Chimpanzees have been known to launch raids against a neighboring tribe, and deliberately kill their infants.  Evil?

Bottlenose dolphins, those mainstays of newage loveliness, have been known to kill other species of dolphins, apparently for fun.  Evil?

If these things are not evil, why not?  Because it is the nature of the beast.  Why are these things then evil when humans do them?  Because we are not beasts?  Hah!  Of COURSE we are beasts!  We do those things because it is the nature of the beast.
Just as with any other beast.
Unpleasant?  Highly.  Undesireable?  Absolutely.  But evil?
Does not compute.

This human tendency to consider humans to be somehow apart from other animals--above them, below them, beside them, but APART....this is incredible arrogance!  Outside of religion (for which I have little respect), there is NOTHING to support a view that humans are somehow essentially different from any other animal on this world.

Unless you believe that Nature is capable of evil, then this makes evil a null concept.  If nature is capable of both good an evil, then exactly who is it that's keeping score?  Who is it that says one is better than the other?  Who's judging which is which?

If you believe it's wrong that a baby should be killed if its parents die, then I agree with you.  But that is MY value system.  In another part of the world, they may believe that it's better the baby die than suffer without parents, and be a burden on the rest of the tribe.  To them, killing the baby would be GOOD.  Not evil.  To us, it is evil.
Who is right?  They came by their morals because they were conducive to their survival.  We come by ours because we have that luxury.  Who is right?  Which is evil?

This is why I do not believe in the objective existence of evil.  Things do what survival demands.  Survival is the god of reality--all things seek to survive.  Those that do not....they are quickly gone, and more quickly still forgotten.  All those without the drive to survive not only perish, but so do the traits that made them lack that drive.  This is the way the universe operates, both "above" in the world of spirit and "below" in the material world.

Survival is "god", and survival demands both what we see as good, and what we see as evil, and it doesn't care which is chosen, so long as the end result is itself--survival.
So who does care?  Only us....which make it purely subjective.


--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

[Kristen]

Hmmm...

Winged Wolf I see your reasoning and its a sound argument in and of itself. When I read your response I am reminded of many nature specials I've seen where elephants caress the bones of their dead, and mother animals stay near their dead offspring, carrying them around, trying to revive them, and wailing or crying.  There was another show I saw where a young boy fell into a gorilla (sp?) enclosure and hit his head severely enough to fall into unconsciousness.  The alpha male gently sniffed and touched the boy and kept other gorillas away.  

Animals have compassion too and grieve I think.  It seems to me *IMO* that caring about what happens is what a soul is for and being able to raise above survival dynamics is what intellect is for.  And come to think of it there are kinds and degrees of soul and intellect within the kingdom animalia and within Homo Sapiens.  

However, we are not dolphins or lions - we are a different kind of animal - in general we operate several turns up the coil and so have the ability to conceptualize good and evil and regulate our interactions with each other in order to honor each individual's right to exist and/or so to ensure our own - (and come to think of it animals create societies that help to ensure survival too).   But to illustrate my argument - I am quite sure that if some guy broke into your house and tried to kill your children in order to mate with you so that his seed would be propogated that you would likely not think yourself arrogant to draw a line between what is acceptable and what is not in that circumstance.  If something terrible happened to you like that would you consider the perpetrator's actions a natural articulation of the laws of nature?

Kristen

[Kristen]

Hi Again -

It seems I am too stupid to figure out how to edit, or my user interface does not include the edit feature for some strange reason...

I want to change this:

in order to honor each individual's right to exist and/or so to ensure our own -

to this clumsy paragraph:

in order to honor each individual's right to exist with dignity and love and/or so to ensure our existance characterized with dignity and love - because we are capable of experiencing, and creating those things - experiencing and creating their worth.  

AKA the pursuit of happiness.

[Winged_Wolf]

Kristen, yes, I would consider the man's attempted actions part of the natural cycle, and then I would shoot him in the head.
Make sense?

I in no way imply that "evil" behavior is acceptable simply because evil is purely subjective.  I'm simply stating that it isn't an objective thing.  It's personal.  It's something each of us decide for ourselves, and something that many of us disagree on--and none of us are right, and none of us are wrong, in that disagreement.  Just because I don't believe that there's some higher standard we're all being compared to doesn't mean I will allow what _I_ consider to be evil to go on unchallenged.  I just realize that when others disagree with what I consider to be evil, they're not actually wrong.


--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

[Shimewaza]

Winged_Wolf said:

>If these things are not evil, why not? Because it is the nature of >the beast. Why are these things then evil when humans do them? >Because we are not beasts? Hah! Of COURSE we are beasts! We do those >things because it is the nature of the beast.

I had not considered it like this. Thanks for saying so Winged_Wolf.

- Shimewaza.

[distant bell]

I and my brother where out walking with our dogs on a field, suddenly the dogs noticed a rabbit- and of course they started running after it. They didn´t want to kill it or anything, just after the fun of chasing it. So now, the rabbit got away- but probably got wery scared-and the dogs had a few miutes of true happines. Is this good or bad?

I have great problems with the concept of good and bad- it´s wery often good for one part and bad for another, just a matter of perspective. From a subjectiv point of view it´s naturally easy to say that this or that is bad- but from an "objective" point of view??

Play with the concept of karma or life on earth beeing a school to learn certain lessons- and all our ideas of good and bad fall.
Then only the subjective feeling of pleasure or pain remain.

After all who knows why the things happen on this plane?

Is death evil ? after all the old structures must be broken down to give room for the new.

[Kristen]

Hi All -

My stance is in this interesting conversation/debate is that to include what animals do naturally in a definition of human morality (which includes distinctions between good and evil) is to be too broad and inclusive... one way to look at this might be to see that while we share neurological characteristics with animals in general - they do not share with us all of our neurological characteristics.  There is a capacity difference.  We have a "survival" brain, a "feeling" brain, and a "thinking" brain... not all animals have all of the above, and for those that do, there are still significant enough differences for legitimate practical catagorization purposes.  For example, and to draw too rough a picture really - can you imagine what would happen if all human impulses and behavior "arising" from the medulla/cerebellum (survival) and the midbrain centers (emotion) were completely unmediated; or, to some other degree not mediated, by  cerebral processes - frontal lobes - (conscience)?  We aught to be able to imagine it because there are/have been/will be biological humans who have this problem of being "undermediated".  However, I believe that animal nature is not human nature.  What is natural for animals is not as definitively natural for humans.

Relatedly, here is another way to look at the issues here:  there is something called a spiral test - its a type of test in which items in various categories keep repeating at higher and higher levels of difficulty and sophistication of application.  If a set of behavioral responses of a range of biological life were measured within compatible environmental milieus across species - and then the results were statified using a spiral test - humans would score several turns up the coil.  We share core characteristics yes... and scores for human responses could be shown to be distributed across a continuum which overlaps the continuum of scores defining animal responses... however, there would come a point where determinations about what is characteristic to humans and what is characteristic to animals would differ in significant terms.  So, for example - the behavior that we call rape exists in nature, but for humanity, our level of operation in the environment does not need to include such behavior for our species to exist.  For a sea slug for example, perhaps there is pain and a response to such a stimulous as of fight or flight - but for humans, there is not only pain and a fight or flight response, there is fear and sadness, and a sense of violition and degredation.  Does that make sense?

So, I would ask: for societal, cultural, familial and individual human relationships; when would it be meaningful to make judgements around what is wrong or right/good or evil?  When would it not be meaningful?  What is being human about?  Is it about being humane?  What defines us?

And what might the ability to conceive of good and evil have to do with our soul if anything?

Kristen

[Winged_Wolf]

I think you might find that some species are closer to us on the spiral than you realize--chimpanzees, for example, have all the mental capabilities of a 5 year old, with very few exceptions.  They CAN moralize.

In any case, that's a good point.  Our mental capabilities may have nothing to do with our souls' capacities for such.  I don't think animal souls are really any different from human souls.  (Past life memories of BEING a non-human certainly contribute to this opinion).


--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

[naphere]

I have been thinking about the subject what is the soul.
While having gotten into metaphysics I thought I discovered the answer.  your etheric body astral body mental ect.  I learned they were pretty much on top of one another creating one body that totals what your physical body is.  But now im not so sure.  I was hanging out with my friend who know alot about metaphysics and he told me people think the soul is something inside them but its not.  He proceeded to tell me there were 7 other me's sitting next to me I guess they were souls.  Then we talked about how sometimes people fool around and say well if you dont believe in a soul how bout you write down on a piece of paper saying I own it.  Well he said that doing that would be like literally giving them your soul.  Although that might not be permanent for a normal person their is some truth to giving the devil your soul