I get that Christians are concerned with "unborn souls" and souls in general. What I don't get is that for Christians who take evolution as a fact, exactly when along the evolutionary process did 'the soul' enter into the picture? Was there some cutoff point, "OK from here on out, you all have souls"? If not, does that mean a bird or an amoeba has a soul? That does not align with the "dominion over animals" proclamation very well, but I do know Christians who expect to be reunited with their past pets.
What about our Neanderthal brothers? They emerged before us and 3-5% of my DNA is their DNA. Or perhaps the "soul" is just wishful thinking by simian-type brains that have developed just enough to want to live forever.
I never understood how animals wouldn't have souls; doesn't seem to be much biblical argument for it either. Seems like something some asshole said just to ruin a kid's day and became doctrine.
To quote the Bible...
Ecl. 3:19 - " For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. "
We could argue that is talking about the flesh and not the soul, but to quote Genesis as well...
Gen. 1:30 - " And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. "
This would imply that all animals have the "Breath of Life", the "Holy Spirit" within them, so by biblical doctrine it would be most likely that animals would go through the same soul transformation process as us at death.
Of course, "Christians" not knowing what the Bible says isn't something particularly shocking or new.
I worked with a guy who says the only reason he believes in god is because he saw a ghost once. I asked him if heaven is "a place". He says, of course and expects he will be re-embodied. I asked him, well, would you look like you did when you die and he says no, he will look like he did when he was 20. Then I asked how old his grandma will look and he says around 60, LOL.
It's all so child-like, LOL. Well, if a malaria parasite and a COVID virus have souls, they aren't worth much, LOL.
I'd argue the Old Testament doesn't give much of an impression that they believed in an eternal soul. What's dead is dead. There's no mention of an afterlife. The closest we get is a ghost being summoned by a witch, but all that really implies is that the dead can be disturbed from their rest. Imagine somebody using magic to pull you out of your eternal bliss.
"Dude! You summoned me from Heaven to fix your messes? You realize that Heaven is eternal bliss? It's like having an your best orgasm ever 24/7, and you interrupted that! This is like torture compared to that! Send me back before I 'accidentally' spill ink over your name in the Book of Life, you dick!"
Quote from: Blackleaf on December 16, 2022, 02:16:20 AMI'd argue the Old Testament doesn't give much of an impression that they believed in an eternal soul. What's dead is dead. There's no mention of an afterlife. The closest we get is a ghost being summoned by a witch, but all that really implies is that the dead can be disturbed from their rest. Imagine somebody using magic to pull you out of your eternal bliss.
"Dude! You summoned me from Heaven to fix your messes? You realize that Heaven is eternal bliss? It's like having an your best orgasm ever 24/7, and you interrupted that! This is like torture compared to that! Send me back before I 'accidentally' spill ink over your name in the Book of Life, you dick!"
According to British biblical scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou, for many ancient Mesopotamian cultures, the dead were quasi-alive as long as they were remembered by the living. Thus, all the statues and elaborate tombs and burial rituals to help remembrance.
Quote from: Cassia on December 10, 2022, 11:38:43 AMI get that Christians are concerned with "unborn souls" and souls in general. What I don't get is that for Christians who take evolution as a fact, exactly when along the evolutionary process did 'the soul' enter into the picture?
Good question. The idea of human evolution doesn't coincide with the existence of our internal soul. On December 20th, 1943, in a transcript dictated to Maria Valtorta by Jesus, He commented on Darwin's Theory. See below.
QuoteJesus says:
One of the points at which your pride founders in error—which, above all, degrades precisely your haughtiness by giving you an origin that, if you were less corrupted by pride, you would repudiate as degrading—is that of Darwin's theory.
In order not to admit God, who, in His power, was able to have created the universe from nothing and man from the already created mud, you take the paternity of a beast as your own.
Don't you realize you are diminishing yourselves, for—consider this—won't a beast—no matter how exemplary, selected, improved, and perfected in form and instinct, and, if you wish, even in mental formation—always be a beast? Don't you realize this? This testifies unfavorably regarding your pride as pseudo-supermen.
But if you fail to realize, I will not be the one to waste words to make you aware of it and converted from the error. I ask you only one question which, in your great numbers, you have never asked yourselves. And if you can answer Me with facts, I will no longer combat this degrading theory of yours.
If man is a spin-off from the monkey, which by progressive evolution has become man, how is it that over so many years in which you have maintained this theory you have never succeeded, not even with the perfected instruments and methods at present, in making a man from a monkey? You could have taken the most intelligent offspring of a pair of intelligent monkeys and then their intelligent offspring, and so on. You would now have many generations of selected, instructed monkeys cared for by the most patient, tenacious, and sagacious scientific method. But you would still have monkeys. If there happened to be a mutation, it would be this: the beasts would be physically less strong than the former ones and morally more degenerate, for, with all your methods and instruments, you would have destroyed that perfection of the monkey which my Father created for these quadrumans.
Another question. If man came from the monkey, how is it that man, even with grafts and repugnant forms of cross-fertilization, does not now become a monkey again? You would be capable even of attempting these horrors if you knew that it could give approvative sanction to your theory. But you do not do so because you know that you would not be able to turn a man into a monkey. You would turn him into an ugly son of man, a degenerate, perhaps a criminal. But never a real monkey. You do not try to because you know beforehand that you would get a poor result and your reputation would emerge therefrom in ruins.
For this reason you do not do so. For no other, you feel no remorse or horror over degrading a man to the level of a beast to maintain a thesis of yours. You are capable of this and of much more. You are already beasts because you deny God and kill the spirit, which distinguishes you from the beasts.
Your science causes Me horror. You degrade the intellect and like madmen do not even realize you are degrading it. In truth, I tell you that many of the primitive are more men than you are. (The Notebooks: 1943) (https://archive.org/details/notebook-43/NOTEBOOK43/page/590/mode/2up)
Quote from: Cassia on December 10, 2022, 11:38:43 AMWhat about our Neanderthal brothers?
You can read a conversation between Jesus and Maria Valtorta about that under the date December 30th, 1946 in
The Notebooks: 1945-1950 (https://archive.org/details/notebook-43/Valtorta%20Maria%2C%20Notebooks%201945-1950/page/313/mode/2up).
The babble says that god knows the soul of the baby while in utero. Now, not knowing "when" this takes place, let's just say it begins at conception. And knowing that approximately 20% of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage, the greatest killer of babies would be god.
"The streets of Hell are paved with the skulls of unbaptized children."
Fuckin' charming. New mother, new baby, priest is "reminding" her that her baby will be paving stones for Satan.* So she gets the kid baptized. And she'll suffer bouts of guilt about being forced into that situation. Thanks, Jesus, your mob is terrorizing young ladies after what should be a happy event. (And forcing women to conceive so as to increase the numbers purported under the sway of the catlicker church.)
*As absurd as that concept can be.
Quote from: aitm on October 09, 2025, 09:35:08 AMThe babble says that god knows the soul of the baby while in utero. Now, not knowing "when" this takes place, let's just say it begins at conception. And knowing that approximately 20% of all pregnancies end in a miscarriage, the greatest killer of babies would be god.
Since God doesn't exist to you, then why do miscarriages happen? And, if God exists, why would those causes for miscarriages suddenly be no longer so, and instead become God's doing?
Quote from: Soul on October 09, 2025, 11:35:50 AMSince God doesn't exist to you, then why do miscarriages happen?
You're a Poe, right?
QuoteAnd, if God exists, why would those causes for miscarriages suddenly be no longer so, and instead become God's doing?
Yep, a poor Poe, perhaps a POO-POO-POE. Buy better drugs.
Quote from: Soul on October 09, 2025, 11:35:50 AMSince God doesn't exist to you, then why do miscarriages happen? And, if God exists, why would those causes for miscarriages suddenly be no longer so, and instead become God's doing?
Miscarriages happen when genetics fuck-up and terminates. If your god existed he is woefully incompetent, but that's easy to prove since he always needed three battles to "win" a war against humans. That is really incompetent, and of course losing a battle because the "enemy" had iron chariots. LOL. What incompetence.
Quote from: aitm on October 10, 2025, 10:27:21 AMMiscarriages happen when genetics fuck-up and terminates.
Why would those causes for miscarriages suddenly be no longer so and instead become God's doing if you came to believe He exists?
Quote from: Soul on October 10, 2025, 10:34:11 AMWhy would those causes for miscarriages suddenly be no longer so and instead become God's doing if you came to believe He exists?
Because there's no
REASON to think that would work. Except for skewed. fabricated and/or cherry-picked bullshit.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 10, 2025, 12:32:09 PMBecause there's no REASON to think that would work. Except for skewed. fabricated and/or cherry-picked bullshit.
@aitm said miscarriages happen because genetics fuck-up and terminate, but he also said if God exists then miscarriages happen because of God and no longer because genetics fuck-up and terminate. He needs to pick one or the other as the cause of miscarriages, whether God exists or not.
Quote from: Soul on October 10, 2025, 04:19:23 PM@aitm said miscarriages happen because genetics fuck-up and terminate, but he also said if God exists then miscarriages happen because of God and no longer because genetics fuck-up and terminate. He needs to pick one or the other as the cause of miscarriages, whether God exists or not.
You are not a native English speaker evidently. Urdu?
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 10, 2025, 05:51:27 PMYou are not a native English speaker evidently.
It's not about language. It's about aitm needing to pick a lane: either he believes the causes of miscarriages are genetics or God.
Quote from: Soul on October 10, 2025, 06:11:27 PMIt's not about language. It's about aitm needing to pick a lane: either he believes the causes of miscarriages are genetics or God.
That's exactly why it's a language thing. In ENGLISH you can present to alternatives and "compare and contrast". You'll hit this when you out of grade school. Until then, just try to pretend you're not as stupid as you act.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 10, 2025, 06:17:53 PMThat's exactly why it's a language thing. In ENGLISH you can present to alternatives and "compare and contrast". You'll hit this when you out of grade school. Until then, just try to pretend you're not as stupid as you act.
You said, "You are not a native English speaker evidently", which refers specifically to someone who learned English as their first language from birth, rather than as a foreign language later in life, not comparing and contrasting alternatives. As for aitm, he needs to pick a lane and say he believes that genetics cause miscarriages or they don't, whether God exists or not. Or, say that he believes genetics cause miscarriages as does God, if He exists. If the latter, then he can explain how he knows when genetics or God is the cause of each miscarriage.
Sweetie, non-native English speakers out number English on the Internet. And I don't need to insult you, your posting covers that effectively. You sound like an idiot.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on October 10, 2025, 08:25:50 PMSweetie, non-native English speakers out number English on the Internet. And I don't need to insult you, your posting covers that effectively. You sound like an idiot.
I've noticed a pattern between you and me. Whenever you don't have a response to something I said, you resort to calling me an idiot.
Do you wear orthopedic hats?