Regarding Christianity, I find this:
http://www.theswordbearer.org/p005_summaries.html
1. The author says immortality of soul is unbiblical and unproven, only spirits are immortal. In the time of the adulthood of Abraham, God stoped being the Father of all humans to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Since then pagans are called “dogs” because like beast their souls die with their bodies, ceasing their existence. However, angels and believers have an immortal spirit where their souls live after death.
2. Salvation is a two-part process: first the spiritual born grants immortality. This is elected by God, with nothing from us: only after receiving an immortal spirit we can seek God, pray, believe… Second we need works of faith (not works of the law), meaning the fruits of our love for God by absolute submission. If christians fails in this they take the wrath of God in the second death, that is eternal torment in hell-lake of fire for spirits can’t die. Author relies that all the Bible verses about hell the damned are believers, like demons believe and tremble.If this guy is right, all the christians that believe in Christ for salvation from hell are making a terrible mistake: eternal torment makes immortality the worst of curses. Is frightening because the author seems well grounded in Scripture.
Thoughts?
Interesting question. I haven’t read the link, although it looks interesting enough. When I was nine or ten or so, I decided that when I get to heaven I’m going start off by going to the heavenly library and reading everything in it. I’ll have to hit some websites while I’m there :-).
The question relies on the mutability of mortal souls to immortal, and back. My limited philosophical understanding is that this is incoherent, because souls are supernatural, like ideas. As far as I can tell, there is no reason to believe that a categorical idea such as “2 + 2 = 4” can exist, and then cease to exist. Because of this, I would require a philosophical argument in favor of the possible invention and cessation of a consciousness, rather than an evidence-based appeal. A person’s visible expertise is a sort of evidence, and therefore irrelevant to the question.
You might want to run this by an honest, competent philosopher as well. It’s not really my expertise.
Thanks for your reply. I would ask you to take your time to read the link carefully as I´m very interested in your opinion since this item is causing me a great concern, because eternal torment + difficult salvation = despair.
The author relies in the most extreme Sola Scriptura I have seen (is a KJO), and since Bible says both animals and humans have nephesh/psuche, seems absurd to say only humans have an afterlife. But if the immortality is only a trait of ruach/pneuma, then only angels and born again have an afterlife.
Can you give me the name of a suitable philosopher?
John C. Wright and Koanic are the only ones I know of. Wright blogs over at scifiwright.com. He’s got a bit too much respect for authority in my opinion, but otherwise he’s pretty sharp and a philosopher by training.
Koanic would be a more perfect choice (koanicsoul.com), since you don’t seem to mind fringe nutjobs like myself. He’s pretty inconsistent, but he’s been posting some stuff recently. He’s very sharp and this is right up his alley.
Thanks very much. What about Tex Arcane?
In fact, I enjoyed our talk. You are a nice fellow aspie.
Tex is good at everything (comes with the IQ), but he’s not always good at explaining things, or replying at all. Might as well ask though, he’s gotten a lot better in recent years.
I saw this picture and I thought of Wright.
The wonderful thing about the internet is that people can talk about whatever they want. One might conclude from this joke that metaphysicists- who are also purists- don’t talk much. Funny, that doesn’t seem to match reality. Maybe that’s the joke?
I’ve looked around on his blog and I don’t think I can a single genuinely philosophical thought.
Good point. Or more to the point, there is no evidence of a genuinely philosophical mind.
Speculation.
The “soul” (Face) is a medium for spirits. (Note that I will view “will” and “force” as synonomous with “spirit”)
The back of head can determine the kinds of spirits likely to run through and be filtered by the soul. Occ-backs tend to be receptive to certain spirits, while parietal-backs are receptive to others. That wouldn’t stop the occasional phenomenon of a normally parietal-type spirit from entering an Occ-back and vice versa.