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[...snipped...]Interesting. This implies that we not only choose to incarnate, but how to incarnate. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but this seems to imply that your mother could be your mother right now, and then your lover in a different life. I'm afraid that doesn't sit too well with me, but you could be right as well as I am. At any rate, I mostly wanted to discuss our pre-mortal existance (or as you would possibly say, our first pre-mortal existance), so I'll leave reincarnation for another thread.
Katz, this is an interesting thread. And I particularly appreciate your acknowledgement that...
Quote:
Yeah, well that's probably because it's not "pure fact."
... which should be understood for virtually every topic in this forum, but too often is not. It may seem paradoxical, but it's much easier to give consideration to ideas honestly acknowledged as something short of fact... as oppposed to something assuredly claimed as fact when it is nothing of the sort.
To the question at hand, the phrase I highlighted above points to my immediate stumbling block. Namely, HOW does this work? What is the mechanism, if we are to exercise this supposed choice? Unlike the cosmic origin debates, here we actually know a great deal. And this concept would appear to conflict with everything we do know about how the world works (or in this case, how human reproduction works).
There are around 250-300 million sperm in the male ejaculate. Only a small fraction of them make it from the vagina to the uterus, and only a tiny fraction of those make it into the fallopian tubes, and only ONE of those fights past the protective mucous coating to fertilize the egg. This is why men with "only" 20 million sperm per ml have fertility problems; seems like a lot, but there is a lot of waste and inefficiency in this particular "manufacturing process." Point being, this is a biological crap shoot with incredible odds against any one single sperm combining with any one single egg. And that unique combination of sperm and egg is what made you... you. And me... me. If any other sperm fertilized that egg, or any other egg was the object of all that attention... we'd be different people. And, bearing in mind those 1 in 300 million odds, that could have happened VERY easily.
Sorry for the biology lecture, but what we currently know is my starting point in discussing this (or any) concept. And I can't really give it serious consideration (beyond that of a fun thought experiment) without reconciling with what we currently know. How does any single spirit/soul/personage manage to direct that process, so that "our" singularly unique egg and sperm combo is the winner in this random crap shoot?
Last edited by HeelaMonster; 09-02-2020 at 08:25 PM..
Tzaph, you seem to hold the same beliefs as my little lady does. Interesting.
I am undecided.
Katzpur, I do not subscribe to having been created, not in the sense that you have indicated. However, I do ponder on what life and consciousness is "made of" as in, what exactly is life and what exactly is consciousness (although consciousness seems pretty obvious to us). Plants are alive but have no 'consciousness' as such (which requires a brain) and yet insects with a very small brain (or central nervous system) are conscious. But how conscious? Yet trees an insects share some 60% of our DNA, meaning that we have a common early ancestry. Did those first single cell organisms that are our ultimate ancestors have consciousness? They were alive, after all. I don't think so.
Consciousness in a metaphysical sense differs from merely being alive. A worm is alive in a different way than a human who has a complex system gross and subtle bodies - that of organs of perception, organs of action, breath, mind, intellect, and the most subtle of all, awareness. That awareness is the Consciousness that is talked about.
Sure, God is ultimately responsible for all of creation - if not directly for what we perceive as evil, then for allowing the existence of conditions (such as human free will and the influence of Satan) that give rise to evil.
My point was that two characters on this forum can easily hypothesize how the ghastly condition of a deformed child might lead to a greater good and might actually have been chosen during premortal existence for this very purpose.
Yet if a Christian suggests that an eternal, transcendent God might have purposes that aren't apparent to us but are nonetheless consistent with his omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence, the New Atheist types scream foul. No, any such God is simply a moral monster, unworthy of worship even if he did exist.
The disconnect is quite comical.
Arach is correct that not all atheists are this dogmatic or mindless. But I don't see many of the sorts he is describing on these forums. FWIW, even secular philosophers are now in virtually unanimous agreement that the Problem of Evil is not a defeater for or even a serious objection to theism.
Since neither of the "two characters" to whom you refer above are atheists and one in fact is Christian, I don't see a logical reason for you to have leapt to the "Christians are being picked on" schtick.
For one thing, as the CARM article I linked to pointed out, there was Jewish midrash regarding the possibility of a child sinning in the womb. Or perhaps "born blind" in the pericope doesn't literally mean blind as he came out of the womb and the disciples were suggesting he might have sinned as an early infant. Or perhaps they had some notion of reincarnation. Or perhaps they had some notion of original sin and wondered why this man would have been singled out for the punishment of blindness. "Perhaps he sinned during his eons-long premortal existence with his Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother" strikes me as surely the most unlikely of all the possibilities - but it's the one Mormons are compelled to latch onto. The bottom line is, we have no idea what the disciples had in mind.
Blindness was of special, almost mystical significance in all Near Eastern cultures. See the extremely thorough doctoral dissertation "Theology of Blindness in the Hebrew Scriptures," https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/c...=dissertations. Perhaps the entire pericope is metaphorical and the incident never happened at all. We simply don't know. But to try to find theological significance in the disciples' misguided question is absurd and classic proof-texting or the worst sort.
As the CARM article further points out, the gist of Jesus' response was that the disciples simply didn't understand the ways of God, and their questions reflected this. For Jesus to have asked "Gee, why do you ask if he sinned - what are you, some kind of reincarnation buffs?" would have introduced a side issue and diluted the essential point Jesus was making: "This happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him."
You cited CARM as if it was a legitimate source. That's funny.
Seems odd to cite a document at a Seventh Day Adventist School to discuss Hebrew Scripture, too.
You cited CARM as if it was a legitimate source. That's funny.
Seems odd to cite a document at a Seventh Day Adventist School to discuss Hebrew Scripture, too.
Your disliking of it doesn't mean it's not legit. It documents its sources well. But I get it. You don't know how to answer the arguments there, so you hate it.
Your disliking of it doesn't mean it's not legit. It documents its sources well. But I get it. You don't know how to answer the arguments there, so you hate it.
Don't try to put words in my mouth. That's dishonest. I never said a word about hating anything. (Knowing it's a garbage source is an entirely different matter.)
Don't try to put words in my mouth. That's dishonest. I never said a word about hating anything. (Knowing it's a garbage source is an entirely different matter.)
I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth. It's interesting that you deny hating them, but the next sentence is you calling it a "garbage source". That couldn't be more wrong. It's a very solid academic site, and the fact is, they footnote their articles very well and document them. They quote from actual official sources, and you are able to go and verify the quotes if you so choose. I have no doubt in my mind that the site would be beloved here if it presented a message the people agreed with.
I'm not putting words in anyone's mouth. It's interesting that you deny hating them, but the next sentence is you calling it a "garbage source". That couldn't be more wrong. It's a very solid academic site, and the fact is, they footnote their articles very well and document them. They quote from actual official sources, and you are able to go and verify the quotes if you so choose. I have no doubt in my mind that the site would be beloved here if it presented a message the people agreed with.
The fact that something is footnoted does not mean it is correct.
Apparently you aren't hip to the Atheist Manifesto, or at least the Religion & Spirituality Forum version of it. The very existence of the hideously deformed child is proof that the God of Christianity is a fantasy. No omniscient, omnibenevolent God could allow such evil, such needless suffering by a helpless child. There is no excuse for such a monster. But little old you and MQ can hypothesize the good, indeed the "spiritual evolution," that might flow from such a situation - and even why such a situation might have been a "choice" by an "advanced soul." But, no, God cannot be allowed any such excuse, even if he has the perspective and wisdom of an eternal, transcendent being. For Christians to suggest that God might have a higher purpose for what we with our finite perspective see as inexplicable evil just shows what delusional fools they are.
Interesting, no?
Interesting? Maybe, but just wrong either way...
Of course I can't speak for all atheists, but sure seems to me this characterization is more of the same sort of misrepresentation that breeds ongoing misunderstanding generally speaking. I have personally known some pretty horrific child degeneration then death stories that go well beyond what any child or parent should suffer through, let alone twice for the parent, but I have never thought such tragedies have anything to do with proving anything about God whatsoever.
The mention of wisdom in the same comment is par for the course. If the R&S forum has taught us anything, it's that we prefer to misunderstand and misrepresent one another over all other options. That is if we learn anything at all...
Your disliking of it doesn't mean it's not legit. It documents its sources well. But I get it. You don't know how to answer the arguments there, so you hate it.
Yes, CARM may very well document its sources, but it also takes quotes out of context and does an absolutely pathetic job of paraphrasing what said quotes supposedly are intended to say. It makes a caricature out of any beliefs the authors disagree with. Admit it, CARM exists to trash everything other than Evangelical Christianity.
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That's funny. 
