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evolution and the soul (pg. 3)
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by BTG
that.
an ace post goes like "pics or stfu"
i'm not going to read that. neither will you (besides pkc)
my opinion:
since when does religion have to be the opposite of evolution?
i belive in dinosaurs and jesus...what does that make me?
edit: don't say highschool drop out. it's a cheapshot and i have low self esteem. |
PKC already pointed out that many theists believe in evolution, but you've missed the original question. And, as a theist that believes in evolution, you're in a good position to answer it (or at least give your position on it):
"at what stage did human(monkey)-kind evolve/receive a soul?" |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
PKC already pointed out that many theists believe in evolution, but you've missed the original question. |
i cunningly hid that question in the very first post. |
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| Sushipunk |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
i cunningly hid that question in the very first post. |
It was a ing sly move, admittedly. |
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| Blake |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
It makes no sense to me whatsoever that mere cognizance defines any sort of ethereal existence - just as you said, paltry morals are merely human values that are the result of ephemeral society - they're bull. They don't mean a thing. However, there are some things that I believe are prevalent throughout all forms of sentient life: empathy, warmth, desire, fulfillment - these aren't things society created nor are they mere biological functions exclusive to humans. Perhaps pleasurable sensibilities are heightened in our species as that is simply the way we have evolved, and as such, we have created numerous industries to cater to this and profit the individual within his or her social niche, but I still hold that certain near-indescribable values define a soul, if anything does. If souls exist, every form of life we both know and don't know possesses one equally - or collectively, or in some sort of hierarchy according to things we couldn't possibly understand - who knows? Conceptually, this is what makes the most sense to me. Not to say that I truly "believe" in souls or anything like that, but I don't like to outright deny the existence of something that cannot really be proven or disproven by any current means. |
+1 . Who says monkeys don't have souls? They, and everything else in the Universe, are animated by the same Divine spark/essence/ether that human beings are. Human beings are fairly arrogant and self centered when it comes to religious ideals (especially Western), and many other things for that matter... Sort of makes me wonder if there aren't higher beings out there who believe a human being couldn't possibly have a soul ;) |
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| Moral Hazard |
| quote: | Originally posted by Blake
+1 . Who says monkeys don't have souls? |
The pope.
In truth, this is yet another subject on which I must disagree with my chosen church on (primarily because the theological and rational basis for the belief that only humans have souls; presuming the existence thereof, is shaky at best). I am of the belief that all things are of God... this is to say all things are a part of God, and all things return to God, which necessitates that all things have a soul; even if those things are non-sentient therefore unaware of their divinity. |
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| RJT |
Whenever it was that human beings became self-aware as well as capable of asking questions in the abstract.
To me the soul is merely an extension (or really just analogous to) personal identity, and the notion of a soul simply coincided with the emergence of a sense of "I."
For my part, I believe the soul is merely the illusion created by the self-perpetuating feedback loop that is "I" - and is really only the sum of all things that culminated in each individuals coming into being.
"There is no spoon." |
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| Ivand |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
I actually read a book about this called "Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints", by Brian Hayden.
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ing awesome post |
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| Lira |
I asked a Spiritualist friend of mine (some that actually knows his stuff, like some kind of a Brazilian "Moral Hazard" :p), here's how I posed the question and how he replied:
| quote: | Q. I've been told by other Spiritualists that, when animals die, their souls go back to nature. Yet, when we die, our soul just goes to a different dimension, granting our soul a special status. So, if we evolved from other animas, when did (a) animals get a soul and when did (b) we get this super doper soul?
A: We come from God, as something known as "the spiritual principle". This principle evolves as we reincarnate. So, a cat is always a cat, but its spiritual principal evolves to instinct after a while (it's devoid of free will, but it's got a well developed instinct).
This principle keeps evolving, until it is ready for an upgrade. That's when his spirit goes to some special place, earns free will and spends some time there in order to learn how to live with it. And then, it incarnates as a human being.
It takes too long, though.
Evolution, therefore, goes according the following schema:
Mineral -> vegetable -> animal -> hominid -> angelical -> ???
Evolution in each stage is slow as hell, but the hominid stage it's the most important stage there is, because that's when we acquire intelligent and moral reason.
Q. Makes sense. So, how about the first creatures to go to a new stage? I mean, there were no humans in the beginning. Did this stage already exist before humans were even around?
R: Hmm... this is how the spirits answer this question: Our language is too limited, and it cannot talk about things that involve time and space. So we're unable to know more about "the beginning". But, I believe the answer is yes - since god is not temporal, and all spirits were created from the beginning. It's only natural to imagine that the first hominids went through the same processes.
I believe the amount of necessary "mana" needed for the next upgrade was already defined by God, when God, and only God, existed.
But talking about time in this context is tricky. It's like talking about what happened before the big bang. |
There you go - an answer by an evolutionary theist WITHIN a religious point of view. It's diametrically opposed to how I see the world but, it has its logic. He promised to lend me a book about it, and although I'm quite sceptical to these arguments, I'm curious.
edit: Typos... I had to type this all in a hurry :p
edit 2: I agree with you, RJT. But you already know that ;) |
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| PETRAN |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
I actually read a book about this called "Shamans, Sorcerers, and Saints", by Brian Hayden.
Basically it is written from the viewpoint of a cultural ecologist with a keen interest in anthropology. As a cultural ecologist, he always asks the question, what environmental factors influenced people to do this or begin behaving like that?
The author sees the evolution of emotions as an ecological response: basically early human ancestors had a pretty ty existence, scavenging carcasses, eating nuts and berries, and getting mauled by saber tooth tigers all the time. In order to survive, they had to band together in close knit communities, not unlike nomadic communities such as the bedouin. Those early humans with more emotions felt more strongly for one another and as a result they stuck together, cared for one another and were able to survive. Those who were anti-social and had poorly developed emotions died off. He claism this was the origin of the soul.
Later on, he describes larger tribal communities, so called traditional socities. These communities were similar, but were larger due to technological advances and different climates. Survival was still based on emotional development. With more emotions and larger groups of people, violence between men became very widespread and typical. As a result, emotional bonds within tribes/clans were strengthened almost to an unreal level (eg celtic berserkers, although they came much later). The author claims the extatic and psychedelic experiences gained from psychoactive plants, extended dance, rhythm, pain, sleep deprivation, etc were able to create unbreakable emotional bonds between people. (once youve tripped or blazed with some guy you're great friends, etc) Shamanic behavior begins here, people who had traumatic experiences in life, near death experiences that made them more sensitive to visions and ecstatic states became healers, medicine men, etc. They would take drugs and go into the deepest caves and trip balls and then tell people about it.
This was the basis of traditional religion, which is more about a kind of universal life force than anything, the idea that the material world and the spiritual world are the same, like water and ice, merely different forms of the same matter.
Then as people began to settle down and cultivate , they got a little testy and cocky and overprotective of their stuff. Some people started to get powerful and wanted to protect their position and prestige. Animals were basically the ferraris of the prehistoric world. (to this day we use "stock market" coming from livestock of course) In order to preserve their status, the powerful people would throw huge parties, feasts, in which people would give each other gifts. The person who was able to give the most gives was the richest and most powerful. traditional socities like this still exist in southeast asia. That person would also get the most gifts back as others tried to be his best friend, and so he was able to consolidate his power.
Besides doing this, however, the emerging elite class started form cults, secret socities. Whereas in more basic societies, the shaman is the only one who has the mystical experience, in these more complex societies, the elite cults, usually based on ancestor veneration were also able to share in the mysteries. This sort of cult extended well into recent history - the roman religion for example is a prime example of an elite cult (cult of isis, etc) As city states developed into empires, these empires began to accumulate all sorts of different cult followers and the romans for the most part let people do whatever they wanted. It is said that a lot of the roman and greek deities are borrowed from all around the region. The larger empires' pantheistic religions were more of a kind of pork barrel cult system meant to appease different factions and constituencies, and some gained fashionable status while others died out.
Christianity is another classic cult. It was a judaistic cult for the poor and disenfranchised - it gave out food to those in need, and for the first time in cult history it allowed minority groups and women in its ranks. this made it a potent force. that combined with its strict 'there is only god but god' mantra and militant attitude, made it extremely potent and it spread like wildfire. eventually it became fashionable among some elites of rome and they started holding masses in their basements (basically like loft parties or raves lol) in so called 'house churches'. It was highly illegal for a while, but then one day emperor constantine decided to make a deal that if he won a tough battle he would convert to christianity. He won, and it became the official religion of all the empire. yet the empire was very heterogeneous and so the religion adopted all sorts of strange practices from different peoples - from the celts we have astrological practices such as the celebration of the winter solstice (christmas was not when jesus was born, sorry), and from the germanic peoples we have the christmas tree (the world tree, as in scandinavian myth), etc, etc ,etc by this time the soul was an academic subject already discussed for hundreds if not thousands of years by people
the rest is history
you can also read a book called 'the god gene' which basically says that humans are hard wired for spirituality. (again this doesnt mean god, but could be thought of more as a universal force of life, vibration, which could be the essence of quantum physics, of grand unified theory, of yaweh, and allah, and monistic idealism) (the idea that everything is made of consciousness) |
Very good post! Nice work.
I have red the "god gene" hypothesis as well, in which the "feeling of spirituality" is hard-wired in the brain. It has probably evolved due to its substantial social-bonding capabilities, large quantites of people would unite under shared metaphysical beliefs.
There is even some evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsycholgy for this, most work done by "neurotheologist"(fancy title/category isn't it?) Michael Persinger, although the field is still very young (or even practically non-existent since only about a bunch of people are active researchers).
Persinger has applied a weak magnetic field on the temporal lobe of subjects (Trans Magnetic Stimulation or possibly direct In Vivo magnetic stimulation to persons undergoing open-head surgery for severe epilepsy) and sometimes discovered that subjects felt "an ethereal presence in the room".
That result was by no means new though. It was actually known from the early-20th century pioneering studies of neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (who as a neurosurgeon was "wilder" than the others). Penfield was one of the firstss (if not the first)scientists who tried to unveil the functional topography of the human brain cortex by directly applying small electric currents to various cotical areas. The procedure was performed on conscious individuals who were usually undergoing brain surgery for the purposes of alleviating severe epileptic attacks.
The results were fascinating and crucial. The functional organization of various brain areas such as the primary somatosensory cortex of the frontal lobes was revealed. An interesting aspect was that, whilst most stimulated brain areas resulted in simple sensations/perceptions ("i see a light", "i hear a sound", "i feel something in my arm") or no sensations or perceptions at all (and strangely enough the absence-rather than the presence-of sensation was the most usual phenomenon), the stimulation of the temporal lobe sometimes (rarely truth is) resulted in complete full-blown experences. Subjects re-lived past experiences and witnessed vivid episodic memories, although some of these experiences seemed to be "blurry" or "incomplete". Some of them also seemed to resemle memories, but in reality they were imagined experiences which contained some mnemonic information. These results made perfect sense since temporal lobe areas (and the hippocampus embedded within them) are known to play an essential role in memory formation/consolidation and storage.
An interesting phenomenon described by Penfield was the "mystical" quality that some of these experiences had. These results also make sense if they are considered in relation to "temporal lobe epilepsy". Before the onset of an epileptic attack-which usually begins in temporal areas (hence the name-temporal lobe epilepsy doh),the subject usually reports what is known as the "aura", unusual tactile sensations running through-out the body, disembodied experiences and sometimes even hallucinations, full-blown mystical experiences and "visions". The symptoms are also similar to various paraesthesias and hallucinantions occuring after temporal lobe damage.
One woman suffered substantial damage to her temporal lobes after a car-crush. She eventually became well. Psychometric testing revealed that she didn't have any lasting deficist in her cognitive functions, intelligence and/or personality. In some situations though, the woman would experience a strong hallucinatory experience in which she would see a novel human figure dressed in red whilst experiencing an intense metaphysical fear/terror of that presence, before "observing the figure dissolving into pieces like a puzzle breaking apart" . Interestingly enough, people have told her that she weared a red shirt during the car-crush, although we canno't know for sure if this is a true fact. Another woman suffering from epilepsy would report strange experiences everytime she saw herself in front of a mirror whilst applying make-up (and only at those circumstances!). The mirror would gradually expand and "dominate" her followed by a vivid experience of a lively childhood memory mixed with feelings of sadness, happyness and sexual arousal.
Note that most of these experiences have an emotional aspect and this makes absolute sense since temporal areas are emotional centers as well.
Weird experiences such as the "deja vu" and "jamais vus" seem to also occur in temporal lobe activation/damage/epileptic onset.
Hence those temporal lobe experiences were currently certified by means of artificial magnetic stimulation (by Persinger as described before) and as far as im aware by Brain Imaging as well. People would experience relligious experiences and the temporal lobe would be activated.Some very interesting areas situated in the temporal and parietal lobes such as the Superior Temporal Gyrus and Infero-Parietal Lobule (STG, IPL) seem to play a crucial role in binding cross-modular information into complete Gestalts. For everyone wandering wtf this means, in simple words, those temporo-parietal areas are "high association areas" in which information coming from various modalities (other cortical and sub-cortical areas)-visual, auditory, tactile and emotional is bound together into complete perceptions.
It has been demonstrated that when those areas are interrupted by stimulation, subjects usually report disembodiment and out-of-body experiences. Some subjects have reported a sensation of floating in front or even behind (!) their bodies, whilst others seem to experience a loss of limb location in relation to peri-personal space and various egocentric and allocentric spatial distortions in geenral. It seems that LSD seems to act in the serotoninergic synapses of those areas but further research is needed.
So, i found this to be some interesting scientific information to share with you. IMO some of these results are very puzzling in respect to how the mind works and remind us of how little we know of about function of the human brain-mind.
Damn thats a long response for the CoR :nervous:
CoR version: Temporal Lobe and the Soul seem to like each other but sometimes you can read more than two lines you lazy bastards :) :p
(i mean this is what a forum is for, although TA in most of the times resembles a chat-room rather than a forum lol) |
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| djmaxima |
| YOU PEOPLE NEEDTO STOP HANGING OUT WITH ******** !!!!!!!111 |
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| Blake |
| quote: | Originally posted by Moral Hazard
The pope. |
Yes, and The Pope also believes a giant magical unicorn created the entire Universe in 6 days and rested on the 7th which is just silly. Everyone knows it took 8 days minimum..:rolleyes: |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by PETRAN
(i mean this is what a forum is for, although TA in most of the times resembles a chat-room rather than a forum lol) |
Actually, I think every forum needs to be a little bit of both: stupidity too brings us together :) |
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