Subject:
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Re: 22/7 & infinities (was: Re: The nature of the JC god, good or evil?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Aug 1999 06:51:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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1558 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, "Jesse Long" <jesse.r.long@gte.net> writes:
> [snip clone stuff]
>
> I have no clue. I think successfully cloning a human would send
> metaphysical shockwaves all over the place. the only good places to draw a
> solid line for the appearance of the soul is birth, which I think some
> mythology uses (the first breath a baby takes is sucking in its soul or
> something), or conception. But I don't think anyone would claim fraternal
> twins don't both have souls (since they split from one blob early on), so
> maybe as soon as you get a living dividing thing (is it an embryo that
> early?) you know it has a soul. When exactly it arrived I don't know.
Whoa -- cool! Great example! OK, so if fraternal twins have two souls
right from the start, then how about identical twins? Does an embryo or a
zygote which is destined to become a pair of identical twins have two souls
to begin with -- one for each twin -- or does it have one soul to start out
with and only two souls after splitting into two people? (IIRC, it's still
not understood how identical twins come to be from a single zygote...maybe
it's a act of God?)
> Getting a soul at conception is not a popular thing to claim sometimes
> because that suggests that artificial insemination and other fertility
> programs where they fertilize more than one egg and only use one leaves a
> lot of souls bound for the trash (or at best the freezer). Of course that
> crosses over readily into the abortion debate, and I don't feel like going
> there tonight.
Maybe it's gray -- not black & white, not true or false. Maybe at
conception you have 0% of a soul, and at birth you have 100% of a soul.
And a 2/3 gestation, you have 66% of a soul? Does it say anywhere in the
Bible whether a person either has a soul or doesn't have a soul? (on or
off?) Can you have half a soul? Can part of your soul die?
> But I do like the way you're addressing this as a non "You're a moron and I
> wish you were dead" kind of thing.
Aw heck, I'd never approach it that way. I'm just curious about pushing
definitions and things like that and understanding gray areas better. And I
certainly could never think Christians are morons just because I'm not
one.[1] Heck, Larry Wall is a devout Christian, which I take as exemplary
proof that being highly intelligent and believing in God are not mutually
exclusive. As far as I can tell, there's absolutely no correlation between
religious beliefs and intelligence levels, even though at times this seems
counter-intuitive on both sides.
> > > Specifically, verse 22 reads: "You shall not lie with a male as
> > > one lies with a female; it is an abomination."
> > First, the word "lie" (as in lying down) is the past tense of the word "lay"
> > (to lay). "Lie" itself is not a present-tense verb in that sense. So it
> > should really say, "You shall not lay with a male as one lays with a
> > female..."
> Well, Miriam Webster's Deluxe Dictionary (10th collegiate edition) says that
> 1lie: 1d is "to have sexual intercourse with." I think that makes lay the
> past tense (and lain the past perfect) and the sentence grammatically
> correct. The past tense of the verb lay is laid, when referring to actively
> laying something (or someone) down. Lie is never a past tense verb.
Whoops, yes, you're absolutely right -- I got those mixed up again. lie,
lay, did lay, has lain, etc. OK. Paged back in. :)
BTW, what does "sexual intercourse" cover in the Bible? Quite a bit? Or
only one thing? Are there degrees of badness of homosexual behavior
according to the Bible, or is everything either sinful or not sinful? Is it
ever appropriate for two men or two women to kiss on the lips? Is it a sin
for a male doctor to touch the genitals of a male patient while examining
him? If not, then how about to have homosexual lustful thoughts while doing
same?
--Todd
[1] But I wouldn't exactly classify myself as atheist, either. Although I
don't have a god, which puts me in the set of "non-theists," the word
"atheist" usually means someone who denies the existence of a god (if I
understand the common definitions correctly). I don't deny the existence of
a god, but I don't admit it either. But I'm actually not agnostic, because
and I'm not convinced that the answer either way is unknowable, and I'm not
convinced that the answer as to God's existence is a boolean true or false
answer. At this point, I actually just don't care. Either God exists or
doesn't exist, or maybe God exists AND doesn't exist. I suppose I'm a
secular humanist, although some odd days I feel not unlike a spiritual
darwinist. I -do- believe in Mathematics as something which governs the
Universe and exists both outside and inside of it, so maybe that's my god.
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