I am heartly sorry if I offended you, TigersEye. Please accept my apology.
So you are a Buddhist. I am a Christian.
WRT the above italics, I would say that there is something permanent about a human being, even though bodily, everything is constantly changing — "So the 'you' that existed two minutes ago no longer exists," as you truly say. That permanent thing is the soul, which is eternal and not susceptible of change. As far as I can tell, Buddhism has no doctrine of the soul, and thus no solid basis for a concept of personality, or personhood. (Which is more than just "ego" or "intellect.")
Consider the reason we know that the physical world is constantly changing, at micro- and macroscopic levels — science has shown us this. Science works through the presupposition that the natural world is "lawful." Though matter is constantly in flux, the forms it takes are constrained by natural laws that do not change. Without this presupposition, science would be impossible, an exercise in futility.
You wrote:
It is a staple of developing wisdom and compassion in the basic practice of Dharma to recognize the importance of knowledge passed down from one's parents and from the many generations of people who have come before us building a body of knowledge one step at a time that has progressed from starting a fire with a bow and drill to designing space shuttles and nuclear reactors.IMHO (FWIW), the precepts of Buddhism comport with "starting a fire with a bow and drill." But there's nothing in Buddhism that could account for progress from there to "designing space shuttles and nuclear reactors."
Science is the product of Western civilization, which is based on ancient Hellas — preeminently on Aristotle — and (arguably) the Holy Scriptures. There was no natural science in the East until it came into contact with the West.
In short, Buddhism didn't teach you about "cells." And one does not have to be a Buddhist to recognize the impermanence of all things physical in this world.
In the end, it appears to me that Christianity is "realist," and rational. Buddhism is "idealist," a sort of withdrawal from the "pain" of the human condition....
Just some thoughts, for what they're worth to you. Thank you so much for writing!
For fifteen hundred years, Christendom and then later Protestant America, had followed St. Augustine (AD 354-430) in affirming that as all men are the spiritual image-bearers of the transcendent Triune God then it logically follows that each person is a trinity of being — of soul, spirit, and body:
"The essence of the human is not the body, but the soul. It is the soul alone that God made in his own image and the soul that he loves....For the sake of the soul...the Son of God came into the world...." (Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 25, Ancient Christian Devotional, Oden and Crosby, p. 153)
In Biblical thought, the body is inert matter organized and vitalized by the soul. A human life is a soul which informs inert matter, thus a body without a soul is no more than a disorganized mass of cells that would quickly deconstruct, said Pastor Louis Pernot in a sermon delivered at the Temple de l'Etoile in Paris. ("Body, Mind, and Soul," Nov. 28, 2010)
The noblest part of the soul is spirit (the heart). Spirit is immortal and self-aware. It can will and think and is freely responsible for what it thinks, wills, and does.
Spirit is the unique property that distinguishes soul from matter. In Biblical thought, spirit allows man to spiritually transcend the natural dimension in order to access the supernatural dimension, thereby allowing him to enter into a personal relationship with the Spirit of God. Through this relationship, man's conscience is cleansed over time, thus enabling him to more perfectly orient the manner of his existence in this world in preparation for eternity.
In Christian thought, a person is a spirit and personality is the total individuality of the spirit. Without spirit there is no person.
Pastor Pernot notes that the key to individual liberty in the temporal sphere is man's spiritual liberty contrasted against a genetically programmed animal-like orientation.
Animals do not have spirits, which are linked to intelligence, imagination, sensitivity, self-consciousness, reflection and the capacity for truth and moral goodness.
A person is uniquely free because he can spiritually transcend matter to access the supernatural dimension as Paul affirms:
"Now the Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor. 3:17)
Buddhism
Jesus to Buddha,
"....you took God away from them (and) your espousal of an absence of self is the most unique and fearsome claim you made...You turned from Hinduism because it said there was an essential self, which they called the atman." (The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha, Ravi Zacharias, pp.59, 67)
If there is no living, personal God, then it logically follows that there is no source for life, consciousness, soul, spirit and will, or for human dignity, worth, liberty, and property. Without God the Father unalienable (God-given) rights are meaningless. If man is not God's spiritual image-bearer, then he is less than nothing, a conclusion Buddha reached long before Jesus Christ walked this earth:
"Six centuries before Jesus Christ, the Buddha already knew that if God does not exist, then the human self cannot exist either......Therefore, he deconstructed the Hindu idea of the soul. When one starts peeling the onion skin of one's psyche, he discovers that there is no solid core at the center of one's being. Your sense of self is an illusion. Reality is nonself (anatman). You don't exist. Liberation, the Buddha taught, is realizing the unreality of your existence." (The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization, Vishal Mangalwadi, p. 6)
I understand every molecule in a human's body is replaced at least once every seven years and so we physically are quite literally not the same physical thing we used to be. But our being, identity or soul continues nonetheless, physical body or not.
Thank you so very much for your insights!