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To: kosta50; Alamo-Girl; YHAOS; dfwgator; Diamond; xzins; TXnMA; shibumi; Texas Songwriter; Quix
That makes it a belief, not a fact. Just as I said. Just because you believe something doesn't mean it exists.

It is a fact that the universal "default position" of the human race during the historical period (~7 millennia and counting) is belief in God (or the gods), and belief that human beings have souls. The evidence for this is overwhelming. For instance, among other things already pointed out in my last, funerary rites are a universal phenomenon among humans of all cultures. Even today.

What exact distinction do you draw between the existence of the soul and "ensoulment?" You say the latter is a "postulate." You wrote, "I did not say souls did not exist." Okay; does that mean you are prepared to say that they do exist? And if they do, does there not need to be a process of "ensoulment" of the body?

Is it simply that you dismiss soul as a fiction — because it cannot be directly observed? — and therefore rule out "ensoulment" in principle — one cannot instantiate a fiction??? Is this what you're driving at? If so, what's the point? Your view is completely anhistorical and counter to the evidence of human experience.

Why are you "right" about this, and all humanity that lived before you "wrong?" Are you Darwinist enough in your thinking to believe that human evolution means that man is "smarter" today than he was, say, back in the first millennium B.C.? And therefore, you must be "smarter" than, say, a Pythagoras, a Plato, an Aristotle? Because you are more evolved, and therefore more "fit?"

I wrote that if it were true might prevails in all instances and for all times and in all things, Hitler would still be in power. And you replied that Hitler was removed by greater might (i.e., the Allies), and therefore "might makes right."

But this obvious fact masks the point I was trying to make: The might of Hitler leveled an historically Christian nation, with an established Church no less, to a state of barbarism in just a couple of years. Does this mean that Hitler was "right," because he had the "might?"

You wrote: "The victors write the truth; their version of it." Jeepers, kosta — you cogitate like a commissar! You are straight out of the French Revolution.... LOL!

There is no such thing as a version of truth. There is only ONE Truth, for the universe is ONE. "Versions" of truth that depart from this one Truth would be false in principle. The falsity can be upheld only by force, by might. But this only further corrupts the world of human experience, of human society. So how can might be right?

You wrote:

And "doxa" means a lot more than just opinion. It actually means praise as in orthodoxa, the right praise, not the right opinion.

"Doxa" is the Greek root for the English word "doctrine." Orthodoxa means "right or correct doctrine." I'm unaware the Koine word doxa denotes "praise." Though I do recognize that Greek words can be pretty "compact symbols," carrying multiple cognate meanings. But to Plato, it's clear "doxa" meant "opinion," and usually false opinion. My own view follows Plato's.

"Doctrine" (doxa) is a formulation or codification of Truth seen — it is not the Truth itself. Because it is not, it can be false. But Truth never is false.

In any case, accepting your translation, there is never any "'right praise" for a lie.

Good grief, I gather from your last paragraph that you regard me as some kind of "childish adult" because I do not agree with you that the soul is a "postulate."

You want me to "show you a soul?" Why don't you try looking inward and see if you can find one there? :^)

639 posted on 09/06/2010 11:03:12 AM PDT by betty boop (Those who do not punish bad men are really wishing that good men be injured. — Pythagoras)
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To: betty boop

THX THX for the ping.


640 posted on 09/06/2010 11:11:54 AM PDT by Quix (C Bosses plans: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2519352/posts?page=2#2)
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To: betty boop; Alamo-Girl; YHAOS; dfwgator; Diamond; xzins; TXnMA; shibumi; Texas Songwriter
It is a fact that the universal "default position" of the human race during the historical period (~7 millennia and counting) is belief in God (or the gods), and belief that human beings have souls.

The belief is a fact, the object of that belief is not.

What exact distinction do you draw between the existence of the soul and "ensoulment?"

If it is merely a "life force" then the evidence of it is in the fact that all living things are quickened by it and that all living things have some sort of a "soul".  If you mean that a soul is a human cosmic "entity" that is stuffed into a body, then it is a mere postulate—and a highly heretical one, as far as the Church is concerned, I might add.

The doctrine of ensoulment differs in the Eastern Church from that of the Western Church. In the East, life is imply passed on beginning with the ancestral parents to their offspring to all mankind like one lit candle providing light for all other candles. This makes us all related.

In the West, the Church teaches that God creates a new soul at the moment of conception; that makes us all unrelated. We can see how the western idea of individualism may have welled from that concept. Every person is unique and unrelated, with individual rights.

But the Church struggled with the the actual moment of ensoulment, i.e. at which moment did the a fetus become a living human being. This uncertainty continued all the way up to the 17th century, when medical science made it obvious that life begins at conception.

St. Augustine observes that one cannot "kill what is not living" when speaking of early abortion. The Church officials observed that aborted fetuses in the early stage of pregnancy (first trimester) did not move. The fact that human fetuses at this stage of development (organogensis) do not even "look" human led many to believe they were not human, and therefore could not have a soul.

While the Church opposed deliberate abortion consistently, at some points in the Church history in the West not all abortion was considered murder precisely because of the uncertainty of when the ensoulment took place.

You wrote, "I did not say souls did not exist." Okay; does that mean you are prepared to say that they do exist? And if they do, does there not need to be a process of "ensoulment" of the body?

Souls could exist. But ensoulment does not refer to a soul entering a body. Rather it is a moment when the body receives the divine "breath of life" and becomes a living being. The idea that souls "enter" a body is profoundly Gnostic and un-Christian. It was condemned by the early Church as heresy. 

It is clear that Adam did not pre-exist as a "soul". Pre-existence of the souls  is a common pagan belief and leads to the pagan belief in reincarnation, which the Church condemned along with the pre-existence of the souls.

So, while there is no doubt that something animates us, the idea of ensoulment is still a postulate because it is clear that both the female ovum and the male sperm already have life in them; two living cells physically combine their genetic material and form a new, living =, dividing organism. Speaking of "ensoulment" may be convenient but it doe snot explain or prove what takes place.

643 posted on 09/06/2010 1:33:00 PM PDT by kosta50 (God is tired of repenting -- Jeremiah 15:6, KJV)
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To: betty boop; Alamo-Girl; YHAOS; dfwgator; Diamond; xzins; TXnMA; shibumi; Texas Songwriter

Depends what you mean by "smarter?" Better informed yes, smarter no. In the Darwinian model, 2,000-3,000 years is simply not enough for such differentiation. More like 50 times that number.

If Hitler were not opposed by a force greater than his, his world order, values and ways of thinking would still carry weight. Churchill, Roosevelt and others would be "war criminals" and the history taught in schools would be quite different.

First let's not forget that Hitler came to power by a democratic process, being elected Chancellor of Germany. How ironic. In the eyes of many Germans he was more than right, more like god sent, because he brought Germany out of the misery of the Weimar Republic, restored German honor in their eyes, stood up to German enemies, gave Germans jobs and created almost instant prosperity.

In the Old Testament way of thinking he was another Babylon, a punishment exacted by God which was not judged as right or wrong (that's too Platonic), but as an act of God intended to teach a lesson, no different than the chaos exacted by a hurricane or an earthquake.

To the British and the French and the Americans he was of course not right because he was a threat. If he were a small banana republic dictator in some remote part of the world chances are no one would have paid any attention to him.

The point is that he had the might to prevail and he did prevail for a while whether he was right or wrong. In order to defeat him the Allies had to share the same bed with Joseph Stalin and Americans didn't even mind that their Vice President (Henry A. Wallace) was a sleeper-cell Marxist who said "the American and the Russian revolution were part of 'the march to freedom of the past 150 years.'" (that same man became the Presidential candidate in 1948 on the Progressive Party ticket and officially endorsed by the Communist Party USA. Had Roosevelt died 82 days earlier, he would have been the next US President.)

Would you say that was right? Do ends justify the means? And did we not utilize Werner von Braun, Hitler's trusted engineer, to work for us against Stalin when being an ex-Nazi was better than being a commie?

What a convoluted way of thinking! Anything you don't like is immediately turned into  something French or communist or both! No one has monopoly on truth, although many claim it. And there are always two sides to a coin and someone decides which side will be seen and which won't.  Every society has an "official truth" and a "politically correct" approach to it. 

You are right. There are actually many versions of it.

And there is one Santa...

644 posted on 09/06/2010 1:37:07 PM PDT by kosta50 (God is tired of repenting -- Jeremiah 15:6, KJV)
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To: betty boop; Alamo-Girl; YHAOS; dfwgator; Diamond; xzins; TXnMA; shibumi; Texas Songwriter

No it's not. English word doctrine comes from the Latin docere—to teach, show, point out.

So, because you are not aware of it I suppose it isn't so? Is that what you are saying?

Yeah, but Plato is not a normative authority of the Koine Greek. Koine Greek is Koine Greek, and doxa means  this many things (from the Koine Greek lexicon):

opinion, judgment, view opinion, estimate, whether good or bad concerning someone in the NT always a good opinion concerning one, resulting in praise, honour, and glory splendour, brightness of the moon, sun, stars magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, grace majesty a thing belonging to God the kingly majesty which belongs to him as supreme ruler, majesty in the sense of the absolute perfection of the deity a thing belonging to Christ, the kingly majesty of the Messiah, the absolutely perfect inward or personal excellency of Christ; the majesty of the angels, as apparent in their exterior brightness a most glorious condition, most exalted state of that condition with God the Father in heaven to which Christ was raised after he had achieved his work on earth the glorious condition of blessedness into which is appointed and promised that true Christians shall enter after their Saviour's return from heaven

Wouldn't it be an oxymoron for the Eastern Church to call itself orthodox (ortho+doxa), which according to the supreme authority of betty boop's knowledge of Koine Greek would literally mean the right-false opinion!!!?  How pathetic.

There is never any right praise for ignorance either, especially in-your-face ignorance.

Inward where? What am I looking for? Do you even think these answers through, betty boop, or do you just reach to the shelf and throw at me whatever you can grasp?

645 posted on 09/06/2010 1:40:37 PM PDT by kosta50 (God is tired of repenting -- Jeremiah 15:6, KJV)
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