What if...
Submitted by Nate on 2003-01-13 16:09:43, Monday
In reply to Sorry, I don't play 'what if'... submitted by J on 2003-01-13 04:09:30, Monday
|
This post is not meant to challenge you personally, J. These are just some ideas that occured to me. I hope you will take it as good-natured discussion. Actually, I tend to feel a lot of the same things you expressed in your post, I just have not figured out why, yet. ------- What if your stream of conciousness were introduced from the beginning, so that the two were really one? Is that still morally reprehensible? By superimposing my thoughts, experiences, values, and feelings upon another, you suggest that I would be disrespecting the life of the other. What if someone had taken you as a boy and forced you to submit to a "public education system" instead of letting you play in the street? Would they have hijacked your future and changed your destiny? Yes. But is that morally reprehensible? Why not? I accept that this line of thinking challenges all of our ideas about what it means to be human and how we relate to God, but its not a sin to think through why we believe what we do. I guess this is a bad time to point out that the idea of us having a soul trapped in a corruptible body is not at all a Hebrew thought and was not in the mind of Jesus or his disciples. That idea grew out of some of Plato's philosophy and was introduced to the church hundreds of years later. The Hebrew idea is that the body is animated by the spirit. The "soul" is the mind, will, and emotions - not some floating bright point of light that longs to be with God. So, if God chose to continue to animate a body which had received my mind, will, and emotions, why is that idea so frightening? What if I then decided to join with the mind, will, and emotions of Albert Einstein and Martin Luther? What if my young friend invited me to join my mind, will, and emotions with his in his young body? Would that be considered rape? Like I said, these are just some ideas... Peace, Nate "If God had not meant for us to fly, he would not have given us imagination." - Nate |
Follow ups: