so time is a measure of change of matter; that is, before and after only exist as functions of particle locations etc. the soul is not made of matter. therefore, the soul exists outside of time.
that means that the soul does not change as time progresses. if the soul exists outside of time, that means that our souls are the same before we’re born and after we die.
ergo, a soul exists in hell before the sinner is conceived. our ultimate fate is predestined. what say you, fundies?
Well, your argument requires a large number of assumptions, namely…
Etc. I understand that you’re looking for a religious point of view, so I suppose we can ignore assumption 2, 5, and 6. The others are psuedo-scientific notions that wouldn’t be possible for anyone to prove at this time.
So for the sake of future arguments, I think it’d be good for everyone to take all those assumptions into account… so with all that being said, I can get onto how I would view this situation.
The way I see it, your soul always retains the same basic configuration throughout your existence. However, on top of that base template, we have all of our experiences and/or our physical makeup (chemical imbalances and such can play a factor into what kind of person someone is). All these extra factors add up, and our “soul” only dictates how we react to and use these experiences in everyday life.
SPOOFE, very nice job. i had a hell of a time getting from rarefied mental concepts to words when writing the OP. you filled in the blanks rather nicely. so for the rest of this thread, please everybody follow those assumptions.
as for assumptions 1, three, and four, the fact remains that any objections require the positing of heretofore unknown phenomena (e.g. an aspect of time which is imperceivable to us) (damn i love pretending that i’m a lawyer! who doesn’t get off bandying about ‘heretofore’?)
and one more assumption- by ‘soul’ i mean sunday-school, looks jsut like you and is your little heavenly avatar, eternal part of the self which lives on in spite of the body’s inevitable corruption and decay.
the old testament is in hebrew therefore there must be a hebrew word translated as HELL. that word is SHEOL, it actually means “place of the dead.” there was a christian theologian ORIGEN (183ad-254ad)taught the preexistence of the soul and reincarnation. he was declared anathema in 553ad and disappeared from OFFICIAL history. see:
http://www.near-death.com/origen.html
the book OLD SOULS by Tom Shroder has on the cover “scientific evidence for past lives” it is about children with memories of previous lives so recent that people can be found who knew the deceased, to verify the memories.
then of course what happens to people hanging around in SHEOL. i have met 5 people who claim to have had experiences with ghosts.
Dal Timgar