"Spirituality"
I think there should be a spirituality tab to add topics to. I'm interested in what religions or non-religions people here practice. It seems essential to health to be spiritually healthy, as well as physically and emotionlly. I'm kind of at a cross-roads in figuring out how to go about that. Please share (without arguments here) what you believe to be a fulfilling spiritual life.
Tags: religion, spirituality
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Robyn on -
YUK!,
"but your dog is cute".
I certainly hope our pets follow us into the after life. I can't imagine Heaven would be much fun without them.
The reason I think animals don't have souls, is because they are incapable of being evil. We humans on the other hand are very capable of evil.
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Permalink Reply by TimG on -
Robyn:
Yeah, I can understand being "hung" on a topic.
No, animals don't have souls. They react solely on a stimulus response basis, meaning that their cells are "trained" to react a certain way under certain conditions. The conditions repeat, the cells react in that training pattern to meet the condition. Pavlov's Dogs illustrate this.
Humans are aware of being aware: "I AM!" This is the very essence of the soul. Animals are not capable of self-awareness, a characteristic of having (or being) a soul. An animal cannot examine his behavior and say, "I did a dumb thing and I was stupid. I'm sorry."
Not having a soul, there is nothing to move onto another body with. So no, animals don't reincarnate.
Your point of animals being incapable of evil is a valid point. There is no differentiation between good and evil. There is only "survive" or "not survive."
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Permalink Reply by Maverick on
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Tim, I totally disagree with your statement about animals not having souls.
Ease up, will ya?
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Permalink Reply by Bobby J on -
Tim, I disagree with you on this particular comment. "An animal cannot examine his behavior and say, "I did a dumb thing and I was stupid. I'm sorry."
Of course an animal cannot "say" it, but very often they "display" it, simply by coming to you after they've done something they know they're not supposed to, and giving you the sad eye treatment and asking (in their own way) for you to pet them.
I see that as "asking" for forgiveness for doing something they already knew was forbidden...
If none of this ever happened to you, then you never had a pet that you were close to.
Like I said, if there IS an afterlife, animals are included.
And again, this is what I believe and I cannot prove it...but what you believe cannot be proven either......so in the end, it all goes back to what each individual believes,,,,,,Just like Religion.
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Permalink Reply by TimG on
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"Of course an animal cannot 'say' it, but very often they 'display' it, simply by coming to you after they've done something they know they're not supposed to, and giving you the sad eye treatment and asking (in their own way) for you to pet them."
Bobby:
Sorry kids, responsive reaction and nothing but. Your description is the animal reaction to the leader of the pack.
Don't get me wrong. I love my animals very much (my dog even sleeps with me). We "talk" all the time. But to say there is a conscious living being in there, nope. Never seen it, never sensed it. If I do, my opinion will change.
Besides. I'd hate to think of all the bugs, squirrels and goldfish I've sent to the afterlife. :P
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Permalink Reply by Nyota1 on -
There isn't a reply to under this post, so I have to repost it.
Nyota1, I have a question. How did you come to the conclusion that the Bible is THE WORD OF GOD? That is something I struggle with. It was men who decided which letters or epistles to include in the New Testament, even if you you do believe that those letters were God breathed. Do you trust that the church only picked those letters with no ulterior motives? I just find that really hard to believe. I am asking from a standpoint of wanting to know your view. I am not trying to disprove your beliefs, just trying to figure things out.
The main reason that the Bible is the word of God, and could not have been written by man, is that the Bible contains thousands of prophecies that were written hundreds of years before they actually happened. That is the main reason that the Bible is the word of God, and cannot have been written by man. It was physically written down on paper (scrolls, parchment, etc.) by man, but it is the inspired word of God. The words came from God, through the people writing it, onto the paper. I believe I posted one link which talks about the prophecies that are contained in the Bible. The Bible also talks about what will happen until the end of the world. If you study that, you will see further why it also predicts the future. Man cannot predict the future. You can see how some of those things are happening now. One of the best experts in end times prophecy is a man named Grant Jeffreys. He has written several books. Yes, I believe God determined (directed man) which books should be in the Bible also.
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Permalink Reply by Bobby J on
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Ever heard of a man by the name of Orson Wells? He envisioned and predicted MANY things in HIS time that were totally outside the realm of possibility and reality, and he didn't even speak of them in terms of ANY religion.
How do you explain that, Nyota?...Does that make Orson Wells another God?....Are we to consider that perhaps his books are Bibles?......and how about Nostradamus? is HE another God too?
Here you go, I say tomorrow it will rain but on Monday it will be sunny...Am I God too? Should I write my own bible and start a new religion?
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Permalink Reply by Nyota1 on
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There isn't a reply to this included for this post, so I had to repost it. Nyota, you said, "As I said, someone can believe God doesn't exist, that will not make it true."
Well here's a thought for you too.
Someone can believe God DOES exist, that will not make it true.
See? religion is just beliefs, regardless of your religion or lack thereoff.
Bobby, If you don't believe that God exists, and that God created the Universe, the Earth, human beings, and everything else, how do you think we got here?
Do you think there was some kind of a bang billions of years ago, and billions of molecules, and atoms, floating in outer space, just happened to all come together in a perfectly round form to form the earth, the oceans, the land, the continents, etc. and they also formed human beings with the complexity of the human body the way that it is? That is pretty far fetched. In fact, it is literally impossible. There may have been a big bang, but if there was, it was because God used the bang to create what he wanted to create.
Look at everything in the world. Human beings, animals, food, the oceans, the mountains, the trees, etc. Do you think that all the beauty in the design of human beings, the landscapes, the oceans, just happened by chance? It didn't happen by chance. God created everything.
We didn't get here from evolution. Darwin wrote the theory of evolution because he had nothing better to do than to write about lies. Just like the pharmecutical companies make drugs to kill people. The world's knowledge is often about lies. That is because all of that comes from the devil.
So, no, religion isn't just a belief. God either exists or he doesn't. If God doesn't exist, then you have to believe something else. So, what is it that you believe about how we got here?
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