# What keeps us alive?



## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

What do you think keeps a human alive? I am not speaking of the obvious i.e. food,water, and air. What do you think the object or objects that keeps a human heart beating or the brain functioning?

What do you think leaves the human body when a person dies and stops it from having life?


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## bullethead (Feb 27, 2012)

Electronic Impulses


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## 1gr8bldr (Feb 27, 2012)

Deleted, potential to derail original point


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## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Electronic Impulses


What do you think stops those impulses? What do you think started them in the first place?


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## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

1gr8bldr said:


> You guys tell me if I'm wrong, I think that the reason we have many agnostics is that they sense that their must be some sort of higher power holding it all together. But those same agnostics have understandable reservations in believing that any one belief system has it figured out. Thoughts?



Throttle back hard charger! 

Don't completely take over my thread just yet, we can wait until page two or three if it gets that far, then we will be fully far enough from the OP.


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## 1gr8bldr (Feb 27, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Throttle back hard charger!
> 
> Don't completely take over my thread just yet, we can wait until page two or three if it gets that far, then we will be fully far enough from the OP.


Sorry, your thread made this come to mind


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## Ronnie T (Feb 27, 2012)

Looking at it from a strick physical view, it begins with conception.  Whatever it was that began at conception abruptly stops

Why do humans die?  Why does pecans rot?  Why does leaves fall off the tree?  Is it all related?  Does it serve a purpose?
Sounds very complicated to me?  I'm gitten dizzy.


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## JB0704 (Feb 27, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Electronic Impulses



That "spark" I have mentioned in a few threads.  Everything that would make us alive is there when we die....except the "life."  Yes, I do believe in the soul.


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## Four (Feb 27, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> What do you think keeps a human alive? I am not speaking of the obvious i.e. food,water, and air. What do you think the object or objects that keeps a human heart beating or the brain functioning?



We have a biological instinct / desire to live. If we didn't, we wouldn't be alive in the first place. An organism that doesn't have the built-in desire to self-preserve doesn't get to pass those traits too offspring. We're all decedents of those that wanted to stay alive 



stringmusic said:


> What do you think leaves the human body when a person dies and stops it from having life?



I'm not sure i understand. Initially it's urine & excrement.. heat as well.

Or are you referring to something spiritual? If so I think this is begging the question.


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## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

Four said:


> We have a biological instinct / desire to live. If we didn't, we wouldn't be alive in the first place. An organism that doesn't have the built-in desire to self-preserve doesn't get to pass those traits too offspring. We're all decedents of those that wanted to stay alive


Having that particular desire to live does not mean that we get to stay alive when something leaves us to make us not alive anymore.

I am asking what you think that something is.





> I'm not sure i understand. Initially it's urine & excrement.. heat as well.


What makes the body stop functioning to make the urine, excrement and heat leave? What keeps the body going and what stops it, and who or what gets to decide?



> Or are you referring to something spiritual? If so I think this is begging the question.


I'm not really referring to anything, of course I think it is spiritual, but I was just trying to understand how non-spiritual people came to terms on it.


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## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> That "spark" I have mentioned in a few threads.  Everything that would make us alive is there when we die....except the *"life."  *Yes, I do believe in the soul.



That is pretty much what I am asking, what is that "life"?(The question is pretty much for the non spiritual)


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## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

1gr8bldr said:


> Sorry, your thread made this come to mind



It's all good.


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## Four (Feb 27, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Having that particular desire to live does not mean that we get to stay alive when something leaves us to make us not alive anymore.
> 
> I am asking what you think that something is.



When we're not alive, we're not alive.  Having a desire to live doesn't mean we live, but it helps the odds 

You keep going back to something leaving us, Why do you assume something is leaving.




stringmusic said:


> What makes the body stop functioning to make the urine, excrement and heat leave? What keeps the body going and what stops it, and who or what gets to decide?



Lots of things can make the body stop functioning. I believe the urine, etc happens because when you die your muscles relax (no longer involuntarily keeping it in) Then again that can happen without death.



stringmusic said:


> I'm not really referring to anything, of course I think it is spiritual, but I was just trying to understand how non-spiritual people came to terms on it.



I say begging the question, because you keep referring to "something leaving" when i don't think it's established that something leaving is the cause of death.

I feel like it's akin to asking "what leaves the clock when the clock stops working?"


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## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

Four said:


> When we're not alive, we're not alive.  Having a desire to live doesn't mean we live, but it helps the odds
> 
> You keep going back to something leaving us, Why do you assume something is leaving.
> 
> ...



I assume that something leaves the body, because logically, whatever was there to make the body function in the first place is obviously no longer in place. All the pysical parts are there, but there is no life.


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## bullethead (Feb 27, 2012)

The same things that leaves us leaves all other mammals,animals and living things. We are not unique in that regard.


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## stringmusic (Feb 27, 2012)

bullethead said:


> The same things that leaves us leaves all other mammals,animals and living things. We are not unique in that regard.



Interesting thought bullet, I haven't thought of it from this angle, I actually haven't thought about this subject very much at all, just wanted some new conversation.

What do you think those "things" are?


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## Four (Feb 27, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> I assume that something leaves the body, because logically, whatever was there to make the body function in the first place is obviously no longer in place. All the pysical parts are there, but there is no life.



I think this is a poor assumption. 

The physical parts  could be in the wrong place, or are damaged. If i clam shut the arteries delivering oxygenated blood to your brain, you would die. nothing left your body, it just stopped working.


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## bullethead (Feb 27, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Interesting thought bullet, I haven't thought of it from this angle, I actually haven't thought about this subject very much at all, just wanted some new conversation.
> 
> What do you think those "things" are?



Cellular changes.


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## ambush80 (Feb 27, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Interesting thought bullet, I haven't thought of it from this angle, I actually haven't thought about this subject very much at all, just wanted some new conversation.
> 
> What do you think those "things" are?



Look up _nematodes_.  Interesting critters.  Some of them you can burn, freeze, dry out, pound into dust and then get the conditions right (often "just add water") and BOOM! there they are; alive.


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## ted_BSR (Feb 27, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> Look up _nematodes_.  Interesting critters.  Some of them you can burn, freeze, dry out, pound into dust and then get the conditions right (often "just add water") and BOOM! there they are; alive.



I found one under a rock yesterday. Strange critter, cut off his head and the tail will grow a new head, and the head will grow a new tail. Bisect one and the left side will grow a new right side, and the right side will grow a new left  side. Interseting critters for sure. I did not experiment on this particular speciman, just flipped the rock back over.

Kinda makes you wonder about God, don't it.


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## ted_BSR (Feb 27, 2012)

Four said:


> I think this is a poor assumption.
> 
> The physical parts  could be in the wrong place, or are damaged. If i clam shut the arteries delivering oxygenated blood to your brain, you would die. nothing left your body, it just stopped working.



or, it ceases to exist.


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## ted_BSR (Feb 27, 2012)

bullethead said:


> The same things that leaves us leaves all other mammals,animals and living things. We are not unique in that regard.



Sorry, believer here chiming in on a thread that String meant for non-believers.

We are different from the animals. We all have spirit "spark of life", but only humans have a soul. That is the part of a human that continues on after our spirits "cease to exist". Ask Spock! He finally figured it out!


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> Look up _nematodes_.  Interesting critters.  Some of them you can burn, freeze, dry out, pound into dust and then get the conditions right (often "just add water") and BOOM! there they are; alive.



Wow, pretty cool little dudes!


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

Four said:


> I think this is a poor assumption.
> 
> The physical parts  could be in the wrong place, or are damaged. If i clam shut the arteries delivering oxygenated blood to your brain, you would die. nothing left your body, it just stopped working.



What makes the heart beat? Blood pumping through the chambers from arteries. Where does the blood come from? You can continue reducing this for a long time I'm sure, does it ever come to a point where doctors say, "it just works that way", with an explanation of the how, but not the why, or does the explanation come full circle to explain everything in the body, the how and why?


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> Sorry, believer here chiming in on a thread that String meant for non-believers.


I don't want to turn into the thread nazi.

Most threads would get boring if only the non-believers chimed in.


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## bullethead (Feb 28, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> Sorry, believer here chiming in on a thread that String meant for non-believers.
> 
> We are different from the animals. We all have spirit "spark of life", but only humans have a soul. That is the part of a human that continues on after our spirits "cease to exist". Ask Spock! He finally figured it out!



Humans are good at giving themselves qualities that they do not actually posses.


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## Four (Feb 28, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> What makes the heart beat? Blood pumping through the chambers from arteries. Where does the blood come from? You can continue reducing this for a long time I'm sure, does it ever come to a point where doctors say, "it just works that way", with an explanation of the how, but not the why, or does the explanation come full circle to explain everything in the body, the how and why?



I'll assume that the questions about how the body works are rhetorical. The point i think you're trying to make is the god of the gaps, yes?

My gap in knowledge certainly comes quicker than the sum of human knowledge, that's for sure! At a certain point you say "i don't know" Some people just come out and say it, others say "god did it". I like to think that things are knowable vs. unknowable. If it's unknowable, then why look? If you assume everything is knowable, you will continue the search, which i think has served us as a race well, looking at our knowledge growth.

I'll use a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote because he's better at saying it than i am.

_"If that'show you want to invoke your evidence for god, then god is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance"_


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## Artfuldodger (Feb 28, 2012)

Man has a soul but I don't think it controls how his body starts or stops. That is controlled by the same thing that starts & stops cats and dogs whatever that is.


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

Artfuldodger said:


> Man has a soul but I don't think it controls how his body starts or stops. That is controlled by the same thing that starts & stops cats and dogs whatever that is.



I personally believe man is a soul, and that he has a body.


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

Four said:


> I'll assume that the questions about how the body works are rhetorical. The point i think you're trying to make is the god of the gaps, yes?
> 
> My gap in knowledge certainly comes quicker than the sum of human knowledge, that's for sure! At a certain point you say "i don't know" Some people just come out and say it, others say "god did it". I like to think that things are knowable vs. unknowable. If it's unknowable, then why look? If you assume everything is knowable, you will continue the search, which i think has served us as a race well, looking at our knowledge growth.
> 
> ...



I honestly wasn't talking about God, obviously I believe God is the reason we live and breathe and die. I honestly wanted to know what people thought keeps humans alive.


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## ambush80 (Feb 28, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> I found one under a rock yesterday. Strange critter, cut off his head and the tail will grow a new head, and the head will grow a new tail. Bisect one and the left side will grow a new right side, and the right side will grow a new left  side. Interseting critters for sure. I did not experiment on this particular speciman, just flipped the rock back over.
> 
> Kinda makes you wonder about God, don't it.



Not really, Ted.


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## ambush80 (Feb 28, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Wow, pretty cool little dudes!



How do they fit in with your ideas about life and death?



stringmusic said:


> I don't want to turn into the thread nazi.
> 
> Most threads would get boring if only the non-believers chimed in.



You should visit the Richard Dawkins' site.  Atheists can get pretty spirited.


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> How do they fit in with your ideas about life and death?


I personally believe they have no soul, so they don't really fit in anywhere. Can they be explained scientifically? If so, that is where they would fit in for me.





> You should visit the Richard Dawkins' site.  Atheists can get pretty spirited.


I ain't visiting that debils website

I have look through his site once or twice, do they have a forum to read?


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## Four (Feb 28, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> I honestly wasn't talking about God, obviously I believe God is the reason we live and breathe and die. I honestly wanted to know what people thought keeps humans alive.



You can easily just look online and read about biology. We know tons about what keeps us alive. The only reason I can think of to ask a question like that on a forum like this is to make a point about that at a certain level we don't know, implying god fills that gap.


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## ambush80 (Feb 28, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> I personally believe they have no soul, so they don't really fit in anywhere. Can they be explained scientifically? If so, that is where they would fit in for me.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I thought in the OP that you were asking about what "life" is.  It seems that you're trying to get at the notion that there is some kind of "force" that' unique; so unique that it's supernatural.  These critters seem to move easily from alive to dead.  If you were talking about "spirits" that should be another thread.

BTW, Dawkins' forum is filled with a bunch of smarty panties.  They keep using logic and stuff.


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

Four said:


> You can easily just look online and read about biology. We know tons about what keeps us alive. The only reason I can think of to ask a question like that on a forum like this is to make a point about that at a certain level we don't know,* implying *god fills that gap.



I promise it was just a question, I try to let others do the implying.


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> I thought in the OP that you were asking about what "life" is.  It seems that you're trying to get at the notion that there is some kind of "force" that' unique; so unique that it's supernatural.


Like I have already stated, I believe it to be supernatural, I wanted to know what other thought.



> BTW, Dawkins' forum is filled with a bunch of smarty panties.  They keep using logic and stuff.



Always got to go there don't you? You can't carry on a conversation very long without letting "that" come out in you.

3 stage God argument wasn't enough logic for you?


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## ambush80 (Feb 28, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Like I have already stated, I believe it to be supernatural, I wanted to know what other thought.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Just letting you know that they won't entertain notions of "belief" or "supernatural" or any other illogical notions in there.  And they're mean.


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## stringmusic (Feb 28, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> Just letting you know that they won't entertain notions of "belief" or "supernatural" or any other illogical notions in there.  And they're mean.



I am not going to join, I probably wont even read much of it, this is the only forum I belong to and I don't really want to get started on another one. It wont bother me one bit that they are mean I promise you.

BTW, just because they wont entertain those notions doesn't mean squat to me, probably about as much as those notions do not mean squat to them, if not more.

Maybe some one will carry Mr. Willard's 3 stage God argument over there and watch them stumble all over it, that would be interesting.


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## ambush80 (Feb 28, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> I am not going to join, I probably wont even read much of it, this is the only forum I belong to and I don't really want to get started on another one. It wont bother me one bit that they are mean I promise you.
> 
> BTW, just because they wont entertain those notions doesn't mean squat to me, probably about as much as those notions do not mean squat to them, if not more.
> 
> Maybe some one will carry Mr. Willard's 3 stage God argument over there and watch them stumble all over it, that would be interesting.



Please let me know when you do that and I will come watch.


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## bullethead (Feb 28, 2012)

http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-key-immortality-asexual-worms-201506236.html


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## stringmusic (Mar 5, 2012)

Another something I was thinking on last night. If our parts going bad or somehow getting out of place can and will kill us, why can't we just keep replacing them over and over and stay alive? I understand we can do organ transplants, but what is the reason we can't continually do them?


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## Four (Mar 5, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Another something I was thinking on last night. If our parts going bad or somehow getting out of place can and will kill us, why can't we just keep replacing them over and over and stay alive? I understand we can do organ transplants, but what is the reason we can't continually do them?



We can, in theory. We just haven't gotten good enough at it yet.


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## stringmusic (Mar 5, 2012)

Four said:


> We can, in theory. We just haven't gotten good enough at it yet.



So you think that we will eventually live forever?

Someone gets shot in the head, we go in and replace everything and somehow bring them back to life?


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## Four (Mar 5, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> So you think that we will eventually live forever?
> 
> Someone gets shot in the head, we go in and replace everything and somehow bring them back to life?



I think we will one day have the capacity for some type of limited immortality. 

I watched a documentary on a biologist that's actively working on it. He outlines 5 things that have to be overcome. One of which is cancer, another has to do with cell reparation. 

If we get that far, the brain will certainly be the most difficult organ to overcome.. It will also raise all sorts of awesome philosophical questions. If the entire data-set and schema of your brain is saved, then re-uploaded into your body, did you die at some point? are you the same person?

cool stuff.


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## stringmusic (Mar 5, 2012)

Four said:


> I think we will one day have the capacity for some type of limited immortality.
> 
> I watched a documentary on a biologist that's actively working on it. He outlines 5 things that have to be overcome. One of which is cancer, another has to do with cell reparation.
> 
> ...



Definitely interesting to say the least.


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## JB0704 (Mar 5, 2012)

Four said:


> If the entire data-set and schema of your brain is saved, then re-uploaded into your body, did you die at some point? are you the same person?



Crazy to think about, but I think it can only be answered if it ever happens, and will probably determine whether or not we actually do have a soul.


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## Four (Mar 5, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Crazy to think about, but I think it can only be answered if it ever happens, and will probably determine whether or not we actually do have a soul.



Yea it's a new, yet old question. 

We already can drastically modify a persons personality by physically and / or chemically altering the brain. So, are they different people?


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## Jeff Phillips (Mar 5, 2012)

Darwin's answer to what keeps us alive and makes us live to begin with: "The devine spark"

Darwin believed there could be no life without the creator.


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## bullethead (Mar 5, 2012)

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technol...-produces-no-pulse-keeps-alive-183823901.html


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## JB0704 (Mar 5, 2012)

bullethead said:


> http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technol...-produces-no-pulse-keeps-alive-183823901.html



Do you think that might reinforce the "divine spark" theory, otherwise it would seem evolution, with it's adaptable powers, would have created a heart that didn't need to beat.....and in doing so aided the survival of the species greatly.

It makes sense that a heart does not need to beat.  It's function is to cirulate blood, with all the oxygen, to various parts of the body.  It needs to distribute and "recharge" the depleted blood. If it can do so without beating, that would seem more efficient, I guess.


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## bullethead (Mar 5, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Do you think that might reinforce the "divine spark" theory, otherwise it would seem evolution, with it's adaptable powers, would have created a heart that didn't need to beat.....and in doing so aided the survival of the species greatly.
> 
> It makes sense that a heart does not need to beat.  It's function is to cirulate blood, with all the oxygen, to various parts of the body.  It needs to distribute and "recharge" the depleted blood. If it can do so without beating, that would seem more efficient, I guess.



Muscles "twitch". Much like when you are sitting down at night all comfortable and your bicep starts to twitch and jump. The heart is a muscle and the way it circulates blood is to pump it through beats or twitches caused by electrical impulses that squeeze the blood causing it to flow around the body. Those impulses are generated from nerves within the heart itself. The brain only tells the heart how fast to beat. That is why a heart will still beat after death for a short period. Turtles hearts can beat for hours after it is removed from the body. 
I can only guess that if things with a heart needed a better/different way to to circulate the blood it would have evolved. It is amazing how much a heartbeat slows for animals/reptiles/fish during hibernation/aestivation.
Since insects have hearts(often more than one but unlike ours)do they have a divine spark also?


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## JB0704 (Mar 5, 2012)

bullethead said:


> The heart is a muscle and the way it circulates blood is to pump it through beats or twitches caused by electrical impulses that squeeze the blood causing it to flow around the body. Those impulses are generated from nerves within the heart itself. The brain only tells the heart how fast to beat. That is why a heart will still beat after death for a short period.


 
It is an amazing thing for sure.  What is more fascinating is  how complex the process is for that electricity to be generated to cause the twitches.




bullethead said:


> Since insects have hearts(often more than one but unlike ours)do they have a divine spark also?



Yes, I believe life's existence is one of the greatest evidences for "supernatural."  That goes for the single celled amoeba, the elephant, and everything in between.


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## bullethead (Mar 6, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Yes, I believe life's existence is one of the greatest evidences for "supernatural."  That goes for the single celled amoeba, the elephant, and everything in between.


No souls but "us" though....?


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## JB0704 (Mar 6, 2012)

bullethead said:


> No souls but "us" though....?



Life and souls are two different things, I guess.  We might be getting back to an old debate here, but I believe the existence of a soul is what sets us apart.  We have similar physical characteristics, but there is something different about us.

Though this can be said for many different creatures, you are more than the sum of your parts.  You can lose your arms, legs, ears, eyes, nose, hair, etc. and still be BH.  But, if you lose your life, the parts will still be there, but all that will be left is BH's body.


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## bullethead (Mar 6, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Life and souls are two different things, I guess.  We might be getting back to an old debate here, but I believe the existence of a soul is what sets us apart.  We have similar physical characteristics, but there is something different about us.
> 
> Though this can be said for many different creatures, you are more than the sum of your parts.  You can lose your arms, legs, ears, eyes, nose, hair, etc. and still be BH.  But, if you lose your life, the parts will still be there, but all that will be left is BH's body.



So what sets us apart from those other creatures? Is it that "we" think we were made in the image of something just like us but only it is the "best' version of us and we cannot except that like every other creature on the planet that when we are dead we are dead? Is it that every other living thing on the planet was put here for our amusement or food source therefore they were never designed with any more than life and death as their cycle? Is there no doggie heaven even though they are loyal and seem to think and love their owners?
When exactly does a cold blooded murderer give up his soul? Is that is figure of speech? Or is having a soul just a figure of speech?


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## JB0704 (Mar 6, 2012)

bullethead said:


> So what sets us apart from those other creatures?



The same thing that inspires artistic pursuits.  Our existence does not only consist of survival.  Even the early cave men painted the walls.  I know there are exceptions within the animal kingdon where animals have been trained to paint, but we naturally migrate to things beyond basic survival needs. I think we debated this once in reference to mating habits.



bullethead said:


> Is it that "we" think we were made in the image of something just like us but only it is the "best' version of us and we cannot except that like every other creature on the planet that when we are dead we are dead?



Again, when you die, what is it that stops being you?  Like I said, you are more than the sum of your parts.  Made in the image does not imply perfect, we are far from it.  I believe in evolution, but understand we were designed to be different, and have proven as much though the history of our interaction with nature. 



bullethead said:


> Is it that every other living thing on the planet was put here for our amusement or food source therefore they were never designed with any more than life and death as their cycle? ?



Our planet has many different parts which work together perfectly to sustain the life contained.  Pretty cool how that worked out. 



bullethead said:


> Is there no doggie heaven even though they are loyal and seem to think and love their owners??



All dogs go to heaven.



bullethead said:


> When exactly does a cold blooded murderer give up his soul? Is that is figure of speech? Or ss having a soul just a figure of speech?



He loses his soul when he dies, just like you and me.  The soul is not a figure of speech.  Ambush will accuse me of believing in "haints," but there is something more than a natural drive for survival within us.  There is a reason you and I log into this forum most days and debate our worldview.

A cold blooded murderer is just person who is cold to humanity.  That could be a product of nature or nurture, but it does not mean he doesn't have that "spark."


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## stringmusic (Mar 6, 2012)

bullethead said:


> So what sets us apart from those other creatures? Is it that "we" think we were made in the image of something just like us but only it is the "best' version of us and we cannot except that like every other creature on the planet that when we are dead we are dead?


"Made in the image" does not equal "made exactly like".


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## bullethead (Mar 6, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> The same thing that inspires artistic pursuits.  Our existence does not only consist of survival.  Even the early cave men painted the walls.  I know there are exceptions within the animal kingdon where animals have been trained to paint, but we naturally migrate to things beyond basic survival needs. I think we debated this once in reference to mating habits.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Since you believe in evolution, do you think that it is by design that we evolved the way we are? IE: God got the ball rolling billions of years ago and in that plan it took billions of years to have "us" evolve into what he wanted and our ancestors along the way were just pieces of the puzzle to get us where He wanted us to be?


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## JB0704 (Mar 6, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Since you believe in evolution, do you think that it is by design that we evolved the way we are? IE: God got the ball rolling billions of years ago and in that plan it took billions of years to have "us" evolve into what he wanted and our ancestors along the way were just pieces of the puzzle to get us where He wanted us to be?



See, here is where I get totally confused about it.  I see the fossil record, recognize the gaps, but understand that we can witness evolution within our current system so I know it is a fact of life be it micro or macro.  I also believe God created us "in his image," meaning we have a soul, and are different. My belief system tells me it was all by design, whether Genesis is a literal story or not, and evolution could be the mechanism he used to "form man from clay."  Or, God whipped us up in seven days, as a literal interpretation of Genesis would indicate.  Either way, I recognize the fact that we are very different than any species which ever walked the Earth.  We achieved dominance through intelligence.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 6, 2012)

If the Bible is to be taken literally, what about all the verses about the heart? Did God think our heart was our brain? Man didn't write the Bible. Perhaps our soul resides in our heart.


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## Asath (Mar 6, 2012)

Seems like we’ve come a long way from the OP, which asked what anyone thought it was , “. . . that keeps a human heart beating or the brain functioning?”

It was a disingenuous question, of course, since that actual, scientific answer is provided to most students, in outline form if not in specifics, in about the Eighth Grade.  The rest of the real answer requires a bit more study and learning.  This is known, in any event, and is asked with agenda in hand . . .   

So, since we have started out with an OP that deliberately and antagonistically began by stating aloud that there was already an answer, known only to the author and his fellow ‘believers’ – that ‘answer’ being that a supernaturally ‘Uncaused Causative Agent’ of their own conception is to be revered as solely responsible, and that the ‘explanation’ is that this mysterious agent known only to them invoked some sort of cosmic magic that they have named as the ‘soul,’ unique to humans, let us then move onwards . . . . 

Anyone prepared to pop one of these abstract and oddly defined ‘souls’ out so that the rest of us can get a look at one?  We promise to give it back, afterwards.  

It’s just that an ‘explanation’ that is based entirely on some sort of magic that only obtains if one ‘believes’ in it, and abandons all the rest of the poor critters on this orb, seems a little shallow, selfish, and difficult to verify.

Proposing a ‘Cause,’ as the flag that is being waved, then exempting, First, the Causative Agent itself from having to be ‘Caused,’ and then, Second, creating rules and distinctions among the ‘Caused,’ concerning just which of them are imbued and gifted with certain privileges and which are not, according only to your own insider knowledge of what this same ‘Creator’ you, alone, proposed might have had in mind . . .  well . . . you might see the difficulty with the idea . . .  How did YOU get chosen to have the secret knowledge the rest of Creation was denied? 

Anyone at all is free to prove the existence of this ‘soul,’ this ‘divine spark,’ or this ‘cosmic creator’ who is exempt from the logic that a creation must of necessity have a magical creator.  But nobody at all is free to assert that they have such certain knowledge, and wish to wield it over all mankind, without proving it.  We wrote a Constitution, as a society, to protect us against the dictatorship of such undemonstrated certainty, and we see no difference in substance or content between the ‘certainty’ of religious contentions and the ‘certainty’ of any King or other aspiring petty dictator. 

Show us the ‘soul’ of which you speak, so that we might understand it better.  Lacking that, you’ve come to the wrong forum.


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## JB0704 (Mar 7, 2012)

Asath said:


> So, since we have started out with an OP that deliberately and antagonistically began by stating aloud that there was already an answer, known only to the author and his fellow ‘believers’ – that ‘answer’ being that a supernaturally ‘Uncaused Causative Agent’ of their own conception is to be revered as solely responsible, and that the ‘explanation’ is that this mysterious agent known only to them invoked some sort of cosmic magic that they have named as the ‘soul,’ unique to humans, let us then move onwards . . . . .



You and I both believe in uncaused causative agents.  Think about it.....what got the ball rolling in your universe?  Where did matter come from?  And, if everything is infinite, then you also have s upernatural agent in the mix of your belief system.  Neither is more logical than the other.  



Asath said:


> It’s just that an ‘explanation’ that is based entirely on some sort of magic that only obtains if one ‘believes’ in it, and abandons all the rest of the poor critters on this orb, seems a little shallow, selfish, and difficult to verify..



Nah, the belief is based on a book written by goat herders.



Asath said:


> How did YOU get chosen to have the secret knowledge the rest of Creation was denied?.



The goat herders left copies laying around for everybody to enjoy. 



Asath said:


> Anyone at all is free to prove the existence of this ‘soul,’ this ‘divine spark,’ or this ‘cosmic creator’ who is exempt from the logic that a creation must of necessity have a magical creator. .



Come on, man, we are Christians.  Of course we are going to believe in a soul.  I see humans as different.  I think any logical examination of the evidence comes to that conclusion.  What makes us different?  If you do not agree we are different, then we really have nothing to discuss.



Asath said:


> But nobody at all is free to assert that they have such certain knowledge, and wish to wield it over all mankind, without proving it.  We wrote a Constitution, as a society, to protect us against the dictatorship of such undemonstrated certainty, and we see no difference in substance or content between the ‘certainty’ of religious contentions and the ‘certainty’ of any King or other aspiring petty dictator.



We are free to assert anything we choose, right or wrong.  We are not free to weild it.  But, if the Christian magical mystery universe is so obtuse that you cannot hear our perspective, then we can be ignored, and all of the atheists can continue in your enlightened bliss discussing how you have found "the truth" while the rest of us are wrong.


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## Asath (Mar 8, 2012)

If I recall, the OP went like this – “ What do you think the object or objects that keeps a human heart beating or the brain functioning?  What do you think leaves the human body when a person dies and stops it from having life?”

The objective here was to argue in favor of some sort of ‘Divine Spark’ or ‘Soul,’ as the motive force.  

As strained and discredited as this idea may be, here it took on a bit of traction, and even led to this gem:  “ . . . otherwise it would seem evolution, with it's adaptable powers, would have created a heart that didn't need to beat.....and in doing so aided the survival of the species greatly.  It makes sense that a heart does not need to beat. It's function is to cirulate blood, with all the oxygen, to various parts of the body. It needs to distribute and "recharge" the depleted blood. If it can do so without beating, that would seem more efficient, I guess.”

It wasn’t proposed just what sort of pump might be designed that can actually effect circulation of any sort WITHOUT any moving parts, but that is the genius of the argument.  The completely impossible would be much  ‘more efficient,’ it is theorized, and this impossibility is extended (astoundingly) to an argument AGAINST evolution, and in FAVOR of the actually impossible!  Coming up with a mechanism for circulation without movement would be more the realm of the miraculous, would it not?

Anyway, if it is to be insisted that the ‘Soul’ is the source of the animation of human flesh and life, (because that is what is ‘Believed’) and that this ‘Soul’ is gifted by the invisible animator in the sky, then we’ve got an immediate problem.  

The physical and organic mechanisms through which a microscopic sperm cell combines with a microscopic egg cell and grows slowly into a living creature are common to nearly all animals.  In some cases, such as pigs, the anatomical similarities to humans are so close that certain parts of pigs (such as heart valves, to use one example) are routinely harvested for transplant into the bodies of diseased humans.  If the motive force behind the living and the breathing and the beating heart is NOT organic and common to all animals, and is actually the magically and divinely bestowed ‘Soul,’ then one is forced to extend the idea of this ‘Soul’ to ALL living and breathing creatures.

Darn.  One more claim of exclusivity and divine favor explodes.  

‘Believing’ in this ‘Soul’ does not make it exist, nor attribute any unique powers to this nonexistent force.  The only way to demonstrate the existence of this proposed ‘Soul,’ as I said, is to pop one out and show it to us.  Arguing that it must exist simply because certain people ‘Believe’ in the magical powers they attribute to it is absurd.


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## gordon 2 (Mar 8, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> What do you think keeps a human alive? I am not speaking of the obvious i.e. food,water, and air. What do you think the object or objects that keeps a human heart beating or the brain functioning?
> 
> What do you think leaves the human body when a person dies and stops it from having life?




Relationship.

Relationship.

re·la·tion·ship/riËˆlÄ�SHÉ™nËŒSHip/




Noun:




1.The way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.
2.The state of being connected by blood or marriage


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## mtnwoman (Mar 8, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Humans are good at giving themselves qualities that they do not actually posses.



I'm glad you didn't say 'some' humans.

All humans, right?...we all think we are smarter than your average bear.....but some people do like to poke and prod even at bears and then act surprised when the bear bites your head off......

See I did learn something at bible study. Don't let too many women be alone together for too long of a period of time.


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## mtnwoman (Mar 8, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Life and souls are two different things, I guess.  We might be getting back to an old debate here, but I believe the existence of a soul is what sets us apart.  We have similar physical characteristics, but there is something different about us.



Hebrews 4:12
King James Version (KJV)

 12For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

I'm sorry...side trackin' for a moment.

I was there for this...i went to see td jakes and me and my daughter were having a knock down drag out and she said get in the car mama, we are going. When we got there this is what we heard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DGDxbGy9BY


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## JB0704 (Mar 8, 2012)

Asath said:


> It wasn’t proposed just what sort of pump might be designed that can actually effect circulation of any sort WITHOUT any moving parts, but that is the genius of the argument.  The completely impossible would be much  ‘more efficient,’ it is theorized, and this impossibility is extended (astoundingly) to an argument AGAINST evolution, and in FAVOR of the actually impossible!  Coming up with a mechanism for circulation without movement would be more the realm of the miraculous, would it not?.



Did you read the part where humans have created a heart that does not beat?  Doesn't sound so impossible if it has been done.  Either way, the point was that evolutionary change is typically towards efficiency.  It was not an argument against evolution.

As to the rest, I think you also missed the direction of my questions....are we different than those animals?  Why did our evolutoin achieve dominance through intelligence?  Why did we start cooking food when we were unaware of the benefits it would make to our intellectual development?

No, I can't pull a soul out for you.  If that is what you need, then please continue in your beliefs that one does not exist. I can't give you what you are looking for. All I got is what I have given, if not enough, then it's all good.  I will sleep fine.  I am sure you will too


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## mtnwoman (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Did you read the part where humans have created a heart that does not beat?  Doesn't sound so impossible if it has been done.  Either way, the point was that evolutionary change is typically towards efficiency.  It was not an argument against evolution.
> 
> As to the rest, I think you also missed the direction of my questions....are we different than those animals?  Why did our evolutoin achieve dominance through intelligence?  Why did we start cooking food when we were unaware of the benefits it would make to our intellectual development?
> 
> No, I can't pull a soul out for you.  If that is what you need, then please continue in your beliefs that one does not exist. I can't give you what you are looking for. All I got is what I have given, if not enough, then it's all good.  I will sleep fine.  I am sure you will too



Watch that video I posted....you gotta watch it all....not a great copy, but just listen to the word. That impacted my life so much. And lets you see there are two parts of 'you'....your soul and spirit. Some people don't have both. Pm me what you think when you do view it...allow maybe 60 mins.


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## Asath (Mar 9, 2012)

No worries, JB.  But a heart that does not ‘beat’ is first not a heart, but a pump.  Second, unless one wishes to make a niggling semantic distinction, the ‘beating’ of a heart is our word for the pumping action that takes place – if we wish to replace that word with ‘pumping,’ or ‘accelerating,’ or ‘pushing,’ there is little difference in the physical action.  That the animal organ that is the heart may one day evolve into a somewhat more efficient organ is arguable, and probable, but at this stage of the game it is what all of us poor critters are stuck with.

 We can build better and more reliable and more efficient machines that serve a similar function, but that is true of nearly all of our organs, abstracted from each other – our liver and kidneys are pretty poor filters, our stomachs are inefficient at breaking down solids, our intestines are overly long because they are inefficient at the absorption and processing of nutrients, our eyes are terrible even compared to most birds, our hearing is far worse than a dog’s, and a seventy-five pound chimp is about five times stronger than we are, among a few pages of examples.  Heck, we can build a computer that can do hundreds of millions of algorithmic calculations per second, putting even the best brains to shame.  Broken into individual parts, most of ours don’t compare favorably with many other animals, let alone with our ability to design and build things that function better.  As individual parts – not as a dynamic whole.  

But evolution is situational, and favors adaptations that benefit the overall survival of each species in the environment of their choice, or the environment of their chance.  It doesn’t select solely for the optimal, since there is no ‘optimal’ that is common to say, sea animals and land animals.  Nature does not seek the perfect, but rather the overall survival through specialized adaptations that happen over long periods of time.  If evolution were a rapid process the next generation of humans would be 26-fingered, wide bottomed apodal typists without spines, with brains the size of Volkswagons, and with the ability to live indefinitely on Doritos and Coca-Cola.

WHY humans branched off from the other critters, and became more intellect-driven than instinct-driven is still the subject of quite a lot of speculation and debate, a large body of the thought being that on a pure survival criteria we simply couldn’t compete with the predators or even with natural environmental conditions in any other way.  We can’t out-fight a wolf, a hyena, a tiger, or a lion, and we can’t out-run them either; nor can we survive a flood or live in lakes and oceans, because we’re lousy swimmers; we can’t survive a drought, nor live outdoors in extremes of heat or cold; we can’t endure without food for any appreciable period of time, but cannot eat most vegetation and are too weak and slow to be decent predators on our own – the list can go on and on, but the idea is that our only hope for survival as a species, in a world that is hostile to us and that we end up being poorly able to physically endure, was to outsmart it.

Fortunately for us, they did.  No ‘Divine Magic’ was involved.  We thought that part up after the fact, and only to try to gain dominance over each other.


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## mtnwoman (Mar 9, 2012)

Well that is logical.....even I can see that...

But if you can't see beyond what's logical and what's more than natural, ie supernatural, then it's not from my lack of trying, it's just I failed/missed the mark/sinned to get you there.

I'm stubborn, though.


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## stringmusic (Mar 9, 2012)

Asath said:


> If I recall, the OP went like this – “ What do you think the object or objects that keeps a human heart beating or the brain functioning?  What do you think leaves the human body when a person dies and stops it from having life?”
> 
> The objective here was to argue in favor of some sort of ‘Divine Spark’ or ‘Soul,’ as the motive force.


The objective here was to ask athiest and agnostics what keeps us alive. 



> As strained and discredited as this idea may be, here it took on a bit of traction, and even led to this gem:  “ . . . otherwise it would seem evolution, with it's adaptable powers, would have created a heart that didn't need to beat.....and in doing so aided the survival of the species greatly.  It makes sense that a heart does not need to beat. It's function is to cirulate blood, with all the oxygen, to various parts of the body. It needs to distribute and "recharge" the depleted blood. If it can do so without beating, that would seem more efficient, I guess.”
> 
> It wasn’t proposed just what sort of pump might be designed that can actually effect circulation of any sort WITHOUT any moving parts, but that is the genius of the argument.  The completely impossible would be much  ‘more efficient,’ it is theorized, and this impossibility is extended (astoundingly) to an argument AGAINST evolution, and in FAVOR of the actually impossible!  *Coming up with a mechanism for circulation without movement would be more the realm of the miraculous, would it not*?


No.
See post #50 
Here is the link provided in that post. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technol...-produces-no-pulse-keeps-alive-183823901.html




> Anyway, if it is to be insisted that the ‘Soul’ is the source of the animation of human flesh and life, (because that is what is ‘Believed’) and that this ‘Soul’ is gifted by the invisible animator in the sky, then we’ve got an immediate problem.
> 
> The physical and organic mechanisms through which a microscopic sperm cell combines with a microscopic egg cell and grows slowly into a living creature are common to nearly all animals.  In some cases, such as pigs, the anatomical similarities to humans are so close that certain parts of pigs (such as heart valves, to use one example) are routinely harvested for transplant into the bodies of diseased humans.  If the motive force behind the living and the breathing and the beating heart is NOT organic and common to all animals, and is actually the magically and divinely bestowed ‘Soul,’ then one is forced to extend the idea of this ‘Soul’ to ALL living and breathing creatures.
> 
> Darn.  One more claim of exclusivity and divine favor explodes.


Because we can use parts of a pig in no way gives a pig a soul. Similiar physical attributes of pigs and humans in no way make us the same. No exploding here.  



> ‘Believing’ in this ‘Soul’ does not make it exist, nor attribute any unique powers to this nonexistent force.  The only way to demonstrate the existence of this proposed ‘Soul,’ as I said, is to pop one out and show it to us.  Arguing that it must exist simply because certain people ‘Believe’ in the magical powers they attribute to it is absurd.


Not believing in a soul does not make not exist.

I cannot "pop out" a soul for you to see, sorry.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Because we can use parts of a pig in no way gives a pig a soul. Similiar physical attributes of pigs and humans in no way make us the same. No exploding here.



How is that statement accurate? Every living thing thing on the planet with a brain and heart has that "spark". How are you and I any different?


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## stringmusic (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> How is that statement accurate? Every living thing thing on the planet with a brain and heart has that "spark". How are you and I any different?



I could give you an answer(the only one I have) but you wouldn't like it.

However, I think JB has given a very good argument as to why we are different.


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## Four (Mar 9, 2012)

I found myself wondering while reading this thread...

Is there an actual scripture to support a "soal" is the word referenced in judao-christian doctrine at all? Or is it a construct by the religious to separate themselves and prove superiority over animals. Proof of divinity or some such?


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## stringmusic (Mar 9, 2012)

Four said:


> I found myself wondering while reading this thread...
> 
> Is there an actual scripture to support a "soal" is the word referenced in judao-christian doctrine at all? Or is it a construct by the religious to separate themselves and prove superiority over animals. Proof of divinity or some such?



It is mentioned a lot.

"The Hebrew word for soul is Ne'phesh. According to the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Scriptures the word 'soul' appears 754 times, while the Greek word for soul, psy-khe', appears 102 times in the Westcott and Hort text of the Christian Greek Scriptures giving a total of 856 times"

Genesis 2:7 is where we became a soul, with a body.


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## Four (Mar 9, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> It is mentioned a lot.
> 
> "The Hebrew word for soul is Ne'phesh. According to the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Scriptures the word 'soul' appears 754 times, while the Greek word for soul, psy-khe', appears 102 times in the Westcott and Hort text of the Christian Greek Scriptures giving a total of 856 times"
> 
> Genesis 2:7 is where we became a soul, with a body.



Does it appear in the NT?


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## stringmusic (Mar 9, 2012)

Four said:


> Does it appear in the NT?



Yes, translated from the word 'psyche'.


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## Four (Mar 9, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> Yes, translated from the word 'psyche'.



Hmm that seems a bit weak. Thanks though.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> I could give you an answer(the only one I have) but you wouldn't like it.
> 
> However, I think JB has given a very good argument as to why we are different.



I wouldn't accept that answer because it is not based off of any factual evidence.

I really like JB but strip him down to his skivvies and arm him with his Dominance Through Intelligence and send him into the middle of the (take your pick)Congo, Sahara Desert, Siberia, Atlantic Ocean for one year and lets see how that works out. One on One "we" have nothing on the creatures that survive in those places. They survive there because they have mastered the dominance and intelligence to thrive in their environments. We have adapted to ours.


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## ambush80 (Mar 9, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> It is mentioned a lot.
> 
> "The Hebrew word for soul is Ne'phesh. According to the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Scriptures the word 'soul' appears 754 times, while the Greek word for soul, psy-khe', appears 102 times in the Westcott and Hort text of the Christian Greek Scriptures giving a total of 856 times"
> 
> Genesis 2:7 is where we became a soul, with a body.



That's an interesting word.  Reads like another word we use today.


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

mtnwoman said:


> Watch that video I posted....you gotta watch it all....not a great copy, but just listen to the word. That impacted my life so much. And lets you see there are two parts of 'you'....your soul and spirit. Some people don't have both. Pm me what you think when you do view it...allow maybe 60 mins.



I will try and get a chance to check it out this weekend.  Thanks for sending it along.


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

Asath said:


> We can build better and more reliable and more efficient machines that serve a similar function, but that is true of nearly all of our organs, abstracted from each other – our liver and kidneys are pretty poor filters, our stomachs are inefficient at breaking down solids, our intestines are overly long because they are inefficient at the absorption and processing of nutrients, our eyes are terrible even compared to most birds, our hearing is far worse than a dog’s, and a seventy-five pound chimp is about five times stronger than we are, among a few pages of examples.  Heck, we can build a computer that can do hundreds of millions of algorithmic calculations per second, putting even the best brains to shame.  Broken into individual parts, most of ours don’t compare favorably with many other animals, let alone with our ability to design and build things that function better.  As individual parts – not as a dynamic whole.
> 
> But evolution is situational, and favors adaptations that benefit the overall survival of each species in the environment of their choice, or the environment of their chance.  It doesn’t select solely for the optimal, since there is no ‘optimal’ that is common to say, sea animals and land animals.  Nature does not seek the perfect, but rather the overall survival through specialized adaptations that happen over long periods of time.  If evolution were a rapid process the next generation of humans would be 26-fingered, wide bottomed apodal typists without spines, with brains the size of Volkswagons, and with the ability to live indefinitely on Doritos and Coca-Cola.
> 
> ...



Thanks, A, I enjoy reading your posts.  I agree that humans are poorly adapted for survival, and it would seem the one advantage we have is intelligence.  This is my biggest "hang-up" with the whole idea that we are just "highly evolved apes."  We are not alone in the fact that our survival skills are poor.  Critters of all kinds, for millions of years, have evolved physical characteristics to compensate for their weakness.  We are the only ones which evolved to "out-smart" the elements.

And back to the "divine spark," I would also admit than any living creature is endowed with such a thing.  And for all of our intelligence, and all of our abilities, we cannot give life that is not there.  We cannot re-animate a dead rat.  Where would such a process even begin?  I  know we can talk about folks be "technically dead," but I am talking about stuff that is gone, cold, stiff.  We can't make it "spark."


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> One on One "we" have nothing on the creatures that survive in those places. They survive there because they have mastered the dominance and intelligence to thrive in their environments. We have adapted to ours.



....then we can drive a bulldozer through the forest, flatten it out, build a park, and enjoy a nice day by the pool while the local "dominant critters" scurry for a new home.  Again, our intelligence will win because we can build the bull dozer.

But, "one on one" in a physical contest you are right, we would lose.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> ....then we can drive a bulldozer through the forest, flatten it out, build a park, and enjoy a nice day by the pool while the local "dominant critters" scurry for a new home.  Again, our intelligence will win because we can build the bull dozer.
> 
> But, "one on one" in a physical contest you are right, we would lose.



Yeah, we have such an upper hand on insects because we are so smart.


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Yeah, we have such an upper hand on insects because we are so smart.



You brought up the "one on one" comparison, I just pointed out which direction my persective took.  We have dominated the environment through intelligence. No species has ever achieved this ability to adapt to all climates on all corners of the globe.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> You brought up the "one on one" comparison, I just pointed out which direction my persective took.  We have dominated the environment through intelligence. No species has ever achieved this ability to adapt to all climates on all corners of the globe.



Did you ever see a bird?


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Did you ever see a bird?



Yes, they migrate.  We stay put in our warm homes in the winter, and our cool homes in the summer.  Point is, we did not develop physical coping mechanisms.  We just learned how to kill animals and take their fur...because we were intelligent enough to do so.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Yes, they migrate.  We stay put in our warm homes in the winter, and our cool homes in the summer.



JB, I KNOW that you know not every bird migrates. I have never see bacteria fly south for the winter. Where are they not located? We are not special. We are not superior. We are a self serving mammal that will wipe ourselves out and when the cockroaches are tap dancing on our magnificent crumbled accomplishments the world will continue without us.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

Within our own body,Bacteria cells outnumber human cells 10-1.


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> JB, I KNOW that you know not every bird migrates. .



Yes. I do.  But each species of bird is adapted to it's environment, and other species migrate to climates they are adapted to.  Penguins can't live in Arizona.  Turkeys could not survive in Antartica.  Each species has special physical adaptations which allow it to survive where it is.




bullethead said:


> I have never see bacteria fly south for the winter. .



No, and most will die when placed in an environment they are not physically able to withstand....too cold, too hot, etc.  Humans adapt through intelligence, not physical changes over time.




bullethead said:


> We are not special. We are not superior. We are a self serving mammal that will wipe ourselves out and when the cockroaches are tap dancing on our magnificent crumbled accomplishments the world will continue without us.



Ok.


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Within our own body,Bacteria cells outnumber human cells 10-1.



And when they become harmful, we take anti-biotics to kill them.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> And when they become harmful, we take anti-biotics to kill them.



The point is they are a part of us. Where we are, they are. For every cell that makes you a human there are 10 bacteria cells in your body. If we are in Antarctica they are in Antarctica. If we are in a bulldozer, they are in a bulldozer.
We MIGHT....MIGHT be the top mammal cruising the globe but we are certainly not the dominant species on the planet.


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> The point is they are a part of us. Where we are, they are. For every cell that makes you a human there are 10 bacteria cells in your body. If we are in Antarctica they are in Antarctica. If we are in a bulldozer, they are in a bulldozer.
> We MIGHT....MIGHT be the top mammal cruising the globe but we are certainly not the dominant species on the planet.



In that situation, our body is their environment.  If we took the bacteria out of us, and placed it on the ice, would it survive?  I'm not being difficult, but think I might be doing a bad job of making my point which is we have adapted through intelligence where the rest of the natural world adapts through physical changes over time.  That does not mean we have not changed, because we have, it just means our change was very different than any other species' change has been.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

We are intelligent enough to mimic things other creatures have done for millions of years to benefit ourselves.
We can't swim like a great white so we build a submarine. We can't fly like a bird so we build an airplane. We can't dig like a groundhog so we make a bulldozer. Like every other creature on the planet we are what we are out of necessity.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> In that situation, our body is their environment.  If we took the bacteria out of us, and placed it on the ice, would it survive?  I'm not being difficult, but think I might be doing a bad job of making my point which is we have adapted through intelligence where the rest of the natural world adapts through physical changes over time.  That does not mean we have not changed, because we have, it just means our change was very different than any other species' change has been.



Yes they actually would survive. Scientists are "waking up" bacteria that are tens and hundreds of thousands of years old.

Bacteria are "smart" enough to use us as their "tools" just like we are smart enough to use an animal hide to stay warm. Take either away and neither of us survive. Each adapt to their needs.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

http://mpkb.org/home/pathogenesis/microbiota


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Like every other creature on the planet we are what we are out of necessity.



But, we are more intelligent than anything has ever been (as far as we currently know).  This intelligence has allowed us to dominate any environment we enter.  Many species have failed become extinct over the years because of a failure to evolve or adapt with the changing environments.  We have an ability to adapt to any environment through intelligence, and we are comparatively weak in the natural world.  Why were we not wiped out by the great apes when they were our natural competitors?


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> http://mpkb.org/home/pathogenesis/microbiota



That's gonna take some time to read through......


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> But, we are more intelligent than anything has ever been (as far as we currently know).  This intelligence has allowed us to dominate any environment we enter.  Many species have failed become extinct over the years because of a failure to evolve or adapt with the changing environments.  We have an ability to adapt to any environment through intelligence, and we are comparatively weak in the natural world.  Why were we not wiped out by the great apes when they were our natural competitors?



We are here for a very very very short time. There are more extinct species than current species. Many of those extinct species reigned for millions of years before they could not adapt to a new environment. We have not had that big test yet.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_8.htm
We did not have to compete with the Great Apes. We each did what was needed to adapt and survive.


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> We are here for a very very very short time. There are more extinct species than current species. Many of those extinct species reigned for millions of years before they could not adapt to a new environment. We have not had that big test yet.
> http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_8.htm
> We did not have to compete with the Great Apes. We each did what was needed to adapt and survive.



When climates change, we do not physically adapt to a change.  We do it through intelligence.  Wherever we share an environment with a species we are in competition with them for resources.  We compete with deer for food, they eat our corn, we kill them and eat them with a side of corn.  We do not physically adapt to win the competition, we learn how to create things which will allow us to dominate.

We have only been here a short time, I agree, and we were able to take over the place not through our physical prowess, such as the t-rex or the cochroach, but through our intellectual abilities.  I see our adaptability as accomplished through intelligence rather than physical change.  Where is this assumption incorrect?


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

Here's another
http://anthro.palomar.edu/earlyprimates/first_primates.htm


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Here's another
> http://anthro.palomar.edu/earlyprimates/first_primates.htm



That link indicates apes displaced monkeys, and we evolved from the monkeys.  But it also verifies what you and I are saying that humans haven't been here very long.  Seems we've gotten a lot done in a short period of time.  What other species has achieved global domination through intelligence in that time span?


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> When climates change, we do not physically adapt to a change.  We do it through intelligence.  Wherever we share an environment with a species we are in competition with them for resources.  We compete with deer for food, they eat our corn, we kill them and eat them with a side of corn.  We do not physically adapt to win the competition, we learn how to create things which will allow us to dominate.
> 
> We have only been here a short time, I agree, and we were able to take over the place not through our physical prowess, such as the t-rex or the cochroach, but through our intellectual abilities.  I see our adaptability as accomplished through intelligence rather than physical change.  Where is this assumption incorrect?



http://valerie-suydam.suite101.com/three-major-trends-in-human-evolution-a69503


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> That link indicates apes displaced monkeys, and we evolved from the monkeys.  But it also verifies what you and I are saying that humans haven't been here very long.  Seems we've gotten a lot done in a short period of time.  What other species has achieved global domination through intelligence in that time span?



All evolved form a Common ancestor. Intelligence is a by product of our adaptation not the reason for it. The use of has Tools made us think of better ways to use them. Other animals use tools. I cannot imagine where they might be in 60 million years.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

http://becominghuman.org/
http://becominghuman.org/node/interactive-documentary


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## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

Man, your killin' me with the links.....I wil try and read as much as I can, but if you care to summarize the main point from time to time I will take your word for it.  I don't believe you would make stuff up.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Man, your killin' me with the links.....I wil try and read as much as I can, but if you care to summarize the main point from time to time I will take your word for it.  I don't believe you would make stuff up.



I know and I am sorry for the links but it is the easiest source for passing some good info along.
Go to the interactive documentary one when you get a chance. It really is informative.


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> I know and I am sorry for the links but it is the easiest source for passing some good info along.
> Go to the interactive documentary one when you get a chance. It really is informative.



Will do.  Thanks for passing it along.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Will do.  Thanks for passing it along.



Thanks for taking the time to check it out.


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## mtnwoman (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Yeah, we have such an upper hand on insects because we are so smart.



Smart enough to use bug spray or plant flowers, herbs, etc that repel buggies. I can't control everybody's insects, but I can control my own...


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

mtnwoman said:


> Smart enough to use bug spray or plant flowers, herbs, etc that repel buggies. I can't control everybody's insects, but I can control my own...



You really just don't get it do you?


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## Asath (Mar 9, 2012)

This is going to take a long time, isn’t it?

String refutes the idea that a method of circulation without movement would be in the realm of the miraculous with an emphatic, “No,” and posts a link to demonstrate.

Quoted from that link (emphasis mine):  “ . . . you simply need some means of keeping your blood flowing. That's exactly what doctors Bud Frazier and Billy Cohn have created with their new, continuous-flow artificial heart. USING TWO TURBINES to replace the muscle of the heart, the new hardware keeps blood moving without actually mimicking the heart's pumping rhythm.”   Which part of this machine isn’t moving? A pump is a pump, and risking the eternal approbation of Galilleo, it must be said – it moves.   

Then more: “Similiar physical attributes of pigs and humans in no way make us the same.”  Well, um, no, it doesn’t.  No such assertion was made.  But if the animating force – that invisible ‘soul’ thing – is what keeps us alive and makes our hearts beat, then everything alive and with a beating heart would need to have one.  Especially pigs.

And yet again: “Not believing in a soul does not make not exist.”   Once again, I didn’t contend that such a thing DID exist.  If it does, simply by belief, rather than as something that can be demonstrated, then it does exist – but only in the minds of those who ‘believe’ it to be so, rather than as a factual and actual animating force, as is being argued here.  Heck, we can now measure and harness the invisible forces down to the point where we can use them to cook your food (see also: microwave ovens) and diagnose your diseases (see also: X-Ray, Cat Scan, MRI, etc.), so demonstrating an invisible force that is actually solely responsible for one’s very life ought to be a chip shot for you fellas.  Got Soul?

Show it to us.

“Yeah, we have such an upper hand on insects because we are so smart.”  Easy there tiger – even though there are probably more ants in any given square mile than there are or have ever been humans, at least we have come to realize which of the insects are beneficial and/or benign and which are destructive and/or disease carriers.  At least so far as we are concerned, and insect-borne disease and damage to humans is being lessened.  Back when all of this ancient prophesy nonsense was written they had not even a nominal notion of bacterial agency, and blamed all diseases and ‘plagues and pestilence’ on a displeased invisible God, and were told they could cure it by ‘appeasing’ the God.  This ‘appeasing’ usually took the form of killing critters and offering them unto the Priests, who were hungry, what with not working for a living and all . . . 

And the sidebar has been interesting, for sure, but let’s think about this:  “. . . we have adapted through intelligence where the rest of the natural world adapts through physical changes over time.”   As with all such things, this is partly true, and partly not.  We are as much a product of physical evolution as intellectual evolution, and we continue to evolve in both ways.  The difference here is that single-celled organisms (such as bacteria), and even the lower orders of multi-cellular life survive through incredibly rapid multiplication.  Nothing can kill off the entire strain, because they reproduce so rapidly and spread so quickly that they can’t be eliminated – with this as a survival strategy – physical simplicity and rapid reproduction -- any adaptation necessary to the species can be achieved in what amounts to an evolutionary blink-of-the-eye as concerns more complex animals.  Bacteria adapt and mutate so rapidly that we now have many invasive strains that have adapted an immunity to our common antibiotics.  

Humans, on the other hand, and most of the complex critters, have a long gestation period and a long maturing period, which tends to rule out any rapid-response as a species to changing conditions.  We just can’t reproduce that fast – so any changes do not occur in the matter of a few generations, as with the simpler organisms, but rather take place over tens of thousands of generations.  Painfully slowly, in other words.  It is often thought that extinctions among the higher animals outnumber the examples of the survival of any species over the course of history for this very reason – some species, perhaps most, overspecialized, and were unable to endure any sudden change.  And let’s face it, in evolutionary terms, an ice age, or the end of one, counts as a sudden change.  This planet has seen a few of those.

As a species, then, we didn’t arrive here fully formed, hairless, embarrassed by our lack of modest clothing, and asking directions to the warmest vacation spot.   We evolved slowly, on a physical level (which has not stopped and cannot), and at a certain point reached a level of intellect that began to create a consciousness that began to create an awareness of our ability to do something other than run away, cower in fear, and hide from predators.  First, it is thought, we overcame our individual weakness by becoming pack hunters – tribal, social, cooperative critters depending on each other for mutual survival.  

From there, we leapt immediately, in evolutionary terms, to 747’s, nuclear reactors, Viagra, Twinkies, and the Democratic Party.  Not everyone agrees that this was something that can be called progress, but here we are, nonetheless . . .


----------



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2012)

Tiger???????


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 9, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Tiger???????



Surely a term of endearment.  BTW, I have not got to the video yet.  Little league responsibilities have dominated my evening.  I will get to it tomorrow or Sunday, then discuss it.

Asath, well thought out post, I appreciate you posting it.  I will post a well thought out response next time I log on.  I am kind-of turning it over a bit.  Good that we can agree a little on the human evolution at least in part being an intellectual one.


----------



## Cold Steel (Mar 10, 2012)

find the Lord , I have


----------



## Asath (Mar 10, 2012)

Sorry for the ‘Tiger’ thing, if it offends.  Around here we use the phrase, “Easy there Tiger,” as a gentle check on our buddies that are running too far ahead of the situation at hand.  I mean no disrespect and imply no disagreement by the use of the term, but only thought that you jumped ahead of your own argument by laying out the conclusion before boring everyone to death with the rather elementary logic and premises underlying it – you’ve been around here long enough to realize that even with page after page of explication one stubbornly uneducated moron or another will STILL retort that even gravity is as yet unproven in their view.  

OUR job is not to jump to the conclusion, aggressively, but to actually bore them to death with the REASONS why we are right, since they lacked the attention span to learn any of this stuff during the free education we provided to them.  The assertions we argue against are merely that – assertions – unproven, undemonstrated by their nature, and backed not by established reality that is in evidence but merely by the proclamation that they ‘Believe’ it.

Engaging in some sort of, “Is Too! – Is Not!” playground game is just wasting your skills, and letting others once again direct your attentions and drag you into their arena of childish nonsense.  If there is only one decent lesson to be learned from their Book, it is that the tiger didn’t win – the snake did.


----------



## hummdaddy (Mar 10, 2012)

stringmusic said:


> What do you think stops those impulses? What do you think started them in the first place?



energy.....those little sparks going off in your brain


----------



## mtnwoman (Mar 10, 2012)

bullethead said:


> You really just don't get it do you?



That was just a joke....sheesh.

Yes I get it. No matter what or how I reply, I get smacked....


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 12, 2012)

bullethead said:


> http://becominghuman.org/node/interactive-documentary



I could not get the documentary to play, so I read the transcript. I wasn't looking for flaws, but noticed several assumptions.

Perhaps the transcipt I read was incomplete, but it did mention that the brain size was driven by body size.  This was not the case for many other species, and I believe humans are the only speicies where such a corelation is made.  This is what puzzles me.  Neanderthals had a large brain as well, and the assumption is that humans drove them into extinction (because there is little evidence of their DNA in our modern DNA).

The gap between Lucy and Homo erectus is evident, yet a link is drawn between the two.  The latter ate meat, and it is assumed that caused the spreading out of the species....but at what point did the brain begin to evolve larger as a corelation to a larger body size?  Not to be obtuse, but why haven't lions built skyscrapers yet?  They ate meat, are larger in body size than us, and have evolved from more primitive species.

This is where I get lost with evolution.  We see a link and assume it is the link, and fill the gaps with assumptions (sounds like faith a little).


----------



## stringmusic (Mar 12, 2012)

hummdaddy said:


> energy.....those little sparks going off in your brain



What makes them "go off"? What makes them stop? When does this happen and who's or what's the decision maker in this process?


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> I could not get the documentary to play, so I read the transcript. I wasn't looking for flaws, but noticed several assumptions.
> 
> Perhaps the transcipt I read was incomplete, but it did mention that the brain size was driven by body size.  This was not the case for many other species, and I believe humans are the only speicies where such a corelation is made.  This is what puzzles me.  Neanderthals had a large brain as well, and the assumption is that humans drove them into extinction (because there is little evidence of their DNA in our modern DNA).
> 
> ...



When humans started to cook meat we started to eat more protein on a daily basis than other mammals. It had a direct effect on our brain function. It allowed us to further our advances towards what we need. If Lions needed skyscrapers they probably would have them by now. They just don't need them.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2012)

Here is another one for you JB.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112334465


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## JB0704 (Mar 14, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Here is another one for you JB.
> 
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112334465



Just read it.   Interesting stuff.  I think they said the first ancestor started with a larger brain (pre-cooking).  That the intestinal tract was smaller, and we processed food mroe efficiently because of cooking.  If this is correct, cooking would have started about 2 million years ago.  Was fire a tool by that point?

Does that negate the point I was making?


----------



## ted_BSR (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> When humans started to cook meat we started to eat more protein on a daily basis than other mammals. It had a direct effect on our brain function. It allowed us to further our advances towards what we need. If Lions needed skyscrapers they probably would have them by now. They just don't need them.



A lion eats 11 to 15 pounds of meat a day. Have you EVER eaten that much protein in a day?
The vegans would say you need to eat more brocolli.

I bet a gazelle ranch would benefit the lions, a lot. They have yet to build one.

http://www.catalogs.com/info/gadgets/what-do-lions-eat.html


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> A lion eats 11 to 15 pounds of meat a day. Have you EVER eaten that much protein in a day?
> The vegans would say you need to eat more brocolli.
> 
> I bet a gazelle ranch would benefit the lions, a lot. They have yet to build one.
> ...



Do the lions eat the more easily digestible, best nutritional bang for the buck, COOKED meat?
I eat lots of broccoli. But the Vegan idea of a natural diet is out of touch what what our ancestors natural diet really was.
I'd love to see the Vegan"hollywood types" eat an actual natural diet by smashing a mouse with a rock and eating it raw. I cracked up while watching an interview with Drew Barrymore. She claimed she does not eat meat or any animal parts then proceeds to name Jell-o as one of her favorite snacks. OH I WISH I could be there when someone explains exactly what the Gelatin in the Jell-o is and how it is produced.


----------



## ted_BSR (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Do the lions eat the more easily digestible, best nutritional bang for the buck, COOKED meat?
> I eat lots of broccoli. But the Vegan idea of a natural diet is out of touch what what our ancestors natural diet really was.
> I'd love to see the Vegan"hollywood types" eat an actual natural diet by smashing a mouse with a rock and eating it raw. I cracked up while watching an interview with Drew Barrymore. She claimed she does not eat meat or any animal parts then proceeds to name Jell-o as one of her favorite snacks. OH I WISH I could be there when someone explains exactly what the Gelatin in the Jell-o is and how it is produced.



You are dodging the question. Your premise is flawed, cooked or raw. It doesn't add up.

Oh well, I am used to it. Please continue.


----------



## mtnwoman (Mar 15, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> You are dodging the question. Your premise is flawed, cooked or raw. It doesn't add up.
> 
> Oh well, I am used to it. Please continue.



smashing a mouse and eatin' it raw?? Never heard, personally, of someone having to do that. Wow!
Now having a box of 'road kill helper' and some road kill is another story.........easy way to get rid of a dirty rotten rat......lol


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> You are dodging the question. Your premise is flawed, cooked or raw. It doesn't add up.
> 
> Oh well, I am used to it. Please continue.



You obviously didn't read the link I posted earlier.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

mtnwoman said:


> smashing a mouse and eatin' it raw?? Never heard, personally, of someone having to do that. Wow!
> Now having a box of 'road kill helper' and some road kill is another story.........easy way to get rid of a dirty rotten rat......lol



You never heard because you didn't read the link(s) I posted and you don't try to educate yourself about our early ancestors and you didn't live at a time in human history where our ancestors didn't cook their food they had to kill it and eat it raw.


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## JB0704 (Mar 15, 2012)

Bullet, have you read about the Red Deer Cave people?  I only point it out for the fact that it is interesting (not taking sides).  These people were around 11k years ago.  It could be that they were just really ugly....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/14/red-deer-cave-people-species-human


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Bullet, have you read about the Red Deer Cave people?  I only point it out for the fact that it is interesting (not taking sides).  These people were around 11k years ago.  It could be that they were just really ugly....
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/14/red-deer-cave-people-species-human



Saw it.


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## JB0704 (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Saw it.



Form what I understand, they think it is a different line of human that lasted up until agriculture began.  They did cook meat though.


----------



## Tvveedie (Mar 15, 2012)

Energy is my answer to both questions posed in OP


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 15, 2012)

Tvveedie said:


> Energy is my answer to both questions posed in OP



Does it cease to exist upon death?


----------



## gordon 2 (Mar 15, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Does it cease to exist upon death?



No. Oxygen continues with its corrosive effect on iron even after death. But that is for our physical existence.

We are also spiritual creatures and this gives us another answer to what animates us or what gives us spiritual life and the life we know itself, along with the "energy" which continues post mortum or physical death.

The vast majority of what we do as individuals and as groups is due to Spirit of the spiritual kind. For example Jesus died so that He might become Spirit to those called by God. And if those that believe are honest with what Jesus has become, then the Spirit that animates us will not end with our physical death.

And to the post that had a little sentence saying that we cannot reanimate dead rats--well, yee have no hospital experience [there is a window we can click].


----------



## ambush80 (Mar 15, 2012)

gordon 2 said:


> No. Oxygen continues with its corrosive effect on iron even after death. But that is for our physical existence.
> 
> We are also spiritual creatures and this gives us another answer to what animates us or what gives us spiritual life and the life we know itself, along with the "energy" which continues post mortum or physical death.
> 
> ...



Nuh uh.


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Saw it.



Bullet (and the other atheists on here), I read your links, and JH posted this over in the SD&S.   I would appreciate it if you took the time to read it.  It really does a nice job of describing how Christians with similar beliefs to mine see these things.  Particlarly the conclusions posted at the end.  If nothing else it will help frame future debates between us....(apologies to JH if he did not want this shared over here...I will delete it if needed).

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/03/14/towards-a-solution-in-the-creation-debates/


----------



## ambush80 (Mar 15, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Bullet (and the other atheists on here), I read your links, and JH posted this over in the SD&S.   I would appreciate it if you took the time to read it.  It really does a nice job of describing how Christians with similar beliefs to mine see these things.  Particlarly the conclusions posted at the end.  If nothing else it will help frame future debates between us....(apologies to JH if he did not want this shared over here...I will delete it if needed).
> 
> http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/03/14/towards-a-solution-in-the-creation-debates/



3 things from the blog:

1.  A day in Genesis might not have been 24 hours.
2.  It's not a salvation issue
3.  All the natural processes including evolution were set up by god.

My response:

1.  Those goat herders didn't know what the flip they were talking about.

2.  In this forum, there is no such thing as a salvation issue.

3.  You can attribute evolution or our instinctive morality (String) to god but there is no proof that can be offered to support that claim.  Even if god existed, neither evolution nor morality necessarily came from him/it/she.  What is absolutely, incontrovertibly true is that there is no need for a god to have any of those things exist.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Bullet (and the other atheists on here), I read your links, and JH posted this over in the SD&S.   I would appreciate it if you took the time to read it.  It really does a nice job of describing how Christians with similar beliefs to mine see these things.  Particlarly the conclusions posted at the end.  If nothing else it will help frame future debates between us....(apologies to JH if he did not want this shared over here...I will delete it if needed).
> 
> http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/03/14/towards-a-solution-in-the-creation-debates/



I will check it out for sure.


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> I will check it out for sure.



Cool, thanks.  I will respond to Ambush as well, but it basically puts in writing how a believer can accept scientific discovery and maintain their faith.  The writer takes an "old earth" view, as do I.


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 15, 2012)

Thanks for reading it Ambush.



ambush80 said:


> 2.  In this forum, there is no such thing as a salvation issue..



It was written from one believer to others.  I was not intending for you to view it from that perspective.  Instead, so you might understand that there are those of us who believe in God, and accept science.  It helps explain the context we come from.



ambush80 said:


> 3.  You can attribute evolution or our instinctive morality (String) to god but there is no proof that can be offered to support that claim.  Even if god existed, neither evolution nor morality necessarily came from him/it/she.  What is absolutely, incontrovertibly true is that there is no need for a god to have any of those things exist.



We have run this rabbit many times, but you and I will disagree on this point.  I view a creator as a very logical conclusion.  The last conclusion listen in the article sums it up between a creator and time + chance.  My logic leads me in a different directions than you.

But again, the point for the post was so you can understand how a person can take an old earth view, accept evolution, and still believe in God.


----------



## ambush80 (Mar 15, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Thanks for reading it Ambush.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Do you maintain that it is absolutely, unequivocally impossible for all to have come about without a creator?


You didn't address #1.  I know you have a different view of the Bible than fundamentalists but how do you get around the fact that the goat herders wrote down "6 days"?


----------



## hummdaddy (Mar 15, 2012)

your brain fires off sparks (which are thoughts)...when those things stop you are dead...if your arteries clog you have a heart attack your dead...if you bleed out your dead....ect.ect. there is no soul that is in there keeping everything going


----------



## ted_BSR (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> You obviously didn't read the link I posted earlier.



Did you think I would?????


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> Did you think I would?????



Ted it doesn't matter to me either way, but you could save yourself the back and forth banter when asking things that you would have found out in the links.


----------



## ted_BSR (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Ted it doesn't matter to me either way, but you could save yourself the back and forth banter when asking things that you would have found out in the links.



I like the banter. It is why I am here.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> I like the banter. It is why I am here.



No problem.


----------



## ted_BSR (Mar 15, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> I like the banter. It is why I am here.



Sorry for quoting myself, but it would be very boring if we sat around and agreed with each other all the time. How would one type (nodding your head and grunting)?

That wouldn't make for much of a forum!


----------



## ted_BSR (Mar 15, 2012)

bullethead said:


> Ted it doesn't matter to me either way, but you could save yourself the back and forth banter when asking things that you would have found out in the links.



It seems you are suggesting that the truth lies within these links. I can't rely on the internet for a source of truth. That is far more illogical than my religion.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 15, 2012)

ted_BSR said:


> It seems you are suggesting that the truth lies within these links. I can't rely on the internet for a source of truth. That is far more illogical than my religion.



Not sure about the truth(none of us surely know what that is), just answers to the questions you ask after the conversation continues on about what is said in the links. Just saying, if you read the link(s) you might not ask those questions but might be able to take that information and continue the conversation along those lines.


----------



## JB0704 (Mar 16, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> Do you maintain that it is absolutely, unequivocally impossible for all to have come about without a creator?



I believe a creator to be the most logical conclusion of various conclusions which may be drawn.




ambush80 said:


> You didn't address #1.  I know you have a different view of the Bible than fundamentalists but how do you get around the fact that the goat herders wrote down "6 days"?



I don't approach it as "getting around."  I just look for what it is trying to say.  Because I do not have a literal view of many things in the OT, I do not believe it was intended for the reader to believe a "7-day" week (and I am alienating my own team by saying that).  I believe it was a way for the writer to say that God was in it all.

Also, I don't know who wrote Genesis.  There is a lot of theory as to how the book was compiled.  But, it drew together many stories from many traditions to relate origins in a way that would show the hand of a creator.


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## ambush80 (Mar 16, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> I believe a creator to be the most logical conclusion of various conclusions which may be drawn.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I appreciate how you can recognize the hand of man in creation of the Bible and you understand the virtual impossibility of the miracle claims' veracity......except for the one claim.   Why do you think the resurrection is real and literal but not the great fish?


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## JB0704 (Mar 16, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> I appreciate how you can recognize the hand of man in creation of the Bible and you understand the virtual impossibility of the miracle claims' veracity......except for the one claim.   Why do you think the resurrection is real and literal but not the great fish?



Different authors, different purposes, different times.  I believe in Jesus' miracles (if he is God, why not).  I do not believe in Jonah and the whale because it, fro me at least, does not read as if it was intended to be a historical fact.  It sounds and reads a lot like the common children's stories we read growing up.  That does not mean the story is without merit, as there is much to learn from Jonah, but much like Jesus' parables, it did not have to happen in order to pass along the point.

The resurection did.  I know you won't get it, and my belief seems a bit odd to you, believing one and not the other, but it is what it is.  I can't explain it any better than I have in this and previous posts.  The resurection story is the central act in the entire book.  If it is not true, then the rest is just a guidebook for living.  If it is true, then it and the rest is a revelation of God through the book.  I choose to believe it.  I also choose to follow the wisdom I can glean from the story of Jonah, and Job, and I guess the talking donkey (even though I have never paid that particlaur story much attention). 

But again, I believe God is the giver of life, and death is no obstacle.  Think through the question asking "what makes us alive."  My answer really explains why a resurection is not hard for a believer in God to fathom.


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## ambush80 (Mar 16, 2012)

JB0704 said:


> Different authors, different purposes, different times.  I believe in Jesus' miracles (if he is God, why not).  I do not believe in Jonah and the whale because it, fro me at least, does not read as if it was intended to be a historical fact.  It sounds and reads a lot like the common children's stories we read growing up.  That does not mean the story is without merit, as there is much to learn from Jonah, but much like Jesus' parables, it did not have to happen in order to pass along the point.
> 
> The resurection did.  I know you won't get it, and my belief seems a bit odd to you, believing one and not the other, but it is what it is.  I can't explain it any better than I have in this and previous posts.  The resurection story is the central act in the entire book.  If it is not true, then the rest is just a guidebook for living.  If it is true, then it and the rest is a revelation of God through the book.  I choose to believe it.  I also choose to follow the wisdom I can glean from the story of Jonah, and Job, and I guess the talking donkey (even though I have never paid that particlaur story much attention).
> 
> But again, I believe God is the giver of life, and death is no obstacle.  Think through the question asking "what makes us alive."  My answer really explains why a resurection is not hard for a believer in God to fathom.



What I find the most peculiar about your position is that if the resurrection is possible, then a guy in a fish is a cake walk, therefore, if a guy in a fish is stupid, so is a resurrection.  

You seem so thoughtful, but for some reason you just buy the resurrection thing.  I can't imagine that you apply that kind of weakish evidence to influence any other aspect of your reality.  It blows my mind.  Did you just one day say "I'm just gonna believe, whole hog,  that Jesus is god and see where it gets me"?  How do you throw that switch?  Why not Ganesh?


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## JB0704 (Mar 16, 2012)

ambush80 said:


> What I find the most peculiar about your position is that if the resurrection is possible, then a guy in a fish is a cake walk, therefore, if a guy in a fish is stupid, so is a resurrection.



One is not dependant on the other.  One was written to change the world, the other was not.  One was written "to the choir," the other was written to everybody.  Men died trying to get the word out that Jesus had risen.  Nobody died talking about Jonah.  One had eyewitnesses, the other did not.  I can go through a very long list of reasons that you will whole heartedly reject, but they all allow me to remain at peace with my beliefs.  Life is unnatural to start with.  Everything is naturally "dead."  Life is a temporary state of being, then you return to being dead.  But everything that makes you has always been here, and will continue to be here after you are gone.  BAck to the topic of the thread.....what is it that makes that matter that constitues Ambush "alive?"  I say the spark, which was the evidence needed to make the point which was made by the resurection.

I don't think a guy in a fish is stupid, just not consistent with the natural laws put in place (I say by God, you say by chance).  It is a good story for the believer.  



ambush80 said:


> You seem so thoughtful, but for some reason you just buy the resurrection thing.  I can't imagine that you apply that kind of weakish evidence to influence any other aspect of your reality.  It blows my mind.  Did you just one day say "I'm just gonna believe, whole hog,  that Jesus is god and see where it gets me"?  How do you throw that switch?  Why not Ganesh?



Well, in a round about way, yes.  I "bought in" in a whole hearted fashion according to what it says, not by what I was taught.  And we have been down this road before, but it "got me" what I was looking for, what I have, what it says it does (whole 'nother topic there, but I am not talking about heaven).

How do I throw that switch? Growing up Christian made it very easy.  I doubted everything for several years, but "coming back to Jesus" was a natural transition.  If I had grown up believing in Ganesh it may have been difficult.  Just being honest here.

I don't know what more I can say other than that.  We can continue to have our thoughtful debates with the understanding that I am one of those "dellusional" Christians who actually believe a man came back to life.  That is fine with me.  But I don't think I can give you the understanding you are looking for, and I can't reject my faith, as I believe it to be true.


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