The thread closed before I could reply to adam's question below, so I'm continuing it...

"But let me ask you this hie. Don't you feel like your daughter has a spirit or an essence separate from the body itself? A soul of some kind of her own? I want a daughter one day too and I want to make sure I know some things of maybe she did exist before the body. I want my mind and knowledge to be correct before I have a child."

No. Not in any way.
I have three kids. This latest one, because I was working from home when she was born (and my wife was teaching), I was the primary caregiver for nearly all of her first year.

What I observed was a gorgeous little bundle of a combination of my wife's DNA and mine, which came into existence without any knowledge, experience, memory, or any evidence of any kind of "soul" or "spirit."

I watched her learn from interacting with the world and with her family -- going from knowing absolutely nothing (she even had to be taught how to feed, though she certainly felt the need to do so), to learning to recognize her parents' faces from others, to staring at high-contrast/moving patterns (you could almost see the brain cells wiring themselves up in response to such stimuli), to learning when making sounds will get her what she wants (and when they won't)...

All the way to learning first words, learning to control her body, learning to crawl then walk, learning to string a few words together, learning basic sentence grammar, learning to ask questions, enjoying the rhythm of music, and on and on and on...to the fast-learning, precocious, well-spoken little 3 year-old she is today.

I watched her learn, and learn from loving parents and siblings. There was no sign of any kind of any pre-existing "spirit" or "soul," there was only soaking up her environment and experiences and learning from them. Brain development, not magic unseen spirit-things.

"...reason tells me that I've a mother there..."

It's not really 'reason' that tells mormons that there was a pre-existence, along with the assorted myths that go along with that.

There is no biological imperative that requires humans to come up with answers to the questions, Where did I come from, Why am I here, and Where am I going.

But too many people do...

>> But too many people do...

African Gazelle: Everyday a stand on this savanna eating grass, then walking to the water hole, and back to the grass, yet at times I think to myself....where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going? I just lose myself in my thoughts and ponderize, over and over.....where did I come from, why am I here, and where am I going? Such a perplexing yet peaceful thought.....where did I come from, why is that lion looking at me, where is he going.....lion?.....LION?.....ahhh! lion! Run, run, ruuuu.....oops, trip, stumble, stumble, fall....ahhhhhh!....heeeelp....ahhhhh....crunch, crunch.....gurgle.....gurgle..........gurg....................

Lolol. African gazelle over thinking it just a little!

"Whence came we? ANSWER: Out of the past; out of the things that we have done before; out of the labors unfinished, the fruitage incomplete; out of the past vices and virtues; out of the sins of our own flesh; out of the darkness of our ignorance, out of a chain of lives that leads up from the muck and the mire; out of the dawn of things; out of the faith of Dharma; out of the sum of things, gradually into the separateness of things; out of the One into the many, carrying from life to life the burden of the past, with us ever tropic a strange group led by the demon of Desire, our faults and failings, dancing around our tortured souls. Thus we came down into the present, bringing with us the virtues and the vices of the past, and urged on by the endless law of ignorance to the oneness of wisdom.

"Why are we here? ANSWER: We are here because of the past, for the past gives birth to the present and from the present is born the future; we are here to finish, or at least to carry on, the labor we brought with us incomplete from the dawn of things; we are brought here by our joys and sorrows, and most of all we are led here by our desires, and here we remain until the last desire is dead, until the last possession is renounced, until the last accumulation of personality which we have brought with us is returned again into the great All from whence it came. If we are born ignorant, we come to accumulate; if we are born in wisdom, we come to disseminate. To the wise man, the life he lives here is an opportunity to rid himself of the ballast which he has accumulated in the past, to rid himself of his notions, his viewpoints, to rid himself of his concepts of life and death; and, leaving them all behind, to place his feet upon the Middle Way. At the gateway to futurity the road forks. One goes on to Nirvana. It is the noble path to attainment. The other twists back again to go through it all again and again, until at last the spirit learns its lesson and chooses of its own free will to walk the Middle Path.

"Whither are we going? ANSWER: We go to meet our deserts; we go to the effects of our causations. Those whose labors are unfinished merely go around the wheel and return again to labor toward fuller completion. Those few whose labors are done have discovered the middle road which leads to Nirvana where they return to the Causeless Cause from whence they came, to await a more noble destiny as the Maker of Things sees fit. It is said that the Lord Buddha had finished his labors; he had learned the only lesson this world can teach--the lesson of discrimination; and, having learned to choose wisely between the permanent and the impermanent, he had unmasked the great illusion. To unmask the faults is the labor of the soul. To stand in equilibrium in the midst of things is the way of Buddha. To contemplate life but never to be enmeshed within life, is the law of the Buddha, To become one again with the infinite Cause, to know once more the shining One from whom all came, to be one again with that eternal something which is the sum of all things--this is liberation, this is freedom to be absorbed again into the Reality is the end of the great Buddha." (Manly P. Hall, "The Noble Eightfold Path")

Free will wasn't free. It took natural selection a very long time to come up with.

I think I'm supposed to do bad things to Buddha if I meet him...?

As an adult I've learned to only give myself labels and to reject labels from outside sources. I'm not going to accept a label from someone because then I may very well start to emulate that label.

I sometimes wonder if we are doing the same thing with children when we try and assign external value to their existence. Children aren't experienced enough to know that they shouldn't accept candy from strangers, so they rely on experienced adults to tell them. Why then do parents, who children implicitly trust, give their children an unsupportable external value instead of helping them embrace the internal value of simply being themselves?

Yes. Labels vs. identity.

ificouldhietokolob Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The thread closed before I could reply to adam's
> question below, so I'm continuing it...
>
> "But let me ask you this hie. Don't you feel like
> your daughter has a spirit or an essence separate
> from the body itself? A soul of some kind of her
> own? I want a daughter one day too and I want to
> make sure I know some things of maybe she did
> exist before the body. I want my mind and
> knowledge to be correct before I have a child."

Don't have kids if you need that kind of knowledge to have them.

>> "I want my mind and knowledge to be correct before I have a child."

I think this is a major factor in an ongoing theme with one poster and their recovery...or lack there of.

My ex-wife had this delusion that you can't and shouldn't do anything unless you know how to do it and do it right. She got that from her emotionally abusive father, who could do a lot of things well, but told her she couldn't do anything because she didn't know how.

Consequently, she never tried to try to learn new things, or develop skills, etc. That caused her to wallow in self pity and loathing because she "can't do anything" and it caused her to hate and lash out at people (violently sometimes) that could do things and do them well. All that hate and negativity then caused major health problems that made her life (and mine) even worse.

I was a one of her main victims of that behavior because I can do quite a few things well. And I can only do them well because I tried and failed until I got it right. Then I continued doing it, getting better and better at it over time. Being able to do things well has been a major source of happiness in my life. I never believed I couldn't do something and I always believed I didn't have to do something just because someone said so. I'm my own pilot.

This "I won't do something until I know I'm doing it correctly" will keep a person stuck in their rut, depressed and alone, sick and miserable with physical pain, and eventually that rut develops into a chasm and swallows you.

I've seen that first hand and now I see it again on RFM. I also know it doesn't have to be that way.

Excellent point.

Of course, I had no idea whatsoever how to be a good dad when I had kids. I learned along the way. And failed at it regularly. I often tell my son (our first) that he was my "learning experience," and I did better with the other two. He agrees ;)

My wife was a lot like yours (not quite so extreme perhaps) when we got married. Afraid to try new things, mostly for fear of failing.

After we'd been married her a couple of years, I talked to her about it. I pointed out that she wasn't afraid to try marrying me, and look how well that worked out...

"But I was afraid," she said.

"Then what got you to do it despite being afraid?" I asked.

"Your cute butt," she replied.

That's why I love her :)

>> I pointed out that she wasn't afraid to try marrying me, and look how well that worked out...

That made me smile. Thanks.

You always screw up the first kid. It's good your son seems to forgive you.

I am once again an only child, myself. For awhile, I was the oldest of 3, but I outlived them. So now, I don't have to worry that I'm the one my parents screwed up...I am what I am...so be it.

Nothing is often a good thing to do and an even better thing to say.

And Seinfeld had a spectacularly successful career doing a show about nothing. I think Nothing deserves a little more respect.

And "Nones" is the fastest growing "religion" in the US. They are on to something.

You need something to believe in?

“She was just eating a maraschino ice that she held with her left hand in a silver-gilt cup, her eyes half-closed, and the spoon between her teeth.”
--Madame Bovary

Works for me.

BoJ wrote:

“She was just eating a maraschino ice that she held with her left hand in a silver-gilt cup, her eyes half-closed, and the spoon between her teeth.”
--Madame Bovary

Works for me."


Me too.

Now look what you made me do:


"Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet."
L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables


“None of those other things makes a difference. Love is the strongest thing in the world, you know. Nothing can touch it. Nothing comes close. If we love each other we’re safe from it all. Love is the biggest thing there is.”
David Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars, 1994


“Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.”
Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Different Seasons), 1982


Two of my favourites:

"She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together."
J. D. Salinger, A Girl I Knew


"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."
Nicole Krauss, The History of Love



And for the times in which we live:

"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane."
Philip K. Dick, Valis, 1981



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2018 05:04PM by Nightingale.

Very, very nice.

Thanks for sharing this!

Thank you Nighty... that was a breath of beauty and peace and love. Much needed.

Don't ever leave Hie... you hear me?

saucie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Don't ever leave Hie... you hear me?

Heard. And appreciated :)

I always say I'm not crazy about poetry but then along comes a choice phrase that sings and I guess I like it after all. Making music with words. What a great (and often unsung - ha) talent.

I especially love the one about the girl leaning on the balcony. Also pondering laughter forever. Fabulous!

I'm jealous that people can come up with such imagery that reaches out to countless fellow humans. Saying exactly the right thing. So much meaning in so few words. Amazing.

I could fall in love with a guy like the balcony man. :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2018 05:10PM by Nightingale.

Kids don't come with a manual and every one is different. You can think you've studied everything there is to know about kids, only to have one which just doesn't fit the mold.

Greyfort Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Kids don't come with a manual and every one is
> different. You can think you've studied
> everything there is to know about kids, only to
> have one which just doesn't fit the mold.

I see, so there really is no preparation at all before having a kid.

I worry that you seem to be going with all or nothing. Life isn't like that. There are in-betweens and gray areas.

You can prepare to have kids, you can research things that you feel that you need to know, but that doesn't mean that you will or even need to know everything. Life will throw you curve balls (as from what I've ready, you've had enough of them thrown at you).

No one is saying, "is no preparation at all before having a kid". What they are saying is "Prepare, but don't expect your preparations to cover everything, and don't wait until you know 'everything' because you won't, but it can still be worth it."

At least that's how I take what people are saying.

And I (we?) are saying don't hoist unnecessary baggage on children. And one of the more unnecessary rocks in the bag is the idea that they only have worth because of their soul.

I see, well things never go the way I think it will anyways. So maybe this will be one of those things. I do feel I need to be a solid and good human being though before bringing a kid into the world. It's a lot of work to get to that point. I have to be really confident in what I am doing in life. Not exactly where I need to be now, having a kid now would Not work and I would have to put them up for adoption.

It's good that you're wanting to be on your best foot forward before having kids. Keep in mind that you will likely be having them WITH another person and they will have say in what happens.

Keep forgetting the with another person part. The relationship part. Not exactly my strong suit in life. I have trouble just being around a roommate all the time.

Hie, you truly believe that there is no entity inside your daughters body? Nothing is controlling the brain? She is just a soulless machine like the rest of us? No unique personality? Just a machine mimicking others?

Badassadam1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hie, you truly believe that there is no entity
> inside your daughters body?

I know you didn't ask me but I have daughters. I honestly believe they have no souls. Sometimes more than others.

> Nothing is
> controlling the brain?

The brain doesn't need a homunculus. It was evolved to be a pretty amazing thing full of personality, love, hate, cruelty, and contentment etc.

> She is just a soulless
> machine like the rest of us?

Like the rest of us my kids are not. They have a unique in the Universe combination of my genes and my wife's genes.

> No unique
> personality?

They do. See above.

> Just a machine mimicking others?

We are good at this because we evolved to help each other survive. Pretty cool how different we are in are abilities than most other hominids and Cetaceans, Elephants, and other creatures with very special neurons for helping each other.

Hahaha I have never heard someone say that their daughters have no souls. That's pretty impressive. That's conviction right there. I respect that. Who knows? Maybe you are right maybe we all are soulless.

Glad I could make you laugh.

In the "Does God exist" compared to "Does a soul exist" comparison I think there is much more evidence for no soul. At least it involves human bodies and not some kind of being somewhere doing something no one can test.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Glad I could make you laugh.
>
> In the "Does God exist" compared to "Does a soul
> exist" comparison I think there is much more
> evidence for no soul. At least it involves human
> bodies and not some kind of being somewhere doing
> something no one can test.

So we are just our brains basically in your view? As far as like personality?

Badassadam1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hie, you truly believe that there is no entity
> inside your daughters body?

I don't do "belief."
I go by evidence.
Nobody in the history of humanity has ever been able to show any evidence that there is some kind of "entity" inside any of us. So there's no reason to "believe" there is.

> Nothing is
> controlling the brain?

The brain is "controlling" the brain. Massive amounts of verifiable evidence confirm that. No evidence of any kind shows any "entity" controlling any part of the brain or any other part of a human body.

> She is just a soulless
> machine like the rest of us?

Human beings are not machines. Human beings are complex, evolved living biological entities. That's not a bad thing, it's wonderful and amazing.

> No unique
> personality?

Of course she has a unique personality. One that develops, learns, and changes as she grows. There not being some magical "soul" or "spirit" thing doesn't mean no unique personality.

> Just a machine mimicking others?

All of us learn from others, but our brains also have the ability to think and create and have new ideas. An imagined "soul" thing isn't necessary to do those things, a functioning brain is.

While I agree that no religious soul is involved, I certainly do believe that many of us acquire significant soul!

Like soul music or something. We create the soul.

Right!

And I think it is likely that you have met a few people who turned out to be soulless...

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Right!
>
> And I think it is likely that you have met a few
> people who turned out to be soulless...

Does old dog have a soul or soul? Does he groove on the dance floor? Haha.

We are here so we can go to the opera. Verdi’s Boner

BYU Boner Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We are here so we can go to the opera. Verdi’s
> Boner

We are here to battle I think boner. Battle of ideas. Make sense of things.

I'm a mother. The moment I looked into my new babies' eyes, I knew there was another human being looking back at me. This was a unique individual, and he/she would be that person for their lifetime. There would be only one person with that particular face, personality, and mind, and he/she would live only the one life.

I have great respect for children. I believe that they are born pure (no, they don't have to pay for Adam and Eve's transgressions), and parents have the responsibility to love and nurture that basic goodness, and protect them from the garbage, and give them the knowledge to tell the difference.

Children aren't the subjects of--or the victims of--genetics. They have choices.

Hie, it is great to love and care for your children, but to look at them purely as scientific (miraculous) phenomena is being disrespectful to them as human beings. I think you are objectifying them. You are also detaching yourself from them.

My children turned out exceptionally well, and I don't take much credit for that, because they were just born "good." I read every book I could find on the subject of raising children, and there were a lot of contradictory ideas--but whenever I was in doubt, I just loved them, unconditionally. Since they were unique individuals, I had no ready-made mold for them to fit into. How could I? There was no way my kids could have been Mormons. Even though all sides of their TBM family believed, they never could believe. Children are often wiser than adults, on the most basic, deeper, instinctual matters.

I felt that I needed to make the effort understand my children. No way could I look at them as mere clusters of organized, specialized cells.

"The whole is more than just the sum of the parts" --Gestalt

Good post appreciated it.

exminion Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hie, it is great to love and care for your
> children, but to look at them purely as scientific
> (miraculous) phenomena is being disrespectful to
> them as human beings. I think you are
> objectifying them. You are also detaching
> yourself from them.

Science is a method for finding out facts. Nothing is "purely a scientific phenomena." Things are. Science is the best way we have to find out how things are what they are.

And frankly, I don't care if you think accepting things as they are, including my children, is "objectifying them." I think that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. It also doesn't involve any "detachment," another one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. It seems like you're tossing absurd insults at people who don't share magical beliefs in imaginary things for which there is no evidence.

So I'll state it simply: you're wrong about those things. Absolutely, completely wrong.

> I felt that I needed to make the effort understand
> my children. No way could I look at them as mere
> clusters of organized, specialized cells.

Those two things aren't in any way mutually exclusive (even though the latter part is a rather silly straw-man anyway). In fact, not pretending children (or other humans) are full of some imaginary magical spirit-thing for which there is no evidence is "understanding" them better than pretending there is such a thing.

And adam, that wasn't a "good post." It was a pile of irrational arguments, straw-men, and sideways insults in an attempt to justify magical beliefs for which there is no evidence of any kind. It's the same kind of uninformed, insulting BS that mormons use to try and get people to believe their claims without evidence.

As a believer in nothing but the beautiful and often challenging real world which envelopes me daily, I do not feel that this short-changes myself, others and children.

Believing that we humans, as science with experiments and observation has shown, are a product of both our genetics and our experiences is a beautiful enlightenment that others in the past have not had the privilege to know. They needed, and did, search for other explanations, some weird, some silly and some very crazy. I would have met my death by execution for my views back in inquisition time.

I sincerely thank all the searching and thinking people who brought such information about human make-up and development to the forefront.

My academic background is in language and linguistics, and we had to study the process of acquiring language in childhood.

When I told my baby son, "can you show me 'pattycake?" (without demonstrating it myself, he gave me a broad, six-toothed grin and clapped his little hands together. Knowing the synaptic linking that had to go on for this to happen just bowled me over.

I tried to explain this wonder to son's father, whose background was in marketing, and he was not worth much as a father anyway, he was underwhelmed, and suggested that I was making a big deal about a "so what?" event. But I have never forgotten how that moment made my heart glow.

Said son will turn 42 early in July, so it has been a while! And since he is a professional magician by trade, those dexterous hands are even more amazing now.

My birthday is in July as well.

There is no such thing as 'nothing'.
Nothing is really, something.
When you look at a cup with 1/2 a cup of water in it,
or do you see it as half empty or half full?
I see it as all the way full,
because half is full of water and the other half is full of air . Both halves are filled with light, ghost particles, god particles, dark matter/energy.
What we think of as 'nothing' is really something.
It's amazing.
Look at what the God Particle does.
It's reasponsible for EVERYTHING, you, me, everything that matters, and some stuff, like neutrinos and photons, that barely matter.
Then look at what the Great Attractor does, it pulls not just our galaxy, but all the galaxies in our neighborhood, Laneakea, 14 million mph (1/48th the speed of light) toward it, inextricably, we're spinning in 4 different directions at once, as are all the planets and stars in all the galaxies, spinning in 4 different directions at once.
At least 4.
String theorists like Michio Kaku, theorizes there are different 11 dimensions in space, and that we only see 4 at most but our math doesn't make any sense until there are 11 dimensions. 12 dimensions doesn't make any sense because time goes both backwards and forwards at the same time beyond 11 dimensions. Like he says, "We have a candidate for what Einstein called, 'the Mind of God', the cosmic music resonating through 12 dimensions of hyperspace."

https://bigthink.com/videos/the-multiverse-has-11-dimensions-2

We live in a renaissance of scientific discovery and it's far more meaningful than any bullshit story you read in 'divine revelation' which usually turns out to be some deviant bastard's way of getting laid, and rich and famous.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2018 01:32AM by koriwhore.

Never heard of the god particle. Who discovered it? What is it?

Read and learn:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Particle

Is there intelligence to this particle? Or some intelligence behind it? I'm already reading enough books for now I think. Is it in the cosmos book I got?

Lots of believers think that believing in a belief system like a religion is good, and not believing in it is bad because you are missing something. I think it's the opposite: religion is not a bonus, it's baggage, ballast, dead weight slowing you down.

To me, reality is like a beautiful house and garden with lovely furniture, works of art, and a great diversity of flora and fauna. Religion is an enormous heap of burnt-out cars, broken things and rotting garbage covering every inch of it ten feet high. Only when you get rid of this garbage can you begin to see the room, the art, and the garden in all their glory.

Does that make sense to you, Adam?

Cut out the religion part. I think connecting religion and god is not correct and a bad habit of people. Just say you are a person and someone else out there gives a crap about you no matter what you did more than your family ever did. I think a god would disagree with religions on every level. In my opinion. They are too dumbed down for a god to be a part of I realized.

Religions form to answer questions that humankind feels are important. It does not seem likely that any church that exists or has existed is the One True Church of a One (or more) True Ghawd.

Maybe someday there will no longer be any questions humankind can't answer? Ghawd will then have to file for unemployment.

Once again I play my broken record and refer you to the 6th and 7th tablets of "The Lost Book of Enki" concerning the creation of homo sapien

thedesertrat1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Once again I play my broken record and refer you
> to the 6th and 7th tablets of "The Lost Book of
> Enki" concerning the creation of homo sapien

You can Google those? Now you got me curious.