Axil, much confusion exists because we do not have firm definitions of the terms we use. Much like the confusion that accompanies disscusions about Darwinian Evolution. We can't agree whether Darwinian Evolution is right or wrong, when we don't even have a good definition of what a "species" is. I believe this vagueness contributes to your misunderstanding below.
Well, Let me try to define how the Bible defines certain things. You asked for verses, so I will oblige and try to answer with verses as much as possible Genesis 1 defines what a species is. 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Genesis 2 further elaborates on how God created these creatures. 19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. Hence, it is clear that all original creatures were created from the "ground" (dirt). Furthermore, it is abundantly clear with the terms "his kind", that reproduction can only occur when 2 individuals of the "same" kind (species) come together. They can not reporoduce outside of their "kind". This is the definition of a speicies. Reproduction is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for defining a species. Only creature that reproduce after their "kind" is the natural order of things. Any genetic hybridization is outside of their "kind" and hence does not originate from God. Genesis 2 explains the origins of man and the living soul. 7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Man was formed from Dust of the ground (dirt), as well as all original creatures. Then God imparted to him a living soul. Hence, we need to understand that the existence of any cell is NOT the existence of a soul. The soul can only come from God. Creatures created in the lab thru genetic manipulation has not been imparted the "breath of life", hence not a "living soul". Regarding twins. Both individuals are conceived in the womb, and hence is the natural order of things. Both individuals would have been imparted the "breathe of life" by God during conception. Each would have its own soul distinct from the other. You see, it matters not whether we were created directly from dust (like Adam), or from a rib bone of Adam (like Eve) or from egg and sperm (like all the rest of us). The important thing is that in all these acts of creation, God is the one doing the creation. Hence, he imparts his breathe of life to Adam, Eve and to the rest of us who are conceived under the natural order of things God ordained. Cloning, hybridization, genetic manipulation, artificial chimeras and other such genetic techniques involves actions outside the involvement of God, hence, he did not breathe into those creatures the breathe of life; hence NOT a living soul. I beleive the Bible is clear on this teaching. Jojo ----- Original Message ----- From: Axil Axil To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 12:51 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Quantum Soul? A chimera or chimaera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction. Chimeras are formed from at least four parent cells (two fertilized eggs or early embryos fused together). Each population of cells keeps its own character and the resulting organism is a mixture of tissues. Chimeras are typically seen in animals; there are some reports of human chimerism. In the process of human chimerism, two separate souls existed at the time of conception. When the early embryos fused together sometime after conception, does two souls become one? Or does one of the souls die? Does the chimera have two souls? What Bible verse direct us in answering these soul allocation questions associated with the formation of a chimera? ===================================== Regarding the soul formation process associated with identical twin formation. When the soul is created at conception, one soul is formed. But at a later time, the blastocyst undergoes fission into two separate individuals. When is the soul of the second individual formed? This second soul could not have been in place at the time of conception. I contend that the Bible does not cover this secondary soul creation process. Am I correct on this point? On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 9:49 PM, Jojo Jaro <jth...@hotmail.com> wrote: Axil, I always like your responses because you always get me thinking deeper. Anyways, I feel there are a few errors in your logic. First, you need to realize that the body - cells, DNA, etc. that form the human physical attributes exist in only 4 dimensions (length, width, height, and time). The soul on the other hand, comes from God and imparted by God and hence is "Spiritual" - metaphysical. A Soul is a "hyper-dimensional" entity. It exists beyond the 4 dimensions of our physical existence. That is why it survives our physical death. Your presupposition that a single fertilized egg, being small and non-functionalized, therefore can not "contain" the soul is a faulty premise. The soul is not bound by the size nor the non-functionality of a single egg. Second, you presuppose that the soul is "bound" to the cells and DNA. IOW, you say that by destroying a fingernail, you are "killing" a living entity. That is in fact is a faulty understanding. The soul is not bound to any cell or DNA. It exist 'with' our physical cells, DNA and body; not exist 'because of' our physical cells, DNA and body. The cells does not contaiin "part of a soul" that you kill when you trim your fingernail. The source of your (mis)understanding is the ancient occultic religion of animism, which presupposes that everything has a "soul", including inanimate objects like rocks and fingernails. Third. The creator of our being, clearly says that life starts in the womb. That means, conception is the time He imparts the living soul. The Bible teaches that God breathed into Adam and Adam became a Living soul. Before God's breathe, Adam was just a collection of dirt. God imparted the life. Before conception, the female egg is not alive, hence, when a woman experiences a menstrual cycle, that is not murder. Immediately at conception, God breathe into that union of egg and sperm a life. From that point on, that cells contains a living soul. That life is alive until such time as God decides to separate that living soul from that body, hence physical death occurs. Fourth, Putting human DNA to animal or vice versa has nothing to do with life or the soul. Man can do this all day long but until God breathes into that creation, it is not a lviing soul. As mentioned above, the soul is not bound to a cell or single DNA that you carry along with it when you transfer DNA to another animal. The soul is software. A computer is dead without software. You do not transfer software when you transfer a single resistor of a PC into another circuit. Last, my understanding is not of my own origin. I have no intellect to extend "my" theology, since it is not "my" theology to begin with. If you want to understand man and his soul, you have to study the software manual that comes with it. You need to study the Bible. Jojo ----- Original Message ----- From: Axil Axil To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Friday, November 02, 2012 4:17 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Quantum Soul? Some believe that the soul comes into being when the human egg is fertilized; aka the moment of conception. In this way of thinking, with DNA as the software of the soul, the human DNA has the potential to form a complete person, but at the time of conception no organ is yet formed to contain the soul. With current technology, any cell in the body can be transformed into a omnipotent cell that can produce a human. So human spiritual characteristic is inherent in any DNA present in the human body. If this is true, do you commit murder when you cut your hair or trim your finger nails? If a mouse is given flawed disease carrying human DNA to simulate human disease or a goat is given human genes to produce human insulin, have these animals become human with a soul. If a geneticist copies human DNA, and puts it into a animal cell, does the animal become human? What parts of human DNA define the soul? Please extend your theology into the domain of genetic manipulation in your quest to define the soul. On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Jojo Jaro <jth...@hotmail.com> wrote: You've made my point better than I. For when you are studying the ones and zeros wherever they may persist, you are in fact studying the software. The ones and zeros are not hardware, they're software. Much like the soul. We can spend a hundred lifetimes studying neuron chemical reactions, electrical impulses, cellular structure of brain cells and other psychological theories and mumbo-jumbo; we will never understand how Human consciousness works. To understand the human soul, one needs to understand its creator. Much like studying the software requires an understanding of Microsoft Software Engineer's design methods and techniques, in fact, a understanding of the man himself. Tell me, can you reverse engineer the entire windows operating system from the ones and zeros of machine code? Doesn't understanding windows require understanding of its design at a higher level? not at the machine code level? possibly by interviewing the designer and studying his work? Why would one think he can understand the human soul by studying the individual ones and zeros of the neurons? You see, this issue goes deeper than just discussions about the human soul. This issue involves our humanistic prederilection to avoid acknowledging the creator. We try our best to understand ourselves without studying the human blueprint. Such efforts are always doom to fail, much like the fallacies of Darwinian Evolution. Jojo ----- Original Message ----- From: Patrick Ellul To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 1:43 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Quantum Soul? If I studied close enough the inside of a computer that has MS Windows installed on it, without ever switching it on, I can still see and understand the expected behaviour. The software program is persisted as ones and zeros on a memory device. On Thu, Nov 1, 2012 at 3:58 PM, Jojo Jaro <jth...@hotmail.com> wrote: Any psychological/psychiatric/philosophical attempt to understand the soul is doom to failure from the onset. Let says you're a hardware/ASIC/Electronics/IC engineer who designed the Pentuim chip. Without understanding of the software, can you discern the operation of a PC from your understanding of the hardware/Chips/IC/CPU/GPU/etc? At best, you understanding would be severely incomplete and faulty. Software is the intangible thing that controls the behavior of the computer. Software controls the hardware. On the same token, experts in Psychology/Psychiatry/Philosophy/Sociology/Humanism/etc, can never hope to completely understand the Human Soul. It is that intangible entity - the soul, that controls the hardware consisting of your brain cells/neurons, etc. The Software soul is what needs to be understood for us to understand the behavior of man. You need to study the soul, not the brain. The brain is simply a mechanism that the soul controls much like the CPU chip is the mechanism that MS Windows controls. The analogy is apt and accurate. Hence, one is wasting their time trying to study all the ideas of these philosophers/psychologists/psychiatrists/etc. They are at best severely incomplete, at worst gravely misleading. If you want to understand the spiritual soul, go to the one who wrote the software soul. Study his book - the Bible to have a better understanding of human behavior. Jojo ----- Original Message ----- From: "Terry Blanton" <hohlr...@gmail.com> To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 10:15 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:The Quantum Soul? I think Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff have the best explanation of consciousness to date. It's called Orchestrated Objective Reduction, or Orch-OR. The two actually developed the idea separately, Sir Penrose being a physicist and Hameroff being a physician who specialized in anesthesia and cancer research. Roger was seeking a model of the brain that did not require computation. Hameroff wanted to know how anesthesia worked and where the conscious went when under. Penrose theorizes that spacetime is granular at the size of the Planck length and that quantum superposition is linked to the curvature. Orchestrated Reduction is the collapse of the superposition. Hameroff brought in the neuron microtubles which provide the structure. He sees a synchronous oscillation in neural MT can influence other neurons. Together they see these electrons as a sea embedded in the geometry of spacetime. Needless to say, they have many critics. :-) -- Patrick www.tRacePerfect.com The daily puzzle everyone can finish but not everyone can perfect! The quickest puzzle ever!