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Dear Yuyutsu,

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"You got me wrong: the spirit and the body are not the same.
Spirit clings to the body for a while, only while it finds it useful"

Well I hope it has its claws well embodied in me and won't fall off. If it's anything like the soles of my shoes, it might well do.

I have no idea what it would be like walking around without a soul, though I have walked about without a sole. That was a fairly unpleasant experience.

Mind you, I do remember thinking to myself one day when I was on walkabout in the bush: "there is not a soul in sight". They all seem to have buzzed off somewhere.

I'll keep an eye out in future. You never know, one of my neighbours may have lost his and I'll ask him if it makes any difference, with or without his sole.

In the meantime, perhaps you could explain what "use" the soul (or, I see you mention the word "spirit") has for a body and why it needs it so badly it has to "cling" to it. What about when it goes to sleep, does it still manage to "cling" to it?

.

Dear David,

Why our brain is influenced by biology is obvious - it's part thereof.
Why biology "wants" to preserve itself is also clear, it's evolution.

Just as you said, moral importance has bugger-all to do with it.

But why in heaven would you want to identify with a biological form (a human, including its brain) and allow it to run your life? Why should you care in the first place for this world and for what comes down to chemical and electrical reactions? that's irrational!

Just as there is nothing moral or immoral about whether an electron spins clockwise or counter-clockwise, there is nothing moral or immoral about the function (or dysfunction) of bigger structures such as a human body: morality is derived from spirit, not from biology, but isn't it surprising to find that there is a significant overlap between the two? You would be quite right to invoke Occam's razor on this point.

It is however, not a coincidence: the overlap is there because identification with biological life-forms can serve a spiritual purpose, allowing us to learn and practice morality (there may be other life-forms, but if there is no overlap between morality and their mechanical tendencies, then we simply never come to know them or recognize them as "living").

Yet, you realized yourself that this overlap is incomplete ("But religion can also distort ethical considerations and often does.")

Historically, the state has used the church as its milking-cow, using that overlap to generate the societal "morals" it wanted. This however helped to corrupt churches, tempting them to compromise whenever the overlap was incomplete and morality didn't fit the state's objectives, perhaps not even biology's objectives, which the state, as biology's extension, tried to promote.

It has become fashionable to say "this cow is no longer yielding, we can get our milk from elsewhere, so let's slaughter it". What isn't being realized is that alternative milk, though more palatable, lacks in nutrients and only lasts one earthly lifetime at best.

Your query about gods deserves its own 350 words, so it will be in my next post.

Dear David,

<<Which god? You have a god and others have different gods which you dismiss. What are the objective criteria you use to identify your god as the true god? And what is the evidence that would be acceptable to all that you even know your particular god exists? And why is it good to come closer to your particular god? And what gives you the right to welcome others to your god? Has it told you to do this?>>

I never claimed that "my particular god exists". In fact, if someone came and told me "my god exists", I won't necessarily dismiss that god, but rather (disappointing you again) shrug it off, saying "so what?".

Perhaps some god exists (not that I know any), perhaps he even created this world: if so, I may either tell him "thank you" or "what a shoddy job". While such a god may be, from a worldly perspective, far more powerful and knowledgeable than myself, from a spiritual point of view he would be exactly equivalent to myself and yourself.

In short, a god which exists is not God.

Claiming that "God exists" is an insult to His holy name (as well as a logical contradiction, as you as an atheist must already know), reducing it to a mere object, yet many good but uneducated people do so innocently out of ignorance of the logical implications, please forgive them!

It is impossible to apply positive criteria to identify God, but negative methods can be used instead: if for example he exists, then he isn't God. Also, if there's anything besides him, then he isn't God. I think that should settle most other claims, if not all.

Why is it good to come closer to God?
Because there is nothing else but God: the alternative is to live in illusion, unreality and spiritual pain.

What gives you the right to welcome others to your god?
He's their God as well because there's none besides Him.
Any approach that helps one come closer to Him, is welcome, regardless of using different words and concepts.

Yuyutsu,

You seem to believe you are answering questions as a knowledgeable seer, instead of promoting and defending the irrational, which is what you are really doing. You have no more understanding of nature than me and in fact, you apparently have a whole lot less.

To wade through the mire of your extraordinary take on spooky suppositions would require more time than I am willing to give.

Good luck with the only life you are ever going to have as far as all the empirical evidence known more than strongly suggests.

I'm sorry that for some reason you seem to think that is not enough.

David

Dear David,

It is you who defend the irrational, which is as if the objective plane (that tiny section which can be verified by empirical evidence), is all that matters, that not only is it valuable, but nothing else is.

It seems to be your god.

Yuyutsu,

Everything else might have various amounts of importance to humans but if that ethereal side of our character as a whole impinges on selected groups, interferes with science and politics, then it is upon those not so encumbered to speak out. Therefore I do.

David