Regarding the Soul / Afterlife: Some Random Thoughts.
*Here's an interesting theological question. You're aware that here is a neurological condition called multiple personality disorder or dual personality (made famous in the feature film "The Three Faces of Eve" ). Now the theological question is, does each of those personalities have their own soul and does each of these personalities have their own separate and apart afterlife? If not, why not?
*The afterlife, or at least the Christian version of it, has one major flaw - when does it end?
*If, as William Lane Craig insists, there has to be a First Cause then there has to be a Last Cause as well, otherwise you still have an infinite Universe, which, as William Lane Craig asserts can't be the case. The only way to have a finite Universe is for it to be temporally finite on either side, the Alpha side or the Omega side. But a Last Cause contradicts Christian theology - that bit about an eternal everlasting afterlife.
*Being dead isn't scary - it's how you become dead that can be scary!
*If life (as in afterlife) is eternal, then life (as in prior to an afterlife) is cheap. A finite life (once you're dead, you're dead) has way more value than an infinite one since if you have just a finite life you'd damn well better make hay while that sun shines!
*This may come as a surprise to many but there was no belief in an afterlife in ancient Israeli Jewish communities. The only real reference to an afterlife in the Old Testament is at Daniel 12: 2. That's it. There are no other hits for "life eternal" or "eternal life"; "life everlasting" or "everlasting life"; or "afterlife" or "life after death" or even "resurrection". So there's no location given for an afterlife in the Old Testament because with the one exception there is no concept of an afterlife in the Old Testament and Daniel 12: 2 spoke of no afterlife location. Now that's pretty surprising given the prominence the afterlife gets in the New Testament. Perhaps the afterlife was just an after-thought on God's part as in "gee, it would be great to have some steady supply of new faces and company to talk to me here upstairs on my heavenly throne".
*As long as religions can dangle the afterlife carrot in front of the great unwashed (and also in view of the not so great washed), you'll never get rid of the institution (especially when it employs hundreds of thousands of people and generates billions in income).
*If you damage one part of your brain certain neurological faculties are lost. If you damage another part of your brain certain other faculties are lost. But if you damage the entire brain (as in causing death) all of your faculties remain intact in your afterlife! Something is screwy somewhere! (via Sam Harris)
*When I shuffle off of this mortal coil, and find that I goofed and there actually is a God, and that when I'm in front of Him being allegedly judged, that at least He'd say "I admire your honesty and your ability to think for yourself".
*If there is no reason to believe that God or god(s) presides over this existence, then there’s no reason to believe that God or god(s) presides over your afterlife – assuming an afterlife – existence.
*One reason why what our reality actually is matters has to do with our final act within that reality – which is dying – for it’s the nature of that reality which will determine what happens next – if anything.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Those extra personalities that share a single body are illusions, no different than the illusions you and I create when we identify with our bodies.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Oct 14, 2018
0
@johnprytz If they are all just illusions none of them are the real personality. All are unreal. IMO the true self is pure consciousness. I say that we share that true self because our separate selves as identified with the bodies are illusions.
@johnprytz Well, In the sense that the physical world is an illusion, our physical presence is illusional. By illusional I don’t mean it isn’t there, but just that its true reality is not what it seems. We live in a dream-world of mental symbols IMO.
Remember that those multiple personalities housed in one body also claim to exist and to be the body, but we know they are imaginary.
@johnprytz The only thing that makes sense to me is that conscious awareness is primary in the ultimate reality beyond our sensory world. While each of us seems unique and separate because of different memories and bodies, those things are ephemeral. The body/brain is creating the dream for each person, but “We” are not really that person IMO. Universal consciousness is observing all those dreams and interacting with the various organisms. It has its reason for doing so.
Our true essence is consciousness itself, and we are that in common. When my body dies the person that I think of as myself will disappear forever, but it is of no concern because I was never the body to begin with, as it seemed. The body was nothing but a robot.
You and I being the very same entity might seem a bit crowded at this point. Do we know each other well enough for that kind of union? 
It’s all just glimmers and wisps of ideas.
@johnprytz It’s not that I am removed from universal consciousness at death. It’s that I never was a body to begin with. We were not born and we will not die.
When I think of myself I might think of my body, my memories, my thoughts, my emotions, etc., but none of those things are worth a damn without conscious awareness. Universal consciousness enjoys interacting with the river of organisms but the life of a single organism is of little concern.
Suppose that river of organisms suddenly went dry because of some cataclysmic event. In a trillion years perhaps life would begin anew. From a cosmic perspective that trillion years would have zipped by in the blink of an eye—in no time at all in fact. Consciousness creates the sense of time.
@johnprytz You keep referring to “you” as if I had existence as a separate entity. “i” simply don’t exist except as a bodily illusion. It’s like those multiple personalities we discussed earlier.
Universal Consciousness is not housed in bodies. Universal Consciousness observes and interacts with the river of organisms, all simultaneously. Just as a robot or a body can operate on its own without conscious oversight for a while, so can the world of bodies collectively, but without some sort of intelligent input eventually there’s trouble. If I am drunk or otherwise unfit for receiving intelligent input I’m liable to wind up in jail or even dead.
As an analogy, back to the driverless car. Ostensibly the car might be set up to go get its own fuel and maintenance. It’s a “burden” only to the car itself, and that’s not much of a burden since the car has no awareness. If there’s some sort of snafu such as a conflict in scheduling, or a malfunction in hardware that wasn’t foreseen by programmers, then Universal Consciousness comes to rescue the human/car team, overriding automatic processes and setting things aright.
So far as the burden humans feel in having to get their food, etc, I think there’s a reason for that feeling. It’s because of limited energy and resources. We are programmed to use economy—apportion our efforts among various goals. If we are feeling a burden, maybe it’s because we’re about to exhaust our energy and need to make changes. Maybe such feelings make up receptive to input from UC.
Why do “We” (Universal Consciousness) want all these robots in the first place. I don’t know but it sure spices things up. I know I sound like I know all about this stuff, but really it’s just some metaphysical speculation that fascinates me. At heart I am abysmally ignorant and bewildered.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple personality disorder) is not a neurological disorder. It is classified as a psychological disorder. It’s not something we are born with, it develops as a coping mechanism to a traumatic event in our lives as children..sadly most often severe sexual abuse. I have very limited experience with this type of patient as they are incredibly rare. These people have multiple overlapping disorders and are very low functioning on the average. The area of the brain involved is the prefrontal cortex. There is not two souls. Movies never show reality.
Green_eyes
Level 8
Oct 14, 2018
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@johnprytz that’s an absurd question. In twenty five five years of practice.. not once.
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