Clarice O'C

Hello Volker and malookiemaloo,

How, then, do we know that we have a spirit if it is so illusive? What evidence do we have that it exists?

And, malookiemaloo, how do we know that the spirit lives on after death? What evidence can be presented for this?

Thanks,
Clarice

Volker.Doormann

Sorry Clarice. If you write 'then' it is a rational & logic conclusion and if you mention evidence it means AFAIK it can only be proved by physical detectors as external existence outside the own consciousness. But this practice negate the fact, that there is a questioner, who ask a question. One can argue that the questioner is illusive, but this does not help to create knowledge in this problem. Has the questioner an existence? If the questioner - who ask for evidence of his existence - has no existence, then it is idle to talk about it. If the questioner has an existence, then it seems to be meaningful to solve that kind of existence first. The existence of the questioner never was found in physical evidence. Evidence in spiritual order never can be proved; it only can be recognized. How one would prove to others , that he has a consciousness? A consciousness, that is able to discriminate injustice from justice? A consciousness, that is sensitive to a quality of harmony or disharmony? As virtue can't be bought because it has no external existence outside the own spiritual existence, all spirituality exist only as a consciousness as the own individual self. We didn't have a spirit, we are the spirit, also if the mind has it's own experience trough it's education or social culture. If some spiritual evidence exist in the own self, as p.e. the dimension of justice/injustice or love or the absent of love, then there is also a knowledge about that this spiritual dimensions exist. Only if one can successful and without contradiction to the real spectrum of nature reject all this spiritual dimension as illusion, it need not to have an existence. But sorrow p.e. is evident to much people, while it was removed by others with the use of Occam's Razor as of an illusion of the mind, and this may show, that it is not the use of Occam's Razor, what is questionable, it is the grade of the (spiritual) consciousness - if not ignorance - of him, who decide, what is to be cut (away) to find truth. As long rational science rejects spiritual dimensions as illusion of the mind, but is not able to prove ethical claims of humanity scientifically , it shows, that these claims scientifically are a fraud with no serious base. Nevertheless there is ever the individual own consciousness, which is evident to most of all creatures. It is the very only (spiritual) reality we have. All other way's need 'truth' of second hand and indeed this was the reason for many souls to leave unsatisfied religions, which have withhold spiritual knowledge to the individual soul. Jesus has said, that he has not spoken of bread in his speech, but of spiritual food. And he has parablized by Thomas: "Damn the Pharisees! They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: the dog neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat.". He who seeks spiritual knowledge will find it not in 'holy' books or dead rituals from history. As Rumi has known, poetry can help to find spiritual knowledge. Beside Rumi Kabir (1398-1518 C.E.) has written o lot of spiritual poems. These poems do not speak to the mind, they speak to the soul.

"The night you passed in sleep
And the day in visiting your false friends;
Alas! Thus have you wasted
The diamond of your life on naught.
You will die one day, perhaps tomorrow;
Grass will grow on your tomb,
And your friends will forget you.
Therefore know your soul soon.
Whom will the son of a harlot call his father?
Worship God in your being
And do not waste your life.
Your body is like a jar of unbaked clay;
It may break to pieces any moment and all will be over,
Nowhere is there delight except in God.
This world is a house made of wood,
And, lo! it is burning furiously;
He who stays in it dies.
The Yogi withdraws from it in meditation and he is saved.
Thy birth as man is a ripe fruit which is seen only once;
Make the most of the practice of devotion and compassion
And the acquisition of true Knowledge.
O Kabir, there is a way out of this illusory world:
Know the soul at any cost."
(Kabir)

More of Kabir s. www.doormann.org

Best wishes

Volker

Clarice O'C

I appreciate your reply, Volker. My inquiry into 'spirit' and 'soul' was directed by the use of the words when many people have no idea, just assumptions, of their meaning. I haven't grasped what they are but your message was helpful and some of what you said brought to mind the work of Bernard Lonergan and the work of those following him. A few articles here are relevant to, e.g., consciousness:

http://www.lonergan.on.ca/reprints/reprints.htm

I hope that you enjoy.

As far as the physical incarnations of God in the NT, do you folks think that the Hebrew writers thought of YHWH as physical?

Best,
Clarice

malookiemaloo

I am not sure that evidence could ever be produced to 'prove' that the spitit lives on.

I'm about to bring derision upon myself for saying this but I find the authority of the Bible so powerful, that I believe we have a spirit. Ecclesiastes says something like 'the body shall return to the earth and the spirit to God who gave it'.

I suppose the resurrection is the greatest proof of life after death.

While it is possible to the resurrection away to one's satisfaction, actually disproving it is a different matter.


malookiemaloo

Clarice O'C

Hi malookiemaloo,

Have you heard people say that you can't prove something written in the bible by using the bible?

An example would be, say, you keep a diary. In your diary on 2/1/03 you wrote that you went to a movie, the matinee. At the time of this movie your neighbor was murdered and the police suspect that it was done by you. They ask what movie you saw and you go into great detail on what it was about. They don't believe that you went to a movie at the time of the murder and so you pull out your diary for proof.

The bible is a collection of stories written by probably hundreds of hands. Have you decided that the author(s) of Ecclesiastes is the 'authority' that you mean or her/him plus other authors?

Best,
Clarice

malookiemaloo

The Bible never tries to prove itself. It contains no arguments for the existence of God.

I suppose you either believe it or you don't. Certain facts mentioned in the Bible can be substantiated extra-biblically but not a statement like the Ecclesiastes quote.

In the short time I have been on the Sec. Web, I see faith as a more real living thing. Knowledge, proof etc is fine but too limiting-no matter how great that knowledge may be.

Sorry, I am not expressing myself too well.


malookiemaloo

Volker.Doormann

Hi Clarice,

sorry if my words were chosen wrong. It is ever difficult until impossible to discuss spirituality intellectually by words which are worn or occupied with a long history of meanings.

Thank you for the hint to Bernard Lonergan. Today I have visit the site about his philosophy. Never heard about him before. I have no special philosophy in my mind. I have a great sympathy to the words of Lao=Tsu, Gautama the Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Rumi, Kabir, Giordano Bruno and Jiddu Krishnamurti. All them have disobey obedience to social power uncompromising against secular social claims. Maybe this shows that the growth of the spiritual consciousness is related to a (conciuosness) position of 'I am' against a position of 'Oh, I'm just looking' as Rumi has described it:

"These spiritual window-shoppers, who idly ask, 'How much is that? -
Oh, I'm just looking.'
They handle a hundred items and put them down, shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment, in that shop.
Where did you go? - "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? - "Nothing much."
Even if you don't know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.
Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you."
(Rumi)

I think also Jesus has presented a lot of spiritual 'food' trough his parables. Who cares when Jesus die? Who cares when he was born? I think to understand the spiritual meaning of his parables are only of interest as Thomas has written in the Gospel of Thomas.

best wishes

Volker