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huston@access2.digex.net (Herb Huston) wrote:
>In article <3pvfv4$qh4@giga.bga.com>, Jeff <gauntlet@bga.com> wrote:
>}Madhudvisa dasa (madhudvisa@krishna.org) wrote:
>}
>}: There are many atheists who believe in a separate body and "self".
>}
>}Sad, isn't it? Human beings are apparently so prone to superstition that
>}they'll cling to the idea of a 'soul' even after they've reached an
>}understanding that the idea of God is preposterous.
Yes.. That is a little more intelligent than the "life from chemicals"
scenario.
>Perhaps there's an evolutionary explanation.
> Man can contemplate his own mortality and finds the thought
> intolerable.
What is it doing the contemplation? Is it just a bunch of chemicals? Do
you think the bottles of chemicals in the laboratory are contemplating
their existence? What's the difference?
>Any animal will struggle to protect itself
> from a threat of death.
But animals are conscious. We are also conscious. It is the consciousness
that is struggling to survive not the chemicals. Your bottles of
chemicals don't struggle for existence..
>Faced with a predator, it flees,
> hides, fights, or employs some other defensive mechanism,
> such as death-feigning or the emission of stinking fluids.
We are also animals. We do all the same things. But we have good
brains. That's the only difference. We can ponder, "Why am I here",
"What's the purpose of life?"...
> There are many self-protective mechanisms, but they all oc-
> cur as a response to an immediate danger.
Not all are a response to immediate danger. Your article here is a
self-defense attempt. You want to defend your world-view. These
self-protective responses can get quite subtle.
>When man contem-
> plates his future death, it is as if, by thinking of it, he
> renders it immediate. His defence is to deny it. He cannot
> denty that his body will die and rot--the evidence is too
> strong for that; so he solves the problem by the invention
> of an immoral soul--a soul which is more 'him' than even his
> physical body is 'him'.
He doesn't invent it. He uses it to describe himself, the person. The
difference between a thinking, feeling, willing entity and a pile of
rotting flesh and bones. That is the soul.
>If this sould can survive in an af-
> terlife, then he has successfully defended himself against
> the threatened attack on his life.
It is true, death is unnatural to the soul. That is why we are all
afraid of death. The soul is eternal, full of knowledge and full of
pleasure but this body is mortal, full of anxiety, and full of
ignorance -- not very comfortable.
na jayate mriyate va kadacin
nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah
ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano
na hanyate hanyamane sarire
"For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not
come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into
being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not
slain when the body is slain." (Bhagavad-gita 2.20)
Chant Hare Krishna and be Happy!
Thank you.
Madhudvisa dasa .
Thank you. Hare Krishna!
Madhudvisa dasa
(madhudvisa@krishna.org) /sudarsana
All glories to His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada!
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