The Upper Room

Leaky Nun

7:01 AM

@LeeWoofenden :o

that's bizarre...

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Yeah. Of course, now I can't find the flippin' article!

Leaky Nun

Alright.

So, are those elements of spirituality made up of protons?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Not physical ones. But the spiritual world does have substance and structure.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden hmm.. for example?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun We have spiritual bodies. They look and feel every bit as real as our physical bodies, have all the internal organs, are fully functional physiologically, and so on. And none of it is made of physical matter.

Leaky Nun

7:06 AM

@LeeWoofenden then what are they made of?

Lee Woofenden

When you die and wake up in the spiritual world, you'll most likely think you survived and are back on earth. That's how similar it will seem. Though over time you'll start to notice differences.

@LeakyNun Spiritual substance.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden eh... do they have a name?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Ultimately, it's made of a derivation of love, which is the substance/energy of God. But it's more of a container for love, just as physical matter is ultimately a container for the substance/energy that flows in from God. But God has made it such that it appears and acts as if it's stable on its own.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden interesting.

Lee Woofenden

Spiritual reality, though, doesn't have time and space, which are properties of the material universe. So spiritual objects are not quantifiable or measurable in the way physical objects are.

If you tried to pace out a mile, and then turned around and paced it out again, you'd likely end out in a different place. "Distance" is fluid in the spiritual world.

Leaky Nun

7:13 AM

Do you know what that sounds like to me?

Dreams.

Lee Woofenden

And time is more like our psychological time, which gets longer and shorter depending on our mood, state of mind, etc.

@LeakyNun Dreams are like a spiritual movie theater.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden I see.

Lee Woofenden

New shows every night! ;-)

Dreams are not like actually walking around in the streets of the spiritual world with our spiritual senses fully open. But they do have many of the characteristics of spiritual reality.

Because they are basically spiritual experiences, and spiritual in nature.

Leaky Nun

That's interesting

Lee Woofenden

That's why you can do things in dreams that aren't possible in physical reality.

Leaky Nun

7:16 AM

I see.

Lee Woofenden

When I find myself flying without the benefit of an airplane, I generally think, "Oh yeah. I'm in a dream." ;-)

> While the four latest additions to the periodic table are highly radioactive and decay in less than a minute, scientists expect to find an island of stability centred around elements 120, 124 or 126. These elements’ ‘magic’ proton and neutron numbers correspond to filled nuclear shells. Just as fully filled valence electron shells make elements such as the noble gases chemically inert, filled neutron or proton shells increase the nucleus’ stability.

From: Beyond element 118: the next row of the periodic table

@LeakyNun Not the article I was reading, but it at least confirms what I was reading.

Leaky Nun

sure, the island of stability

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Point is, they're expecting a new island of stability just beyond the current end of the periodic table. But those elements haven't been made yet.

Leaky Nun

7:32 AM

Sure.

Leaky Nun

11:40 AM

@lee you know, i'm quite intrigued by your worldview, so i hope you don't mind me asking questions

is it only humans who have a spiritual side?

curiousdannii

1:28 PM

We have our federal election tomorrow.

Why do all of the "Christian" parties seem to hate refugees? It's infuriating

Lee Woofenden

1:55 PM

@LeakyNun Okay, I found the article: Three Mysteries of Science that will Blow your Mind. It's a three-fer. The relevant one is "New Stable Elements." The Scientific American article it refers to does not focus exactly on what this article does, so it must have some other sources as well.

@LeakyNun I don't mind at all. I like answering questions.

@LeakyNun Anything that's alive has a spiritual side. It is the spirit that gives life. So animals and plants do have souls. However, only humans have the higher levels of the soul that make it possible to conceive of God and spirit and to make moral and spiritual choices. This is what makes a soul eternal as an individual, whereas animal and plant souls are more generalized and do not continue as distinct entities when the animal or plant dies.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden Do you have any problem with abiogenesis?

Lee Woofenden

@curiousdannii What country? And I agree. It's very unfortunate that "Christian" parties tend to be xenophobic.

@LeakyNun No. At some point life originated on this earth. Before that there was only non-living matter. Poetically, God "breathed life into" non-living matter. Scientifically, it required the development of a certain level of structure and order in the form of organic compounds for that to happen. Life requires definite structures as containers for its activity in the material realm.

Incidentally, the third part of the above-linked article is about the mystery of how life began.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden alright, so we're somewhat in agreement here

so at which point did the soul enter into the, you know, paste of organic structures that started to reproduce?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun At the point when it became alive.

In fact, the soul entering into it is the point of becoming alive.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden Hmm... I don't quite get it.

let's simplify the whole situation

let's say, that the only border between alive and non-alive is the ability to reproduce

so at some point, our paste of chemicals acquired the ability to reproduce

but then how does that require a soul?

Lee Woofenden

2:08 PM

@LeakyNun Well, reproduction is tricky. Do crystals "reproduce"? They certainly create multiple unique copies of themselves.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden look, I'm aware that there are many steps before chemistry becomes biology

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun But basically, the soul is the life within the reproducing organism.

Leaky Nun

which is why I said "let's simplify the whole situation"

@LeeWoofenden but it's still all chemistry...

Lee Woofenden

IOW, physical matter is inherently dead. If it is alive, it's because it has spiritual structures associated with the physical structures, giving them life.

Leaky Nun

So if we one day can reproduce the whole situation, then we would have given a soul to some chemicals somehow?

Lee Woofenden

2:11 PM

@LeakyNun We really can't make that statement with any kind of certainty. Science really doesn't know what makes something alive. It can describe the functions of a living being, but it can't say why it is alive or what makes it alive.

@LeakyNun We would not have given a soul to some chemicals. But if we were able to reproduce the chemical conditions in which life originates, it would mean creating structures capable of receiving life. And then, as I understand it, life, which is spiritual, would enter into those structures, because that's what spirit does.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden ~~god~~ soul of the gap?

@LeeWoofenden that's fascinating

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Not really. I'm not saying that the absence of any real scientific understanding of life means there must be a God. Just that science really doesn't know what life is. And I think religion does, or can, know what life is.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden what if one day science figured it out?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun I don't think it ever will--although it might think it has. Lots of atheists think they have figured everything out. But to a person who has long study and familiarity with spiritual phenomena, their "explanations" are not satisfying.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden science will never reproduce life?

Lee Woofenden

2:15 PM

@LeakyNun Life, in my view, is a non-physical entity. Science is the study of physical entities and phenomena. Science can study the results of life. But I don't think it can study life itself.

@LeakyNun Not exactly. As I said above, it may be possible for science to create the physical conditions and structures in which life can exist. The jury's still out on that. But science still won't have "created life." It will simply have created the conditions in which life can exist. The life itself, I believe, comes from the spiritual realm.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden so even if we figured out the mechanism that enables the chemical to reproduce, you would still say somehow something spiritual has to cooperate?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun We already have a pretty good idea of the mechanisms of reproduction. But we still don't know why it does so.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden I was saying about the mechanism that enable the chemical to reproduce, i.e. the mechanism for the start of life

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun But we still don't know what drives it to do so. What's the difference between non-living and living matter? There are some pretty complex physical structures that aren't alive. What makes a particular complex structure alive whereas another one is not?

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden I know we don't know, but what you are saying that we will never know as well

at least the scientific part of it

Lee Woofenden

2:25 PM

@LeakyNun It's not that we will never know. It's that science can never tell us what life is. It can study how living organisms function, reproduce, and so on. But it can't, I don't believe, say what life itself is.

Computers are increasingly complex, have neural networks, memory storage, ability to execute commands, and so on. Yet we don't think of them as alive, because they're not alive. What's the difference between a supercomputer and a human brain?

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden there are quite a lot of differences, because a computer and a human brain have different purposes

(yep, I said purpose)

@LeeWoofenden and in the hypothetical abiogenesis experiment, you are saying that we would also never know the mechanism of the experiment

we would just see that every time we put those condition, automatically some sort of spiritual matter comes into it

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Well, that's another thing science doesn't deal in: purpose. Not in the philosophical sense, anyway. In science, "purpose" is really "function." But science really doesn't deal in teleology: a purpose for existence in general, or any individual thing that exists.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden I was talking about function. I used the word purpose just for fun.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Well, we might not identify it as spiritual matter, but yes, we would see that when we create certain conditions, life shows itself within those conditions.

@LeakyNun Yes. But religion does deal with purpose. That's one of the distinctions between science and religion.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden Don't derail this discussion, lol

@LeeWoofenden and in the hypothetical abiogenesis experiment, you are saying that we would also never know the mechanism of the experiment?

Lee Woofenden

2:29 PM

@LeakyNun I thought we were talking about science and religion . . . .

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden we were talking about souls and abiogenesis

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Mechanism, yes. That's what science studies. But why that particular mechanism becomes alive, whereas other perhaps equally complex mechanisms don't, I think science is ill-equipped to handle. Science can say what exists (on the material level). It can't say why it exists that way.

@LeakyNun Which is one of the precise points where science and religion, or the material and the spiritual, interact with one another in a perceptible way.

Basically, living organisms are inherently an interaction of matter and spirit.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden "why that particular mechanism becomes alive"???

are we confusing mechanism with organism?

mechanism in itself is the explanation of how it becomes alive.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun I don't know. Are we? Is life purely mechanistic, do you think? And if so, how is there even a distinction between mechanism and organism?

Are humans simply very complex machines?

Leaky Nun

Oh, looks like we are not talking about the same word when we say "mechanism"

> mechanism
ˈmɛk(ə)nɪz(ə)m/
noun
noun: mechanism; plural noun: mechanisms

1. a system of parts working together in a machine; a piece of machinery.
2. a natural or established process by which something takes place or is brought about.

Looks like you are talking about the first meaning while I am talking about the second

Lee Woofenden

2:36 PM

@LeakyNun Perhaps we are. But I still don't think science will be able to discover what brings about life. It will only be able to describe the conditions in which life arises--or I would say, manifests itself on the physical plane.

Leaky Nun

so science will never reproduce abiogenesis?

it's strange. you're saying that science can reproduce abiogenesis but will never know the mechanism behind.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun What I'm saying is that science may be able to create the conditions for life in the lab. And if they do, I think that life actually will arise in the lab. But I don't think that will mean science has "created" life. Only that it will have created the physical conditions in which life can enter into the physical realm and physical organisms.

And I believe that life, which is spiritual, is such that it will enter wherever the physical conditions and structures available allow it to do so.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden as you might have noticed, this is not the first time you answered my question, because I keep repeating the question without noticing it, lol

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Repetition is the sincerest form of flattery? :-P

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden that is interesting.

so you're saying, that there's is a step that we will never understand

are you familiar with any chemical reaction?

Lee Woofenden

2:45 PM

@LeakyNun I'm saying based on science we'll never understand what life is, no matter how meticulously we describe how it functions in living organisms.

@LeakyNun Chemistry is not my strongest suit, but I have a general familiarity with how it works.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden is there any chemical reaction that you are familiar with?

@LeeWoofenden by "we" i really meant "science".

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Hydrolysis of water? My high school friend and I managed to blow up that experiment! lol

I still chuckle about that one :-D

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden hydrolysis... of water?!

how do you use water to cut water...

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Hey, that was in the 1970s. Don't know if I got the terminology right. I just remember glass and water flying all over the place, and being glad we were wearing goggles, and thinking that the whole thing was very funny! ;-)

Leaky Nun

hydrolysis means to use water to break apart some molecules

so it can't be of water

Lee Woofenden

2:49 PM

@LeakyNun Okay, I got the terminology wrong. It's Electrolysis of water. You gotta understand, that was 40 years ago! lol

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden ok I understand

Lee Woofenden

Oh, and the teacher did not think it was funny!

Leaky Nun

so in that reaction, electrons go to the hydrogen atoms and electrons escape from oxygen atoms

and you are saying that if that reaction was what brought life, then there would be some steps in there which science cannot explain

although we can basically watch the whole reaction microscopically?

like maybe we would see electrons magically appearing in the hydrogen atoms?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Yep. Science couldn't explain why it became alive. Just that it did become alive.

Really, science simply describes things.

Leaky Nun

like maybe we would see electrons magically appearing in the hydrogen atoms?

@LeeWoofenden a description of the mechanism is in itself "why it became alive"

your objection would be "we could not define alive"

which is what I would disagree.

Lee Woofenden

2:54 PM

@LeakyNun No. Life does not create physical matter. It animates physical matter.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden ah, energy.

so life creates energy?

Lee Woofenden

So we wouldn't see anything magically appearing. We would see what does appear before our eyes doing something that we call "life."

@LeakyNun Life doesn't create energy. Life is energy.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden so energy will be added to the closed system?

that's a testable hypothesis.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Unfortunately, life is not physical energy. So it can't be measured by scientific means. All of the physical energy driving the physical interactions will be accounted for. In physical structures that are alive, the indwelling (spiritual) life works through physical processes.

What I'm saying is that even though science can describe all the physical mechanisms, energies, and functions of a living organism, it can't directly study life itself. Only how life functions on the physical level.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden Could you just formulate it as a testable hypothesis?

Lee Woofenden

2:59 PM

But then, science doesn't really need to know what life itself is. It only needs to study what it does in the physical realm.

@LeakyNun No. Scientifically testable hypotheses don't work when it comes to spiritual entities.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden are there non-scientifically testable hypotheses?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Well, sure. But you do understand that means they are not scientifically testable. I.e., they will not pass scientific muster, use scientific method, and so on. So those who believe that science is the only reliable source of knowledge and understanding will not consider them to be useful or worthwhile.

Leaky Nun

Could you formulate a testable hypothesis?

Lee Woofenden

For example, if you die, and you're still alive in another realm, that pretty well demonstrates that there's an afterlife. But at that point you've passed out of the realm that science studies, so your experience is useless to science and to scientific investigation.

It's endlessly repeatable, and endlessly useless to science.

Leaky Nun

Could you formulate a testable hypothesis on the claim that when the conditions of abiogenesis are arranged, spiritual entities will enter?

Lee Woofenden

3:06 PM

@LeakyNun Well, that itself is my hypothesis. But science wouldn't call it "spiritual entities." They'd call it "life."

Some religious people think scientists will never be able to "create life" in the lab. That no matter how hard they try, life will never arise in the lab, because only God creates life, not scientists. My hypothesis says they're wrong, and that science will be able to "create life" in the lab, or more accurately, in my view, create conditions in which life will enter into material structures in the lab.

But still, the idea that "spiritual entities" are entering into those structures in the lab is not something that scientists as scientists would say.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden how can we know if spiritual entities enter?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Based on pure science, we can't know.

That's precisely what I'm saying: science cannot study or come to any conclusions about spiritual entities and spiritual realities. It's outside the purview of science. Science studies physical entities and realities, not spiritual ones.

Conversely, religion has nothing particularly useful to say about physical entities and realities as physical entities and realities. That's outside of religion's purview.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden Then how can we know?

Lee Woofenden

This is the basic idea of Stephen Jay Gould's Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) principle.

@LeakyNun Religious/spiritual knowledge comes not by way of physical experience, but by way of spiritual experience, AKA "revelation."

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden Eh... could you elaborate on the exact process by which we test that hypothesis?

Lee Woofenden

3:15 PM

@LeakyNun Direct experience is one of the best processes. But not everyone has direct experience of the spiritual realms--or recognizes it as such. That's why we have written revelation, which is, or at least contains, the spiritual experiences of others who then record it. Those who do not have direct spiritual experiences can study the sacred literature recording the spiritual experiences of others, and over time come to some knowledge and understanding of God and spirit.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden Are we talking about the same hypothesis?

Lee Woofenden

So religion, too, is based on human experience. But it's based on experience of non-physical realms of reality.

Leaky Nun

> the claim that when the conditions of abiogenesis are arranged, spiritual entities will enter

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Of course, scientifically, if at some point scientists manage to "create life" in the lab, we'll know it's possible. My hypothesis will be proven right, and the hypothesis of religious people who think that can never done will be proven wrong. (I'm using "proven" loosely here.)

bruised reed

@curiousdannii I don't think that's accurate - cf: sa-familyfirst.org.au/immigration "Family First successfully negotiated a gradual increase in Australia’s humanitarian refugee intake, as a condition of voting for the Coalition Government’s migration legislation"

Leaky Nun

3:18 PM

hmm...

Lee Woofenden

But as far as whether that involves spiritual entities entering physical structures, that can't be known from science. It is a conclusion drawn from spiritual--i.e., non-scientific--sources.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden I'm talking about this hypothesis.

How do we test this?

Lee Woofenden

My study of revelation convinces me that life itself is a non-physical thing. So when I see something that's alive, or that becomes alive, I believe that spiritual entities are involved.

@LeakyNun Once again, if you want a scientific test, there isn't one.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden just a test.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun What kind of test do you want? I'm saying that if you want a test that passes scientific muster, you're not going to get one.

Leaky Nun

3:20 PM

@LeeWoofenden a valid and feasible test?

Lee Woofenden

But you, as an atheist, reject the existence of God, and presumably of spirit. So any test that I would propose would be unacceptable to you, because it would presuppose the existence of divine and spiritual reality, which you (presumably) don't accept.

Leaky Nun

Just propose it.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Study the complete works of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), consult with those who are well-versed in his theology on any questions you may have, come to a full grasp (humanly speaking) of the nature of God and spirit from a mental stance of positive doubt, meaning you're willing to accept that what he's describing re: God and spirit, is real.

Once you have done that, if you are able to accept it, then you will come to an understanding of these things, and a belief that spiritual entities are entering the physical realm in the process of abiogenesis.

Leaky Nun

that's... alright.

Lee Woofenden

Oh, and if you don't want to do the complete works, then at least study his Divine Love and Wisdom. That's where he especially deals with these philosophical and cosmological issues. But do consult with present-day Swedenborgian theologians, because some of the Swedenborg's science is now outdated.

@LeakyNun Well, you can't say I didn't propose one! ;-)

Leaky Nun

3:27 PM

@LeeWoofenden alright.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Just as science takes study and effort to learn and master, so religion and spirituality takes study and effort to learn and master. Scientists spend whole lifetimes studying one particular branch of science. The idea that a person can just fall off a log and suddenly have a full understanding of God and spirit is a bit . . . unrealistic.

I understand if you don't want to devote the time and effort to it. People have different priorities. And we need all sorts of people, including secular scientists, to make human society operate well. I would simply caution you not to think you have a real grasp of God and spirit if you haven't put in the time to actually study these subjects carefully.

Quite frankly, I've read a fair amount of atheist stuff attacking religion, and from my perspective, most of it is superficial hogwash.

The people writing it clearly do not have a full grasp of religion in all its varieties. They attack one particular branch of religion, and think they've invalidated God and spirit.

@LeakyNun So I would simply advise you not to become one of those atheist know-it-alls who thinks s/he has vanquished religion and killed God.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden eh... do I look like one?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun No. You seem like a thoughtful person. If you were an atheist know-it-all, I wouldn't bother spending time discussing these things with you. It would be a waste of time.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden good

@LeeWoofenden so our fundamental point of disagreement, which diverged to the whole branches of disagreement, is whether NDEs are real?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun I would say that our fundamental point of disagreement is whether God and spirit are real. NDEs are a strong source of potential knowledge about those things, for those who don't reject the reality of God and spirit.

Leaky Nun

3:46 PM

@LeeWoofenden what caused our disagreement on whether God and spirit are real?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Umm . . . that you're an atheist and I'm a Christian minister? Maybe? ;-)

Leaky Nun

....

I would say our disagreement is on how we treat NDE?

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Okay. Was there something you wanted to say about that?

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden that you treat it as reflective of reality, and I treat it as hallucinations, and that has made all the difference between us.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun So that's where the two roads diverged in a yellow wood! ;-)

Leaky Nun

3:57 PM

@LeeWoofenden you do get the reference! :D

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun I have used that poem many times to illustrate the spiritual meaning of the Bible in teen and adult "Introduction to Swedenborg" classes over the years.

Leaky Nun

nice.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Frost's mother was a Swedenborgian.

Leaky Nun

I see.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Frost himself did not remain a Swedenborgian as an adult, but he was certainly influenced by Swedenborg's concept of "correspondences," or spiritual symbolism and meaning, within nature.

At any rate, "The Road Not Taken" is a great poem for illustrating the idea that the Bible has a spiritual meaning, because although the whole poem is a description of walking in the woods, that's not what the author is talking about.

Leaky Nun

4:06 PM

@LeeWoofenden I believe I've read your article talking about that poem

Let's go back to the matter.

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Why not back to the spirit?

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden because it doesn't exist ;p

Lee Woofenden

@LeakyNun Au contraire, mon ami!

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden A personal question: where do you come from?

You have a German surname

A Chinese given name

and you speak French.

El'endia Starman

"Lee" is also an American name.

Lee Woofenden

4:14 PM

@LeakyNun I'm a man. Doesn't that mean I come from Mars?

Leaky Nun

@El'endiaStarman oh really

Lee Woofenden

Current domicile: Cheyenne Wyoming. And my name is, as far as I know, English. I believe it used to be Woolfenden many generations back.

El'endia Starman

@LeakyNun Yes really. It's not common, but it's not unheard of.

Lee Woofenden

My ancestry is mostly British isles, with a bit of French thrown in. And I don't really speak French. Just know a few words and phrases.

Leaky Nun

@LeeWoofenden I see. That's interesting.

@El'endiaStarman Well, I've never heard of it.

El'endia Starman

4:17 PM

@LeakyNun Well, are you American and living in the United States? :P

Lee Woofenden

I've lived in the United States all my life. Born in the Midwest, where we moved around until I was 10, when we moved to Massachusetts. Lived on an island in Washington State throughout my 20s and into my early 30s, then back to Massachusetts until a year ago.

Leaky Nun

@El'endiaStarman Well, no. lol

Lee Woofenden

No Asian ancestry that I know of. And I'm sure my parents were not drawing on Chinese sources when they named me "Lee."

I'll be afk for a while. Got to do some errands.

Leaky Nun

bye

Leaky Nun

4:31 PM

Why is this room named "The Upper Room"?

El'endia Starman

12

A: We need a name for our chat room

The Upper Room Explanation: this is the famous room where the church started with the arrival of The Holy Spirit. I was looking for a place where Christians were together, this seemed a well known candidate.

Leaky Nun

@El'endiaStarman Thanks

bruised reed

It was probably owned by Mark's family & may have also been the location for the last supper

Leaky Nun

@bruisedreed interesting

bruised reed

it (the original one that is) has it's own wikipedia article as well

Cenacle

The Cenacle (from Latin coenaculum), also known as the "Upper Room", is a room in Jerusalem traditionally held to be the site of The Last Supper. The word is a derivative of the Latin word cēnō, which means "I dine". The Gospel of Mark 14:15 employs the Greek anagaion, the Acts of the Apostles 1:13 hyperōon, both with the meaning "upper room." Jerome used the Latin coenaculum for both Greek words in his Latin Vulgate translation. In Christian tradition, the "Upper Room" was not only the site of the Last Supper (i.e. the Cenacle), but the room in which the Holy Spirit alighted upon the eleven apostles...

Leaky Nun

4:40 PM

Wow, I never knew about this. Fascinating.

Joshua

4:55 PM

@curiousdannii I feel your pain, not just on that topic. I've concluded that nationalistic priorities are ultimately incompatible with kingdom of God/Universal Christian priorities. It makes total rational sense to reject immigrants in the US and build a wall between Mexico. For financial and security reasons foremost. But I can't say its the Christian thing to do.

Leaky Nun

@Joshua You're back!

Joshua

@LeakyNun Not really :) lunchtime

Leaky Nun

alright

Joshua

@LeeWoofenden Would I be right if I guessed you lean more toward Traducianism than creationism, in regards to reproduction and the soul? More precisely, I would hold to the Generationism variant of Traducianism. Or do you think these souls are existing already, standing ready to enter bodies?

bruised reed

@Joshua The Australian experience is a little different, because around 10% of boat arrival asylum seekers perish in the sea crossing - this is an excellent reason for discouraging these attempts and is the primary reason why I have changed my views on this issue since voting against re-electing Howard's Liberal government due to the handling of the Tampa incident despite spending many hours of volunteering to help refugees

Lee Woofenden

5:07 PM

@Joshua I don't see as hard a distinction between traducianism and creationism as some apparently do. Based on the analog of physical generation from a unique offshoot of both parents' genetic material, I do think that individual proto-souls are generated similarly from unique offshoots of the parents souls, at the same time that the proto-body is generated.

However, in my mind that doesn't negate the reality of God creating individual souls. After all, God creates everything, including what unfolds step by step within creation.

So I see traducianism vs. creationism of the soul as a bit of a false dichotomy.

Lee Woofenden

5:37 PM

@Joshua I definitely do not think that souls as souls pre-exist and enter into the body at some point from conception onward. Each one, I believe, is a new creation.

But of course, they all exist in the mind of God outside of time, and that is their ultimate source.

Joshua

5:55 PM

@LeeWoofenden You basically described Generationism :) which doesn't exclude God's involvement either, as opponents of Traducian like theories like to describe them. Not a false dichotomy, just the two vastly majority views.

6

A: Where did our spirit come from? (Overview)

The discussion of the origin of the human soul/spirit (they are generally spoken of as one immaterial part on this topic) is a very old one in Christian history. There are many serious implications which the debate has commonly hinged on, particularly the transmission of Adam's original sin and g...

Lee Woofenden

8:56 PM

@Joshua Yes, of those options, my view would be closest to Generationism.

@Joshua I should add that Swedenborg's views on this subject were heavily influenced by Aristotle, whose reign as the ultimate scientific authority in Western thought had not quite ended in Swedenborg's day. Aristotle held that the soul comes from the father and the body from the mother. And Swedenborg accepted that Aristotelian view, and wove it into his theology in a way that is somewhat tricky, but not impossible, to unweave.

Swedenborg also stated that the soul is the prior entity in the generation of a new human being, and that it directs the development of the body in its own image from within.

This, of course, was all before Mendel, DNA, and the whole modern science of meiosis, genetics, and so on. Swedenborg did not have access to that information when he formed his theory.

Swedenborg was quite knowledgeable about embryonic and fetal development. However, he did not have available to him the knowledge of DNA and other genetic material in the cell nuclei that we have today, so his theory had to fall back on the Aristotelian model. He does not seem to have drawn heavily on the various Christian theologians and the Traducianism vs. Creationism debate, though he was probably aware of it.

In light of today's knowledge of genetics, I think the "soul from the father, body from the mother" idea has to be abandoned. But that same contemporary knowledge of genetics offers the possibility of a modified version in which the soul comes from offshoots of both the father's and the mother's soul, which provide the spiritual "DNA" that builds the new human beings soul, and through corresponding physical genetic material, the physical body as well. That is my basic theory.

Having said all that, I don't think any of this is essential or even all that important for Christian belief and life. It's just a matter of "inquiring minds want to know."

Not being saddled with the dogma of original sin, the precise mechanics are not, in my view, all that critical.

None of this means that humans originate the soul, as goes the common objection to traducianism. Really, the only human contribution is arranging for the egg and the sperm to meet. Beyond that, we have very little influence or control. Even modern techniques of in vitro fertilization must take existing genetic material and combine it to bring about a process of fertilization. We can tinker with the method of fertilization, but we can't create human genomes, let alone human proto-souls.

Recombining elements of various genomes is not actually creating them. It's just rearranging them a bit. In character, it's not all that different from selecting two particularly healthy animals and mating them, or in human terms, engaging in eugenics through mating "superior" human beings.

No matter how we may tinker with the genetic material, the soul and life still comes from God via the spiritual realms.

curiousdannii

10:18 PM

@bruisedreed But they're also pro-offshore detention, which is inhumane and probably illegal by international law (also PNG told us to leave!) It's irresponsible to send them to another country, where the security forces are outsourced to private countries, where they have inadequate medical care, and then also to threaten to prosecute any doctors etc who would tell us about the poor conditions the asylum seekers are being kept in!

Whatever we eventually do regarding their applications, we need to ensure that while they are in our care, that we actually care for them.

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