Mortal Engines: Machine Got Soul (soul, evolve, creation, faith)

[No*s]

Good response Spinks

Originally Posted by Mr_Spinkles

Sometimes I wonder if, somewhere, one crow is saying to another, "Like I said, flying and soaring define the soul: they are what elevate birds above the rest of God's creation."

Somehow, I don't picture crows having the conversation. Belief in souls seems to be a uniquely human fixation .

Originally Posted by Mr_Spinkles

Well, the word 'soul' carries a lot of baggage. For example, many people believe that when we die our souls live on. However, if there is no distinction between a living thing with a soul and a living thing without a soul, then clearly this is not the case: when an organism dies, it dies--it doesn't go to some special place to rejoin dead members of its species. There's nothing to stop you from using the word 'soul'...it just seems arbitrary, ambiguous, and unnecessarily confusing. I personally just stick with "it's alive" or "it's not alive".

The term soul is ambiguous, and it is confusing. I grant that. It is actually means "life." In Greek, the word translated "soul" is psychi, but this word denotes "life" just as much. We just don't get that part of the definition in English . I have heard the Hebrew shares a similar word ([i]nephish[i], I believe), but I don't read Hebrew.

The distinction that may be at the root of the confusion with a lot of Christians, is that humans live on after death in some form (less than ideal until the resurrection). When animals die, they perish utterly. This is a distinction found in the Fathers (and still found today in the East).

Because of this, saying a new life form has a sould would seem self-evident. As soon as I declare that it has life (like an animal...I don't know of any Fathers who say plants have souls, but I don't know of any who deny it either), I say it has a soul. So, in a way, we are actually saying the same thing .