He said: As the foundation gives way, the philosophy of materialism takes hold and gives rise to moral decadence, egocentricity, hypocrisy, hatred, disorder, flux, strife, chaos, and fear. Such seems to be the state of the world today.
Do you think that materialism is the perceived enemy? You do not consider it the enemy?
Oh.
that kind of materialism. On the one hand, a splurge or two is fun, and on the other there'll always be people who overdo things ─ or rather, overdo overdoing things. Esteem for shallowness isn't new. On the other hand you could blame the Great Depression on an extreme of it.
But it's only one of many things to be guarded against. It's not
the enemy. I don't think there is a single enemy.
To expect an objective test to see if some object or phenomenon is 'supernatural' is not a very realistic expectation, but I understand.
Without an objective test, there's no way the 'supernatural', the 'spiritual', the 'immaterial', can be distinguished from the imaginary. Nor can I so distinguish them.
When the body dies, the brain ceases to function, but the soul does not die and since the soul is what was responsible for conscious thought we do not lose the ability to think or feel after we die physically.
Ah, what they call 'irreconcilable differences' in another context.
When I was in my teens, I tried to work out what a soul could be. I came up with the romantic notion that the body is like a stained glass window, and that the soul is generic white light shining through it and being colored / personalized accordingly. But this imagines the soul as a 'life force' ─ I never found a way to pack the 'soul' with memories, personality, intelligence, aptitude, the eleme0nts of being a social human ─ they all exist as a result of the physical brain function of an individual brain, and when that brain permanently ceases to function, they cease to exist. Nor is an external 'life force' necessary to explain life on earth, of which our kind is only one example ─ biochemistry is the key to that.
The brain is entirely material. You can affect its functions with alcohol or drugs, trauma, disease, hypoxia, anoxia, genetic fault, and so on. In this way, permanently or temporarily, memory, personality, reasoning power and so on can be lost. Depression can in appropriate cases be treated by increasing the amount of serotonin in the neuronal synapse. None of that requires or suggests a soul. If a soul is necessary for consciousness, then very many animals, perhaps all, have souls.
The person, after he dies and leaves his physical body behind, goes to the spiritual world where the soul takes on a spiritual body made up of heavenly elements that exist in the spiritual realm.
I strongly and confidently expect, on the basis of the evidence presently available, that the 'soul', the 'spiritual world', 'the spiritual body', exist only in the imagination of the living.
But if you are not right, I’ll see you on the other side, if I can find you.
I'll be the one taking measurements, observations and notes, and doing experiments.
And enquiring into the system of government and agitating for democracy ─ or maybe a breakaway nation.
And working on a cheap and reliable means of communication with the living. Their medicine will benefit enormously from knowing how emotional life can continue in the absence of endocrine glands.
The ultimate aim will be tourism in both directions. That may solve all those problems with the speed of light for exploring the galaxy and the universe too.
No, you will say Hot dang,
she was right.
Mille pardons, ma dame!