Theist zone

[ozgoat]

2- My understanding of Christian doctrine is that the spirit, upon death of the body, returns to God until judgment. All those then alive, "sleeping in the grave" or spirits in heaven, are then awakened and judged. It is then either destroyed or placed back in an incorruptible body. All of that is taken solely on faith, but a reasonable explanation if a soul exists outside of a mind. None of that denies the facts you presented, nor does it lessen the importance of living a good life in the now.

I'm assuming that you can understand what a strange doctrine that is for non-believers to comprehend.

I don't see anything reasonable about it at all, especially in the light of the fact that "god" only gave humans a soul, so I'm told by theologians. All life forms on Earth evolved from the same original first life forms, so are we to understand that at some stage in the evolution of humans that "god" decided to allocate a soul or spirit to a then current development of the human? Which version of human started being allocated a soul, I wonder, and why?

Or perhaps it was just Constantine and his henchmen inventing it for their version of Christianity? Taking a little bit of doctrine from the Egyptians, a little bit from many other religions and beliefs and putting it all together in a neat package to make Christianity more palatable and giving an added carrot for more power and control over those upon whom whom they forced their religion.

Aristotle made much more sense, to me:

"Aristotle was concerned to belabor the point, in no uncertain terms, that intellectual activity, i.e., the human soul, ceases to exist upon death. Intelligence and memory is carried on, if at all, in the only way possible: by people who are still alive and by generations yet to come."

Doesn't that seem more feasible?