RE: continuation from theist zone_souls and death
March 22, 2011 at 12:09 pm
(This post was last modified: March 22, 2011 at 12:11 pm by reverendjeremiah.)
I once read the "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God?", and it turned out to be a really good read.
I'm bringing this up because the authors went into detail about what the original Christians (whom they called "The Gnostics") considered to be a soul, spirit, salvation, etc.. They considered the gospels to be very symbolic, that Jesus didnt physically die, and they would become offended to suggest otherwise. To them it was just another Mystery/Passion play that was so very popular 2000 years ago with Ovid, Bacchus/dionysus, Demeter and persephone. I personally think this is the best definition for the terminology.
Anyways, their definition of Soul (which was a Germanic based word for "binding", and they didnt use it much) was along the definition of "psyche", which basically meant "consciousness". In other words, your consciousness (psyche) is the root of all thoughts and actions that your body makes. The actions effected things outside of your body, such as doing good deeds, hurting people, making things. They considered this action to also be part of the soul, or leaving your mark on the world. To the gnostics, this impression and action upon reality could never be removed from history or time.. so therefore the "soul" was immortal, unchanging, and everlasting. To make it short, the "soul" was merely your life experiences inside and outside of your psyche. Many people wanted to relate a "soul" to some kind of ghost because of how difficult the concept was to put across. I can build a house, but even if it burnt down the next day and people tried to remove all evidence of me building that house they could never, ever change the impression that my thoughts and actions caused in their interactions within time and reality. THAT is what the gnostics meant by "an immortal soul". The only one who could possibly destroy this interaction was the creator, who could not only destroy the body, but also the soul...because he would be the only one that could wipe away time and space. It gets much more indepth, but this is a very basic explanation.
"spirit" is latin for breath. It was a sign of being alive, for if you were dead, then your body would "give up the spirit", or stop breathing. Ghost (another germanic word) was sometimes used as a synonim for "spiritus". Ghost meaning "fury, anger" which fit well with the norse pagan mythology. To the gnostics, spirit and soul were both seperate entities that dwell within the same body to create life. To be alive, you had to have spirit (breath) and soul (psyche, consciousness)
This makes the most sense to me..what do you think?
I'm bringing this up because the authors went into detail about what the original Christians (whom they called "The Gnostics") considered to be a soul, spirit, salvation, etc.. They considered the gospels to be very symbolic, that Jesus didnt physically die, and they would become offended to suggest otherwise. To them it was just another Mystery/Passion play that was so very popular 2000 years ago with Ovid, Bacchus/dionysus, Demeter and persephone. I personally think this is the best definition for the terminology.
Anyways, their definition of Soul (which was a Germanic based word for "binding", and they didnt use it much) was along the definition of "psyche", which basically meant "consciousness". In other words, your consciousness (psyche) is the root of all thoughts and actions that your body makes. The actions effected things outside of your body, such as doing good deeds, hurting people, making things. They considered this action to also be part of the soul, or leaving your mark on the world. To the gnostics, this impression and action upon reality could never be removed from history or time.. so therefore the "soul" was immortal, unchanging, and everlasting. To make it short, the "soul" was merely your life experiences inside and outside of your psyche. Many people wanted to relate a "soul" to some kind of ghost because of how difficult the concept was to put across. I can build a house, but even if it burnt down the next day and people tried to remove all evidence of me building that house they could never, ever change the impression that my thoughts and actions caused in their interactions within time and reality. THAT is what the gnostics meant by "an immortal soul". The only one who could possibly destroy this interaction was the creator, who could not only destroy the body, but also the soul...because he would be the only one that could wipe away time and space. It gets much more indepth, but this is a very basic explanation.
"spirit" is latin for breath. It was a sign of being alive, for if you were dead, then your body would "give up the spirit", or stop breathing. Ghost (another germanic word) was sometimes used as a synonim for "spiritus". Ghost meaning "fury, anger" which fit well with the norse pagan mythology. To the gnostics, spirit and soul were both seperate entities that dwell within the same body to create life. To be alive, you had to have spirit (breath) and soul (psyche, consciousness)
This makes the most sense to me..what do you think?
