Dualism (Identity)

by dhw, Sunday, March 22, 2015, 13:32 (3533 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Tony: God Says: The dead are conscious of nothing. 
dhw: The unknown author (David?) of the Psalms does say that human thoughts perish, but then he obviously didn't know that our thoughts survive in the backup you keep telling us about, so that doesn't count.-TONY: I never said that "thought survives", I said information survives. One is a noun, one is a verb. -Thought and information are nouns, survive is a verb. What does that prove? How the backup can record the information that constitutes my individual identity, and yet exclude my opinions, hopes, beliefs, memories, predilections, tastes and all my other characteristic thoughts I do not know.
 
TONY: As for Luke, (a) it is a parable (which even you recognize) and (b) read it all the way to the end. The point of the whole parable was that, as I have said to you before, some people won't believe the truth, even if you brought someone back from the dead to prove it to them. -I did read the parable to the end, and got the message. “...Neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” does not mean that people don't rise from the dead. My point is that Jesus (or Luke, the reporter) used an image of dead people talking to dead people (one in hell, the other presumably in heaven), which seems a highly unlikely image for someone who knows that dead people don't talk to each other and there is no such place as hell. I notice you've skipped my reference to Jesus himself (and his promise to his neighbour on the cross) as a prime example of a dead man walking and talking.
 
TONY : ...Pagan holidays and traditions were meant to honor other gods...So, what you see as innocent harmless fun, is not innocent.
DHW: I never raised this subject, never commented, don't know why you raised it, and can't see its relevance to consciousness and the “spirit” and a possible afterlife.-TONY: It was relevant because you were talking about NDErs that converted, and asking what the harm could be or what Satan could hope to accomplish.-I don't know what pagan holidays and traditions have to do with NDE patients turning to the God you worship. Once more, please tell us what Satan would have gained from their new or reinforced love of your God.
 
TONY: ...if you believe but continue to do what is wrong, what virtue is there is your belief. Faith without works is dead. (James 2:14-26)
DHW: Who is talking about doing wrong? 
Tony [...] Satan doesn't have to get people to serve him, he only has to get people to either a) not serve god, or b) *think* they are serving god when in fact that are doing things detestable to him.-But my sweet Mrs X is serving God, worshipping him and nobody but him, and helping her neighbours, and her only “crime” is believing she has a soul that will go to heaven when she dies. This is what she has been told by Mummy and Daddy and the Reverend Moishe Mohammed Smith. Bearing in mind your quote from James, and the fact that she hasn't read a couple of lines in Ecclesiastes or been informed of your interpretation of God's thoughts, what wrong is she actually DOING that you think is so detestable to God?