tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613585301584630832.post5727355550774685673..comments2024-03-28T09:28:46.253+00:00Comments on North Stoke: Spiritualitythelmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934860502828923562noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613585301584630832.post-55429881312255667042007-06-30T12:16:00.000+01:002007-06-30T12:16:00.000+01:00Well I wrote an answer but it disappeared when I p...Well I wrote an answer but it disappeared when I previewed ;) but in a shortened version I came to the conclusion that the idea of 'soul' comes down to us through culture and religion, it is subjective. It originates probably through the first creation stories/myths that we tell to explain the world around us. The natural world was the storyboard, its mountains,rivers, animals the cosmos all figured. Awareness of death, a past,present and future led 'stone' people to acknowledge the passing of time in funeral rites which acknowledged ancestors. It is this that marks the beginning of 'otherness' the invisible spiritual layer which we use to transcend death and its finality... there again I might be wafflingthelmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00934860502828923562noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5613585301584630832.post-47656073344896937072007-06-28T22:41:00.000+01:002007-06-28T22:41:00.000+01:00"...we talk of our own spirituality in terms that ..."...we talk of our own spirituality in terms that are not easy to define, but is there behind the life force another layer of being, invisible but transcending the physical world. Can we touch it, does it belong to our senses, created by our minds - does it really exist?"<BR/><BR/>"...is there behind the life force another layer of being..." Well, who knows? Probably we'll never ever know, though we often 'feel' that there is. I may be wrong but it seems to me that all religions and all spiritual belief systems have one thing in common - the belief in the soul. Even Buddhism which is not, strictly speaking, a religion believes in the soul. That's always intrigued me. Trouble is, in most religions 'god' somehow got in the way. But if you look at it objectively the belief in the soul and the belief in god are two very different belief systems. In the monotheist religions it's obvious that those religions are trying to dovetail the belief in the soul with the belief in a god and frankly, the joinery doesn't quite work.<BR/><BR/>Personally, I believe the god idea to be a load of boloney - an instrument devised by those in power to control and terrify the masses (sorry if that sounds a bit socialist but if you look at the history of the Christian/Islamic/Jewish religions that is exactly what has/is happening). The soul, however, is something quite different; it's almost subversive in the eyes of the Church(s) because it belongs to no-one other than the individual who owns it.<BR/><BR/>Well, that doesn't bring us any closer to confirming that behind the life force there is another layer of being but, somehow it makes me feel a lot better :-)Littlestonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12230602842890742843noreply@blogger.com