tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post2545695483013158728..comments2024-03-28T21:32:26.550+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Reincarnation versus Pre-mortal existenceBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-31281949875426352102017-08-13T06:53:45.909+01:002017-08-13T06:53:45.909+01:00@RG -But maybe you have already been an angel, as ...@RG -But maybe you have already been an angel, as a pre-mortal spirit? Pre-mortal spirits have less freedom. agency than mortals - so these angles are acting much more directly as 'messengers' of God. In a sense they, themselves, don't need to be 'good' but merely need to choose to serve God (the pre-mortal angels that choose to oppose God are the demons: Mormon revelation says that these are denied incarnation, condemned to remain spirits). Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-72991597252140585332017-08-13T03:32:58.335+01:002017-08-13T03:32:58.335+01:00I would make a poor angel. Give me a couple thousa...I would make a poor angel. Give me a couple thousand more years.Rainforest Giantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-24477871962289202822017-08-09T11:31:42.397+01:002017-08-09T11:31:42.397+01:00@Carter - Yes, I know - my emphasis was that we, p...@Carter - Yes, I know - my emphasis was that we, personally, may have been angels with very specific personal involvements of the kind that might lead to recollections that might be interpreted as evidence of reincarnation. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-82556127348835797762017-08-09T05:57:36.158+01:002017-08-09T05:57:36.158+01:00"We may have been 'angels' - i.e. spi..."We may have been 'angels' - i.e. spirits who were helpers and messengers of the divine"<br /><br />This is an uncontroversial part of Mormon beliefs. It's accepted, for example, that Adam was the archangel Michael before he came to Earth, and Noah is identified with Gabriel.<br />- Carter CraftTheDoctorofOdoIslandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06654695224557150961noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-84383626372281049082017-08-07T18:21:14.482+01:002017-08-07T18:21:14.482+01:00@CCL - INteresting point - sounds plausible.
Mor...@CCL - INteresting point - sounds plausible. <br /><br />Mormons do seem to talk a bit about pre-mortal existence, although this is mainly a speculative 'folk Mormon' belief than part of the official church. <br /><br />An interesting book by Terryl Givens (a Mormon - but the book covers all traditions) is When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought, 2010. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-72141433324844153832017-08-07T16:08:24.577+01:002017-08-07T16:08:24.577+01:00What is interesting is that the datum of existence...What is interesting is that the datum of existence prior to this life is entirely subjective and personal, not shared in any form between different individuals. On the other hand, the data about existence after life, while similarly difficult to verify on a purely scientific basis, is shared among the survivors.<br /><br />That is to say, your personal intuition as to whether you existed before conception of your physical body is similar to the intuition of a dead person that they have not ceased to exist. But the culturally universal belief in life after death is not because everyone has died and experienced the qualia of existence afterward, but rather because people who have <i>not</i> yet died themselves experience some degree of haunting or even visitation from those who have already physically died. Because this is an experience of encountering another person, it can be shared among several people familiar with a person before death.<br /><br />These shared experiences pass into culture, whereas the entirely personal sense of having existed before life does not lend itself to external conversation, there is nobody to talk to about your entirely unique inner experience. It could only be discussed by attaching it to external referents available in this world.<br /><br />So discussions of being haunted or visited by spirits of deceased persons become part of every culture. Discussions about the possibility of having lived in the world prior to one's current life become part of some cultures. But the internal and undiscussed datum of previous existence, stripped of assertions about this world, does not become part of culture.<br /><br />Despite the fact that it should seem logically obvious that if the persistence of any aspects of personality after death are possible, they cannot be dependent on the functioning of the physical body and thus have no logical reason to have begun at the same time as the biological processes of the body.<br /><br />That a major religious tradition should have inherited the logically baseless assumption that people continue to exist after death but did not exist prior to conception, and from a society deeply enamored of logic, suggests that the primary evidence of personal existence after death was generally quite strong for most of human history. It is perhaps connected with the widespread tradition of recovering and verifying human remains before disposal in some ritual manner. When someone dies, those who knew them in life still feel their continued existence, and thus need proof that they have indeed died.Chiu ChunLinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03519192610708043962noreply@blogger.com