Ah, but there has to be some lineage involved.
It's like the man selling an heirloom on Ebay, claiming that it was once
used by George Washington as a boy. Of course, its handle has been replaced
six times, and its head twice, but it was still Washington's ax.
OF COURSE our resurrected body will not be made of the same atoms as those
we are made of now...We are not made of all the same atoms as we were ten
years ago.
But this all involved with who, as individuals, we are. What is our
essence? Is it just mind and body? If so, then could be, theoretically,
duplicated right here on earth. But as I look at the clone, a "Stepford
Nerd", so to speak, I instinctively know it is not "me.," though, not
surprisingly, "he" probably thing he is. And if I were to die just before
"he" was activated, it would not validate his claim of being "me"...not one
iota. And that would go for the resurrection, too...unless I was fully
conscience between my physical death, and my resurrection.
Again, this may seem the plot of a trite sci-fi film, or some
Frankensteinian dream, or Fundie nightmare, but these are fundamental issues
that have to be resolved before one can make claims of life-after-death,
whether to debunk mediums claims or to understand God's promises.
I am sure I have gone way far a field on this topic, but ever since studying
it in college, I have been fascinated in it, and the fact that so few really
try to understand its ramifications.
Norm Woodward.
-----Original Message-----
From: bivalve [mailto:bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 5:56 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: Do animals ever "sin" (was something else)
>>I guess that means that it goes beyond question that the story of the rich
man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) was more fable than parable, and Jesus was
just playing mind games with the Sadducees concerning his remarks about the
Patriarchs in Matt 22:32. But the problem of I have concerning the creatio
ex nihilo resurrection is that if my soul, or, to be more precise, Being,
does not exist continuously, I will not be resurrected. This is the basis of
a lot of confusion concerning the ethics of cloning. Many seem to have
watched too many sci fi flicks, where immortality is achieved through having
our bodies replicated, and having our memories programmed into these bodies.
But that body over there is NOT me! It may live on beyond me, and begat more
clones, ad infinitum, but I will be confined to this body, until I cease to
breath. But if God were to create another body, and just equip it with a
"duplicate" my memories, then it will not be me, and the resurrection will
just be!
a Divine farce.
Or, I could be wrong. (You never know when HE is lurking...)
Norm Woodward <<
Some sort of creation of a new body must be part of being resurrected, which
does not merely entail reassembling the atoms and giving new properties. I
know of a cartoon that raises the problem, in which a child asks his Sunday
School teacher what happens when a cannibal chokes to death on a missionary.
However, the ordinary course of decay, or even respiration or the death of
individual cells, means that the same atoms are used in making billions of
people at different points in time.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
46860 Hilton Dr #1113
Lexington Park MD 20653 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted
Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droigate
Spa
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