Some more thoughts...

[NeuroTypical]

2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Perhaps I overthink these things, but do all animals have spirits? I can understand it for our cats and dogs, but what about the ticks we pull off them?

It's largely speculation.  I'm unsure of my source here, but there's either a scripture or either a statement of Joseph Smith that says something to the tune of "all things were created spiritually before they were created physically".  I think that's sort of the main justification for folks who think we'll get to see our beloved pets on the other side of the veil.  I'm pretty much hoping that's the case, but it's largely speculation and hope.  I don't know about the umpteen gazillion mosquitoes and even more bacteria.  But if heaven is a big enough place, it shouldn't be an issue. 

A while ago, folks were speculating about whether our notions of eternal progression/eternal growth/eternal increase would also apply to nonhuman critters, and if that meant they would eventually become sentient.  That's where my hope ends.  I very much want to see my dog Tiger again, but it would be pretty weird to have him call me by name with his dog voice.  And of course a colossal cloud of sentient mosquitoes out for vengence is nobody's idea of heaven.

[zil2]

7 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

"all things were created spiritually before they were created physically"

This is scripture.

There's also the story of his horse, but I don't know if that's legend or true.  It's mentioned in this article.

And March 2012 New Era article.

And apparently ThirdHour has an article, too.

12 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I very much want to see my dog Tiger again, but it would be pretty weird to have him call me by name with his dog voice.

More likely, you in your omniscience would understand the thoughts and feelings of your dog.  (I prefer not to think about these things because every cat on the planet is nosy as all get-out and thinks you need bathroom and shower buddies ... 'nuff said.)

13 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

And of course a colossal cloud of sentient mosquitoes out for vengence is nobody's idea of heaven.

[NeuroTypical]

ooh- I was woefully not-knowledgeable about the topic!   Here:

https://askgramps.org/do-animals-especiall-pets-also-go-to-heaven/

[zil2]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

ooh- I was woefully not-knowledgeable about the topic!   Here:

https://askgramps.org/do-animals-especiall-pets-also-go-to-heaven/

Oh, missed that one.  The Caldwell they quote was one of my religion professors (on the D&C) at BYU.  That was the year I cracked my head open and had to make up a few weeks of class work.  Part of that was done in his office, one on one, and I remember thinking to myself, "This man knows Jesus Christ."  Obviously I couldn't say whether he'd been physically in the Lord's presence, but I had the impression he knew the Lord just as well as if he had.  (Of course, I was 20-ish, so what did I know?)  He was later made a 70.  No idea where / what he might be now.

[mordorbund]

On 7/10/2024 at 7:58 AM, Jamie123 said:

Death is a mystery to me.

This is profoundly true in a technical sense. A "mystery" is something which can only be known by revelation (for instance, "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed"). There is often a ritual component which places us physically and mentally in a state to receive such revelation -- baptism being a good example of a physical act meant to get us pondering this very subject (among others). 

On 7/10/2024 at 7:58 AM, Jamie123 said:

So is life.

In two short sentences you've hit on what LDS scholar Hugh Nibley refers to as the "terrible questions". These are the weighty matters that we so often dance around. We'll argue over how three persons identify as God but there remains yet one. We'll laugh and poke at glowing stones, dancing bones, and other oddities that come from the old stories. But once we get serious, these are the answers we want. Religion is supposed to have the answers, but in many ways have fallen short. Science and Philosophy have placed these questions outside their domain. When pressed on it, they'll often come up with nihilism which yet remains unsatisfactory. Spiritual-but-not-religious have come up with their own brands of mysticism and ritual which provide meaning and purpose, but they never get to the meaty questions: Death is a mystery to me; so is life. We return to Religion pleading that it does what it's supposed to. Ritual (including baptism) can give us comfort from the familiarity of it, but if it is not accompanied by revelation it is merely pageantry. Scripture and Tradition can get us closer to the matter, as they may claim that someone once had the answer from personal experience. But once again, it becomes an issue of trust. Assuming a perfect and true transmission history, can we really trust this other guy's experience. Institutional revelation may record the answer and provide the words for it, but it can't truly be accepted until it is personally experienced. Without a revelation that tragically means death, with all the anxiety until then.

Clement in his Recognitions shares this same arc. He was in the same boat you are. He searched everywhere for answers and found the schools unsatisfactory. The best they could give him were someone else's words, who was long dead. He was on his way to Egypt to see if a seance there could satisfy him. Barnabas shows up on the scene and explains that his answers come from what he has seen and experienced. They travel to Peter where Clement is introduced to him and Clement receives answers to the terrible questions from someone who actually knows.

Jamie, I do not pretend to speak as an apostle or to carry the same weight as Barnabas or Peter. I have had experiences (I can think of 4 at the moment) that answer clearly for me that we -- who we are, what it means to be I -- continue after death, and family relationships still play an important role there. On the Internet I will not go into more detail on this, but I did want to share my witness on this matter. I can accept that I'm just an anonymous voice in the aether, but I wouldn't want you to just take my word for it anyway. I would ask that you simply consider that this stranger on the computer seems really convinced from real experience, and take that matter to God for your own experience. Personal prayer can feel funny when we're out of practice with it. Feel free to use Lamoni's father as a template.

[mordorbund]

On 7/11/2024 at 9:26 AM, Jamie123 said:

Perhaps I overthink these things, but do all animals have spirits? I can understand it for our cats and dogs, but what about the ticks we pull off them? Or the fleas we kill when we de-louse our pets? What about carpet mites and bed bugs and cockroaches and greenfly and the midges that bite you when you're camping (and never get any fewer no matter how many you swat)? They are all animals too.

Here's a scripture that hasn't been shared yet:

"I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven".

I don't know about angel fleas or angel ticks, but there's definitely angel flies.

I'll let myself out.

[askandanswer]

On 7/11/2024 at 10:56 PM, Jamie123 said:

Perhaps I overthink these things, but do all animals have spirits? I can understand it for our cats and dogs, but what about the ticks we pull off them? Or the fleas we kill when we de-louse our pets? What about carpet mites and bed bugs and cockroaches and greenfly and the midges that bite you when you're camping (and never get any fewer no matter how many you swat)? They are all animals too.

I haven't thought about this too carefully but I suspect that there is no matter without spirit, and since animals are a form of matter, there would be some spirit mixed up with that matter. 

[Jamie123]

14 hours ago, askandanswer said:

some spirit mixed up with that matter. 

Spirit is a funny word - you rarely see it defined. But most of us (okok - some of us including me) have an intuitive idea what it means in this sense. But the origins of the word are interesting:

Spirit comes from Latin "spiritus" which literally means breath or wind. It's where we get the word "respiration".

The NT Greek word is "pneuma" which has exactly the same usage. From it we get "pneumatic" and "pneumonia".

Both have "movement of air" as their primary meaning, used as an analogy for the supernatural sense.

I know nothing about ancient Germanic, but the modern German is "geist". Hence poltergeist, and in English ghost. I was tempted to compare it with the English gust (as in a gust of wind) which would again suggest a "moving air" analogy, but now I look it up I find "gust" comes from the Old Norse for "apetite" (cf. gusto). Are gust and geist really false friends? Something to look into.

We use "spirit" to mean other things like hydrocarbon compounds (including gasoline and alcohol) and attitude ("That's the right spirit!"). Geist is also used in the latter sense, as in "zeitgeist" - the "attitude of the age".

It's also worth mentioning the Latin  word "animus" (feminine "anima"), though this is usually translated as soul rather than spirit*. This implies motion, as in "animation" and "animal". So you could say animals do have souls because that's what the word means - though it probably just means that they move, whereas plants generally don't.

*I don't understand the difference between soul and spirit. I've read somewhere that LDS believe the "soul" is the spirit and body combined. But there's a persistent notion elsewhere that the "soul" is something separate that accompanies us. A bit like conscience: your soul is to you what Jiminy Cricket was to Pinocchio. Wordsmith wrote "The soul that rises with us, our life's star". There were the "daemons" in Philip Pullman's novels. Etc etc etc.

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123

[zil2]

1 hour ago, Jamie123 said:

Spirit is a funny word - you rarely see it defined.

Quote

D&C 131:7 There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;

8 We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.

 

1 hour ago, Jamie123 said:

I've read somewhere that LDS believe the "soul" is the spirit and body combined.

Quote

D&C 88:14 Now, verily I say unto you, that through the redemption which is made for you is brought to pass the resurrection from the dead.

15 And the spirit and the body are the soul of man.

16 And the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul.

(Though there are times when it seems clear that "soul" and "spirit" are used synonymously.)

[Jamie123]

6 minutes ago, zil2 said:

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;

P.S. Now we're on the subject of Mr. Spock, when I was about 6 years old they started putting promotional Star Trek cut-out masks on the backs of Kellogs Corn Flakes boxes. I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really wanted to be Mr. Spock. The trouble was, so did every other kid. My mother and I checked out every box of Corn Flakes in the entire store, but we couldn't find a single Spock. I had to be content with Captain Kirk, but that wasn't down to any fault of me Mum. She kept on going till we'd checked every single box. That's the kind of mother she was.

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123

[Jamie123]

7 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;

The existence of air was not always obvious. Empedocles, who lived about 450BC, discovered it by lowering an inverted bucket in a tank of water and showing that the water did not rise inside the bucket. He reasoned the bucket must be filled with some ultra-fine substance that held the water back: what we now call "air". (Although he didn't know it at the time, he had also invented the diving bell.)

Prior to that (I suppose) people must have known about wind. After all, they had sailing ships long before that. But maybe they just considered it a "phenomenon" and left it there. They knew by experience that by hanging up a sheet of fabric they could propel a boat across water, and the same force (whatever it was) sometimes knocked trees over, or pulled the rooves off houses. But they didn't know it had anything to do with "matter" - like the liquids and solids they could see and feel. Along with fire, these make up the four "classical elements" - it seems quaint now (the sort of thing New Agers talk about) but at the time it was really quite a scientific breakthrough.

But I wonder - if Joseph Smith was right, perhaps we're now in a similar position regarding what we call "spirit". Like air, it could be everywhere only we don't know it - except of course when it moves or does something. And if it is really physical, perhaps one day we will build apparatus that can detect it. A fictional account springs to mind: Dan Brown's novel The Lost Key. The scientist heroine (you'll remember that Professor Langdon - like James Bond - has a different female companion in every novel) performs an experiment on her dying mentor, whereby she monitors his weight during his death. She finds that he gets slightly lighter as he dies, proving that his spirit/soul has mass. (Of course the evidence is lost when her laboratory is "exploded" by the bad-guys, but that's typical Dan Brown.) It's trashy pulp-fiction of course, but it shows the idea is out there!

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123

[Vort]

4 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Spirit is a funny word - you rarely see it defined. But most of us (okok - some of us including me) have an intuitive idea what it means in this sense. But the origins of the word are interesting:

Spirit comes from Latin "spiritus" which literally means breath or wind. It's where we get the word "respiration".

The NT Greek word is "pneuma" which has exactly the same usage. From it we get "pneumatic" and "pneumonia".

Both have "movement of air" as their primary meaning, used as an analogy for the supernatural sense.

Genesis tells us that God breathed into Adam the breath of life. Another way of putting it is that God placed Adam's spirit into him. I understand the term "God-breathed", common in larger Christianity (at least in the US), to mean "of the Spirit [of God]".

4 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

We use "spirit" to mean other things like hydrocarbon compounds (including gasoline and alcohol) and attitude ("That's the right spirit!"). Geist is also used in the latter sense, as in "zeitgeist" - the "attitude of the age".

In modern society, "spirit" has come to mean "driving force" or "essence". Distilled beverages concentrate the essence, or spirit, of the substance; thus, we have "spirituous liquors".

4 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

It's also worth mentioning the Latin  word "animus" (feminine "anima"), though this is usually translated as soul rather than spirit*. This implies motion, as in "animation" and "animal". So you could say animals do have souls because that's what the word means - though it probably just means that they move, whereas plants generally don't.

Animals are generally distinguished from plants by the fact that animals move on their own volition, while plants generally do not (at least not with an easily observable speed). It's interesting to me how this basic root from Latin is shared with the English borrowing directly from the Latin in the term "animus", meaning ill will or hostility.

4 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

*I don't understand the difference between soul and spirit. I've read somewhere that LDS believe the "soul" is the spirit and body combined. But there's a persistent notion elsewhere that the "soul" is something separate that accompanies us. A bit like conscience: your soul is to you what Jiminy Cricket was to Pinocchio. Wordsmith wrote "The soul that rises with us, our life's star". There were the "daemons" in Philip Pullman's novels. Etc etc etc.

Doctrine and Covenants 88:15 "And the spirit and the body are the soul of man." You are correct that in LDS usage, the term "soul" refers to a physically living (mortal or immortal) being. I think that Latter-day Saints often use the term "soul" as a synonym of "spirit", as is widely done in public usage. I myself have never heard the idea that a person's "soul" is something outside himself or some accompanying essence à la Jiminy Cricket.

[Vort]

43 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

rooves

I don't believe I have ever seen this word written out. I have always seen "roofs"; but when I Google "rooves", it shows as the (only) plural of "roof", with no "roofs" in sight.

Huh.

[Jamie123]

17 minutes ago, Vort said:

I don't believe I have ever seen this word written out. I have always seen "roofs"; but when I Google "rooves", it shows as the (only) plural of "roof", with no "roofs" in sight.

Huh.

It makes sense: we have -

Wife/wives

Elf/elves

Shelf/shelves

Hoof/hooves

I Googled it too. It seems that "rooves" was largely replaced by "roofs" some time in the 18th century, but is still used somewhat (though not often enough to be "considered standard"). There is some discussion about it here https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13183/plural-of-roof#:~:text=Apparently both roofs and rooves,is used more than another.

A partially relevant parallel: The plural of dwarf always used to be dwarfs (as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) but J.R.R. Tolkien started a trend when he used dwarves in The Hobbit and later in The Lord of the Rings. Nowadays nearly everyone says dwarves - though only when referring to the mythological beings, not people with dwarfism.

[Jamie123]

4 hours ago, Vort said:

I myself have never heard the idea that a person's "soul" is something outside himself or some accompanying essence à la Jiminy Cricket.

I don't think the idea would have occurred to me if I hadn't encountered it elsewhere - but it's there if you look for it. I gave two examples: Wordsworth and Philip Pullman. Wordsworth is a tiny bit ambiguous - we have "the soul that rises with us" but later "trailing clouds of glory do we come". There's Psalm 42: "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?" Is the Psalmist talking to himself, or to some spiritual companion? (Or perhaps in a sense both.)

Another (much sillier) example: in the Simpsons, Bart "sells" his soul to Millhouse for ten bucks, but then dreams that all the other children (even Nelson the bully) have companion selves, while he is all alone. Millhouse meanwhile has not only his own companion self tagging along, but Bart's*. Its a joke of course, but I think it illustrates a particular way souls are perceived.

*Spoiler: Millhouse eventually gives Bart's "soul" to Comic Book Guy in return for pogs. (Bart: "You sold my soul for pogs????!!!!") But Lisa kindly buys it back for him, so it all ends well.

EDIT: found a clip...

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123

[Jamie123]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

It's interesting to me how this basic root from Latin is shared with the English borrowing directly from the Latin in the term "animus", meaning ill will or hostility.

I was wondering whether to mention that usage of the word. I wonder if it comes from the legal term "malus animus" (bad motivation).

[Ironhold]

4 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

P.S. Now we're on the subject of Mr. Spock, when I was about 6 years old they started putting promotional Star Trek cut-out masks on the backs of Kellogs Corn Flakes boxes. I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really wanted to be Mr. Spock. The trouble was, so did every other kid. My mother and I checked out every box of Corn Flakes in the entire store, but we couldn't find a single Spock. I had to be content with Captain Kirk, but that wasn't down to any fault of me Mum. She kept on going till we'd checked every single box. That's the kind of mother she was.

You're presuming that all of the masks were available in equal numbers. 

In real life, companies can and will make products available in weighted amounts based on expected demand. 

I highly doubt, for example, that the android mask was produced at the same rate as the Kirk mask. 

[Jamie123]

21 hours ago, mordorbund said:

Clement in his Recognitions shares this same arc. He was in the same boat you are. He searched everywhere for answers and found the schools unsatisfactory. The best they could give him were someone else's words, who was long dead. He was on his way to Egypt to see if a seance there could satisfy him. Barnabas shows up on the scene and explains that his answers come from what he has seen and experienced. They travel to Peter where Clement is introduced to him and Clement receives answers to the terrible questions from someone who actually knows.

Thanks - this story is new to me. The only mention I could find in the Bible to anyone called Clement is Philppians 4:3 (though apparently Clement was a very common name.) I did find your story here here https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/080401.htm. I've often thought I needed to study the church fathers more. Thanks.

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123
Unmatched bracketing

[Jamie123]

18 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

I highly doubt, for example, that the android mask was produced at the same rate as the Kirk mask. 

Android? I think you're confusing Spock with Data.

Edit: I get what you're saying though. I remember years ago the supermarket toy shelves being full of Callisto dolls (the Xenas presumably having sold out the first day!) The supermarket buyers probably had no idea who either Xena or Callisto were and goofed up badly!

Callisto (in case you'd forgotten her):

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123

[Jamie123]

On 7/10/2024 at 5:41 PM, zil2 said:

You're right.  You were making general statements and Carb appeared to take them as directed specifically at him, perhaps because of what you quoted - or I'm misunderstanding the interaction.

I've thought about this a little more. Perhaps in a sense I was wrong.

Logically, the Church is either true or else it is not true. If it is not true then it follows that anyone who claims to know it is true must be mistaken.

So if I claim not know myself that the Church is true, I am admitting to the possibility that it is false. I am therefore suggesting - albeit indirectly - the possibility that anyone who "knows" it is true is mistaken. (This is what I meant - though I didn't see it quite as clearly then - by my first post on this thread.)

A few years ago there was a thread where people were arguing that disagreement with Church authorities should be forbidden on the forum. I attempted to argue that this would be tantamount to banning nonmembers, whereupon Prisonchaplain was held up to me as a shining example of a nonmember in good standing.

I wanted to point out that Prisonchaplain, being a member (in fact a cleric) of another denomination was - by his very religious stance - disagreeing with the Church, and therefore with Church authorities. I couldn't though because the thread was shut down by mods. It would have been peevish to have started a new one just to get my point across, so I let it drop.

I do still think that "nonmembers welcome but disagreement with the Church forbidden" is not a tenable policy; it's one or the other, not both. And (to give everyone due credit) I don’t think this is the case. The forum is by and large a safe place to voice your honest thoughts and get others' honest thoughts back.

I stumbled into this forum many years ago and have always found it stimulating and enjoyable. About ten years ago I had a wobbly period when I deliberately got myself banned, but I cant blame anyone but myself. (It was when my wife miscarried what would have been our second child - but no one here was to know that.) Estradling helped me through it. I'm very grateful to everyone I've ever interacted with here. Thank you all.

P.S. I miss Anatess. She was always knocking me off my perch - sometimes most deservedly. I hope she's doing OK.

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123

[Ironhold]

2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Android? I think you're confusing Spock with Data.

 

One vintage "free mask on the back of the package!" promotion for Star Trek masks on the back of a serial box had six masks. It was Kirk, Spock, Bones, a Klingon, a different alien race, and a so-called "android" that was basically a generic human face with minimal details. 

Photos from the promotion, including the advertising copy, occasionally turn up on various social media sites. 

I want to say it was from Kellogg's. 

[Jamie123]

21 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

One vintage "free mask on the back of the package!" promotion for Star Trek masks on the back of a serial box had six masks. It was Kirk, Spock, Bones, a Klingon, a different alien race, and a so-called "android" that was basically a generic human face with minimal details. 

Photos from the promotion, including the advertising copy, occasionally turn up on various social media sites. 

I want to say it was from Kellogg's. 

It doesn't sound like what I remember. I think our masks were Spock, Kirk and Bones. Possibly Uhura was there too (for the benefit of girls) but I certainly don't recall any others. Still I was only 6 - or maybe only 5.

EDIT: Looks like you're right...

Perhaps the UK release didn't have all of them.

Edited July 13, 2024 by Jamie123

[Vort]

2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Thanks - this story is new to me. The only mention I could find in the Bible to anyone called Clement is Philppians 4:3 (though apparently Clement was a very common name.) I did find your story here here https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/080401.htm. I've often thought I needed to study the church fathers more. Thanks.

The Clementine Recognitions/Clementine Homilies are two closely related versions of an early (possibly as early as first-century, thought to be no later than early second century, though the never-infallible Wikipedia claims third century origins; the Catholic Encyclopedia prefers a date of mid-fourth century) Christian "romance" or novel of sorts, originally in Greek (I assume Koine). While the story is probably fictionalized to some degree, the thought is that it may faithfully represent the beliefs, attitudes, and experiences of very early Christians. Quite an interesting read, and of course freely available online.

[zil2]

2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Logically, the Church is either true or else it is not true.

Yeah.

2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

If it is not true then it follows that anyone who claims to know it is true must be mistaken.

Yeah.

2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

So if I claim not know myself that the Church is true, I am admitting to the possibility that it is false.

Do you mean "claim not to know" or "claim to know"?

[zil2]

10 minutes ago, Vort said:

Clementine

Utterly unrelated to everything except this word, here's an amazingly politically incorrect song that should not be funny and yet I find it ridiculously funny (I chose the lyrics version so you could see why it should not be funny):