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New one from the JWs

Tricky said:
I envision a Star-Trek type transporter beam.
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Actually, that was my first thought. I've been in some EXTREMELY nerdy arguments where I assert that the Star Trek* transporters murder you and then make a new person that is the same as you in most ways but doesn't have continuity and is, in a very real sense, a new and distinct person.

This has the same problem. If I die and then someone uses my blueprints to make another SOdhner, it's not of any real use to me except in the sense that I guess I would want my memories to live on even if it is in the form of some creepy sci-fi clone that thinks it is the original.

* - I'm not a big Star Trek fan but so far my understanding of the way the transporters work hasn't been disputed so I think I got it right.
 
I used to study with the Witnesses, and I find their beliefs fascinating. The "earthly paradise" into which most people will be resurrected, according to their views, is always gorgeously and photorealistically depicted in their magazines such that people of all races -- each of them fastidiously groomed and dressed in mainstream conservative apparel -- will spend their days together building houses for one another, raking leaves, having picnics and hanging around with lions, lambs, and myriad other animals from a multiplicity of continents who deign not to eat each other. Whether the humans' picnic includes meat from some of these super-trusting animules is an open question.

Fascinating set of beliefs.
 
I have. JW's say the body is the soul. They say that since each cell has a perfect genetic code for our bodies God will somehow make a new perfect body for us using this knowledge using whatever of us is left over when we die. I wonder what God will do to remake a cremated body or a body left above ground that has completely rotted to dust not to mention a grave thats been there so long that the body and the coffin is gone.
 
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SOdhner said:
Actually, that was my first thought. I've been in some EXTREMELY nerdy arguments where I assert that the Star Trek* transporters murder you and then make a new person that is the same as you in most ways but doesn't have continuity and is, in a very real sense, a new and distinct person.

This has the same problem. If I die and then someone uses my blueprints to make another SOdhner, it's not of any real use to me except in the sense that I guess I would want my memories to live on even if it is in the form of some creepy sci-fi clone that thinks it is the original.

* - I'm not a big Star Trek fan but so far my understanding of the way the transporters work hasn't been disputed so I think I got it right.
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I don't see how this makes a difference for a materialist. Every moment in time I'm technically just a different arrangement of molecules that create my personality for that point in time. It seems to me it is only an issue if you think that there is some magical energy (aka a soul) that hold some or all of your personality. Is it any different if you were able to freeze me for 100 years and then thaw me out undamaged or incinerate me and recreate me exactly down to every last subatomic particle in 100 years unless you think there is something imbued in the molecules of my body at this point in time other than matter itself.
 
Cainkane1 said:
I have. JW's say the body is the soul. They say that since each cell has a perfect genetic code for our bodies God will somehow make a new perfect body for us using this knowledge using whatever of us is left over when we die. I wonder what God will do to remake a cremated body or a body left above ground that has completely rotted to dust not to mention a grave thats been there so long that the body and the coffin is gone.
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Among the 24 posts in between the OP and your own post, it is well established that God's memory, according to the Witnesses, is sufficient to recreate the bodies of the dead.
 
seayakin said:
Every moment in time I'm technically just a different arrangement of molecules that create my personality for that point in time.
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Yeah, but most of us like to take personal responsibility and associate ourselves with the things we've done in the past. Having a brand new body with someone else's memories is a disturbing idea to me. Slow replacement is another thing entirely; having cells die and get replaced bit by bit doesn't disrupt continuity.

seayakin said:
Is it any different if you were able to freeze me for 100 years and then thaw me out undamaged
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I would say yes, although I'll admit that it's hard to pin down a good rational reason why. Partly for me the test is this: can this method allow there to be more of you than there were before? If yes, I don't count it as still being you.

So I do this thing, this "re-create you from memory or whatever" thing, and now I have another of you. But I've done it prior to the original you dying. Now you can see that there's another one of you in the next room and I point a gun at your head and say "Don't worry, I made a backup!" ... well, that's not reassuring to most people.

That's what this feels like. Rather than "When you die, God will bring you back to life and you'll live in Heaven" it feels like "After you die, God will make a new person and tell it that it's you and that person will live in Heaven!" and that's not as comforting as the versions where you have an immortal soul or whatever.

We could get into a long complicated discussion picking apart the idea of copying people under various conditions and whether or not it counts as the same person of course, but it's only barely on topc as is. I would be happy to participate in a separate thread but don't feel the need to start one myself.
 
It seems to me that the only way you could come back from the dead is for a ghost like soul which is the essence of you to exist than when God makes a new body he puts the soul into you and voila. There you are.
 
The belief is that you are resurrected in a "perfect" body. Or, if you manage to live through Armageddon and make it into paradise without dying (which all JW's alive at the moment believe will be the case for them) then you get magically cured of any ills. This is an omnipotent god we're dealing with remember, he can do anything. ETA Cainkane, he creates a new body and then puts a perfect copy of your mind and memories into it. By magic. Presumably that would have to be your mind and body at the moment of death, so you're going to have a freaky few minutes screaming your head off immediately after being resurrected... :)

So if you die of old age then you'll come back in an athletic prime-of-life version of your body.

What happens to all the unborn or newborn babies that died though? Are they going to be fast forwarded to middle age? (middle age is the prime of life right? Right??) Or will there be millions of magic wombs and breast feeding trees for all these hapless infants?

I've noticed this with a lot of beliefs, they always work fine for "normal" people. People who are in the middle of society. If you're a middle aged married couple then all the beliefs work well for you. If you're single, gay, handicapped or an aborted foetus though, it all starts to fall apart. I guess that's because these ideas were written by the Norms, for the Norms.
 
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For many years my family seemed fated to live within within a few hundred yards of a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall, but since moving to my current address I've seen very little of them. On the rare occasions they knock on my door I give them a chance to identify themselves, then tell them I recently had a blood transfusion and feel too weak to talk to them.
 
Alice Shortcake said:
For many years my family seemed fated to live within within a few hundred yards of a Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall, but since moving to my current address I've seen very little of them.
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I used to live literally just around the corner from a Kingdom Hall, for five years, and I think they only called once in that time. I suspect they were deliberately leaving their immediate neighbours alone.
On the rare occasions they knock on my door I give them a chance to identify themselves, then tell them I recently had a blood transfusion and feel too weak to talk to them.
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I must remember that one, next time. :D
 
Piscivore said:
Everyone is going to be Natalie Portman? I may have to consider this religion...
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Yes...but unfortunately you have to dress like Queen Amidala for eternity.



The woman was supposed to be queen of a whole planet, and she couldn't afford enough lipstick to cover both lips?! Argh!
 
SOdhner said:
Actually, that was my first thought. I've been in some EXTREMELY nerdy arguments where I assert that the Star Trek* transporters murder you and then make a new person that is the same as you in most ways but doesn't have continuity and is, in a very real sense, a new and distinct person.

This has the same problem. If I die and then someone uses my blueprints to make another SOdhner, it's not of any real use to me except in the sense that I guess I would want my memories to live on even if it is in the form of some creepy sci-fi clone that thinks it is the original.

* - I'm not a big Star Trek fan but so far my understanding of the way the transporters work hasn't been disputed so I think I got it right.
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You might like "Spock Must Die" in which McCoy, Scott and Kirk muse over this point; however it soon turns into a surfeit of Spocks.


zooterkin said:
Is that the lucky 144,000 supposedly seen standing arranged in a square?
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It would require a deity to arrange 144,000 indivisible obects into a square.....
 
How depressing. One life with this bnody is enough, imagine eternity? I'm sure that kind of advert for their religion won't bring in many keen on it!
When they last came to my house I made my sis answer, they asked her wouldnt she just love to be reunited with her lost loved ones again, she answered 'heck, Ive had enough of them in this life'.
 
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