A non-antagonistic question for Christians..?

Question

Do you know where you were before you were born? If not, why do you think it will be any different after you die? Or, do you believe god created the the soul after conception? If so, what's your foundation for that belief? And, why don't you think the soul will cease to exist after death, since it seems to be intrinsically connected to the body? Think about answering maturely, you could possibly win someone over to your side.

Not to insult anyone, but I think these questions should help you understand why some of us can't buy into Christianity. It leaves too many unanswered questions. Or, at best, it gives very vague answers.

moosemose: according to you Christians shouldn't be against abortion. "No human life ever existed in the womb." "After birth, the soul houses itself in the body."

The point of this was not to try to disprove the existence of the soul, but to prove no one knows where we're going after we die, or even if we're going anywhere. In this case, no one should ever try to shove their beliefs onto others if they don't truly know themselves.

Answer 1

I was in a state of non-existence before i was born, and when I die, i will return to a state of non-existence. The "soul" is a human's life. God told Adam in Genesis 3:19 "[...]until you return to the ground, for out if it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return" When Adam was "dust" he did not think, he did not see, hear or feel anything. He was dust. When Adam died, he returned to the ground, to be "dust" again, returned to a state of non existence. The soul DOES cease to exist after death. Because like you mentioned, it is connected to the body. The soul is the body's life force.

Answer 2

Well, I know I was growing inside my mom for about 8 1/2 months before I was born, before that I have no idea.

Will it be any different after I die? Again, I don't have a clue.

When did God create my "soul"...no clue...was it residing in some "soul pool" waiting for the moment of my conception?, was it created at the instant of my conception?, or was it added to my physical body some time after conception? With the "or" I can say yes since those are the only possible options but there is no way for me to "know" which is the truth.

I don't know that the soul will cease to exist after death. Perhaps it will for those that haven't chosen to have that soul transplanted into a heavenly body after the first body dies. Perhaps those souls that accept and follow God's instructions will gain something that is necessary before the transplant can work...perhaps those that rejected him or didn't follow his instructions will simply cease to exist because the heavenly body rejects the transplant! Or maybe the souls will simply go back to that "soul pool" to await another earthly body so they can try again to do what is necessary to receive that transplant.

The simple fact is that every question you asked is a question that can NOT be answered conclusively. Science, reason, critical thinking...nothing on earth can even directly observe or measure the soul let alone come to any conclusions about its nature.

Therein lies the emphasis on faith throughout the bible. When it comes to questions about the soul, ALL people have to rely on faith to answer them. For me, only a belief in God can give any meaning to the answers for without God, what does it matter if there even is a soul let alone how it came to be or what happens to me when I die? There can be no profit in believing that I don't have a soul nor can there be any benefit in believing that I don't have any control over its destiny. Only God offers the possibility that I have a soul and that through my own choices in life I can determine if and how that soul exists after my physical body dies.

Perhaps faith is an "immunosuppresant" required for the soul to be able to accept the heavenly body God promises each of us...without it, our soul will reject the transplant and die?

Answer 3

Hi, I am a theist, not necessarily a Christian, but here are my thoughts:

I believe that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that the spirit is energy trapped within a physical body. I believe that our senses and mind can only observe a very small amount of reality, and there is a strong possibility that the mind cannot comprehend what existed prior to birth and therefore wouldn't "store it as a memory"

The concept of an after-life has no scientific basis, it is based on faith therefore one cannot "logically" explain the concept. No matter what your beliefs are, NOBODY truly KNOWS what happens when you die. It is, and always will be, subject to personal beliefs.

I personally think life starts the MOMENT an individual genetic sequence is created, which would be conception.

I also think that being an intelligent educated person, and holding spiritual beliefs requires logical AND abstract thinking skills, which many people tend to lack one or the other.

Answer 4

Answering seriously. There are people that can not remember what they did yesterday so by your logic what makes bm ethink I will remember anthing that happens tomorrow? The fact that I can not recall what happened yesterday does not make it so that yesterady did not happen or that I did not exist yesterday. The average adult can not remember anything that happened to them before the age of four. Does this mean that the soul did not enter our body before the age of four? No. What it means is the the human brain has a hard time retrieving information over longer and longer periods of time. The brain is of the flesh. The soul is of the spirit. I can not say that by rebuking your theory that I will "win you over" as you say but your theory does not disprove the existence of the immortal sould nor does it disprove the existenece of the afterlife. All it does is point out the obvious fact that we as humans do not understand that of the realm of God. If our bodies did not exist before we were born(agree?) then what makes you think that our souls must have existed before? I can say that your agrument may be a challenge for people that believe in reincarnations but myselg(Christian) have no problem with your statement. The connection between body and soul is one of occupant(the soul) and vessel(the body). I was nothing(physical nor spiritual) before God created me. By the grace of God alone I will not cease to exist when my body dies. I know (from the Bible) what I must do to accept that Grace, I must obey The Ten Commandments, and believe in Jesus Christ.

Answer 5

Let me ask a question of you. What is the soul anyway? Is it the 12 grams or so you lose the moment you die? How can one rationalize the irrational? How can one explain somthing unknown and unseen. The irony of your question is the acknowledgement of a soul.

I believe that noone can give you an honest answer to your question because noone could answere honestly without fabricating or extrapolating. But since our soul leaves our body when we die, it must have been with us from the beginning at the point of enoculation, but I cannot know for sure.

Also I am not sure that the soul is intrinsically connected to the body, there are countless stories of out of body experiences when undergoing surgery. People coming back to life and reporting what they saw. There was one story I heard a long time ago of a man who was recesitated three times and he was so panicked that he forced the doctor to pray with him to accept Christ, and the doctor wasn't even Christian. Also some who have taken hallucinigenic drugs may report an out of body like experience.

I was born in a hospital in Milwaukee, it will probably be there when I will die, what does that have to do with anything? An aborted baby will most certainly be both born and killed in the exact same place.

What you are asking is a question that cannot be anwered without having your own experiences and/or dieing, when you die you should let me know how it goes. :)

Answer 6

1.) No I don't know where I was before I was born, beyond inside my mother's womb.
2.) I don't know where I'll be after I die, so it's no different.
3.) I believe our soul is in us from conception. A fertilized egg carries all the genetic information of an adult, and is a totally unique being, genetically speaking. It's soul will develop from that tiny bit just as its cells, arms, legs, and brain will develop from a single cell.
4.) Our souls won't cease to exist because they're meant to go on. An unborn child is securely attached to its mother's body, but eventually it does leave that body behind, and begins its own existence.

Answer 7

I don't know where my soul was before I was born, because the Word doesn't tell me. But in Psalm 139: 13-16, the Psalmist talks about how God knew him in his mother's womb and took note of every part. So I believe the soul is created at conception. After all, an embryo can't be human until the egg and the sperm join.

As far as where I will go after death, the New Testament is full of verses that tell me I will be with the Father and Jesus in Heaven.

Many of you may scoff at these ideas, but to me they are the hope of my life. If I weren't convinced that God loved me before I was born, and that one day I will be in His presence, I would have killed myself long ago.

Answer 8

Humbert Humbert from Lolita, right?
Haha, well, I'm raised Catholic and having issues with most of these questions at the moment. I have no idea about death, sometimes disagree with what the Church says. I hope for a Heaven, almost in a "The Lovely Bones" sort of way... an earthlike setting with animals and trees, etc. I believe in a soul sometimes, but when I'm feeling scientific I don't. I also don't when I think about Heaven, because I don't like the idea of just being in a state of whatever up there, I kind of would like it to be like on Earth, with a body, etc. I think I really just scrambled all this up, if it makes sense, great. If not, I tried.

Answer 9

My understanding, which is a simplified picture of the reality, is that our soul is roughly speaking our physical mind. Our spirit is made of eternal substance.

Conception - first cell of body created by juncture of gametes. Later the brain (soul roughly) is created.
A spirit is created automatically (it is "fallen" in the sense of being of Adam's race, i.e we are a spiritually dead race.)

Life - we learn to live out of our souls, as our spirits are very selfish if they have their way.

Become a christian - spirit is "born again", i.e receives image of Christ. We can then relate in spirit with God.

Christian life - education of one's spirit through Holy Spirit and the Word and other means. Renew one's soul so it now reflects one's spirits new nature. Body still has many wayward lusts though, and needs some discipline.

Death - spirit leaves dead husk. Spirit contains the essential person.

Spirit of christian goes to be with Jesus. Hopefully many others who haven't believed Jesus also somehow get qualified through God's grace (dead young kids for sure.)

We will receive new imperishable bodies at the time God renews the whole creation to be perfect. This will be either at 2nd coming, or after the 1000 year millenium.

Answer 10

too many questions to answer!!

Our knowledge of god comes from different sources (the natural world, the urging of the holy spirit, etc.) but the main one is the Holy Scriptures - the bible. From the bible, we learn about creation, redemption, resurrection, and eternal life.

The ensoulment of the body happens but we do not know when it happens - before birth, right at birth, or some days or weeks later or months later. Different Christians think differently but most believe ensoulment happens at conception.

where was i before i was born? Haven't a clue. What will happen after i die? I will go to be with the other saints and believers of the Lord.

god bless