Wednesday, October 8, 2008

The spirit vs. the body

I have recently discovered an interesting way of looking at life as we know it. It all occurred to me when I was hanging out with the ultimate frisbee players. I was watching people bandage up legs and wounds and taping knees etc. This is when it really dawned on me that our souls are a slave to our bodies. The fact that I have been taking physiology also plays a part in me really starting to think about this. It may seem like one of those obvious parts of life, but I had never really stopped to think about it before; and if many of you have, well I guess I'm a bit slow, but for me this is a small epiphany. Who we are, our personalities, our ability to think and reason and communicate, everything about us is unique and special. Even though I believe animals have many if not all of these qualities (although many of them could be said to be not as advanced as ours) the main thing linking us to animals, AND plants, is that we all have physical bodies that have demands that must be met (I don't want this to sound as if I don't believe all spirits go to Heaven, or wherever, after death; that is something I am not sure of). If we injure ourselves, our soul, our being, is also limited by this. The fact that who we are never dies, but can become changed by our bodies (ie: dementia), or is "forced" into death by our bodies is, to me, very interesting. I think when one really looks at it it's a kind of evidence for an afterlife, at least it reinforced my belief of such. If who we are is a seemingly undying entity, but we are merely caged in this physical form that is temporary, then there must be a place for our souls to go after our bodies give in to their surroundings, or time. One could argue that our souls aren't immortal entities, but with everything that one person is capable of doing (ie: influencing the world in some way... like socrates... I won't use Jesus as an example because he was here under special circumstances ;P; and for the sake of arguing assuming non belief in God) I just can't believe that death is the end of our actual BEING! That is, however, just the way I see it, others might not feel the same. As this has somewhat changed my view of the world and its inhabitance, I just wanted to share it with everyone cause I think it's a pretty big deal. :)

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