> Kevin, In your picture what is the soul without the body. Does it contain
> our memories or diversity in any way or is one soul the same as the next.
> What is life after death? I know this is conjecture land but I like hearing
> how you see all this.
>
Aw, shucks folks, I'm speechless! (Yah, right.)
Seriously, in my opinion the original, and main, purpose of the soul was to
provide a conduit for God to interact directly with mankind, but it turned
out to have an added benefit: it recorded the meomories, knowledge and
personality of the person it inhabited during life. I do not mean that the
soul serves as the repository for a person's memory, knowledge or
personality; I mean that is serves as a sort of backup copy. Then, when the
person dies and the body decays (the mind may live on afterward as the source
for ghosts), the soul returns to God, where it then transmutes into a perfect
spiritual clone of the person. This is not just a copy that gets archived
like a tape; the soul becomes a real person based on the person it had
inhabited in life. In essence the person is "resurrected" in spiritual form.
After that, I believe that those who did good in life -- in essence those
who selflessly worked to helped others -- will become God's apprentices and
helpers. Those who did evil in life -- in essence those who put their own
wants and desires ahead of the needs of others -- will not be punished, but
sent to a kind of rehabilitation center to be taught the errors of their
ways, at which point they will become God's helpers like the others. To
those who are truly remorseful, this might seem like hell until they come to
realize that its purpose is not to punish but to teach; some may never learn
that and thus be condemned to remain in the center forever because of their
own weaknesses and follies. True Hell -- Gehenna, the Lake of Fire -- will
be reserved for the truly depraved, and their souls will simply be destroyed
-- the Second Death.
>
> If God can speak into each man's
> mind (I see no reason to think this unnatural if He is there) then the
> voice of God is part of our every minute environment maybe inseparably
> intertwined and unidentifiable in our "conscience". That voice could always
> speak just enough to leave us at the pinpoint of going either way with
> moral decisions thus determining our freedom.
>
In many ways, this is how I see the Holy Spirit operating, as a part of
people's consciences. Only I believe Its voice is a bit more obvious than
you suppose.
Kevin L. O'Brien