A Dead Human?

When you die, are you still a member of the human race? What makes a human? I think that when you die, your no longer a human. For example, if your body got dissolved in a tub of acid, and there was nothing left. When you die, is your body still yours? Are you still you if your dead?

 

It looks like you define human as having a physical body. Do you believe in an afterlife? If we do survive death then we cant possibly be defined by our physical bodies. We would be some sort of spiritual being living in a temporary physical vessel. Human is just a label.

What use would your body be to you if you were dead? If there is no afterlife then you wont be around to question your existence. If there is an afterlife then you were never your physical body to begin with.

 

When you die, anything that is left is the carcass of a deceased human being. There is no "you" to be a human being anymore, so there can be no "human being," only the corpse of a deceased former human.

So it's not that when you die, you transform into something other than a human being. You're not a human being, and you're not anything else either. You're literally nothing, so there is no human being, only the remains of one.

Kind of like, Aztec ruins aren't actually Aztec buildings. They're ruins; the remnants of what used to be Aztec buildings.

 

More importantly, if you die, and your corpse farts, who dealt it?

 

hear, hear.

ah, but i think then the 'you smelt it, you dealt it' card would come into play, no?

 

Eh... do what I do in life. Blame it on the dog.

 

No, you are not a human being; you are a human not-being. haha.

Seriously though, the corpse is a human corpse; though it only remains human in the "total sense" (that is, the human conception of what makes a human, including personality) in the minds of the still living.

Also, it's not necessarily true that if there is an afterlife, that the body is but a vessel. In a sense it is, but I am my body (among other things) while a boat captain is not his boat in any way. To a pantheist like myself, there is no soul vs. body dilemma, they are one and the same. So, even if I change forms, or my awareness survives somehow, that doesn't mean the body, while I'm living, is like clothing for a naked soul.

well, I dunno. I mean, it IS a corpse. Maybe, just maybe, it smells bad all on it's own...

 

if you see a dead rat its still a rat because it has the biological makeup of a rat

 

So when your body (as a panthiest) dies does the soul die as well? If the soul lives own w/o the body is it still truley you? Or, do you believe that when the body decomposes and changes form all of you does along with it?

 

No clue.

 

There is only one soul, which is the universe. I am but a drop of that great ocean, a part, differentiated but not seperated from it. When we die, we rejoin the cosmic Soul as the raindrop rejoins the ocean. Imperfect analogy, but you get the idea.

These are just my ideas, though, not sure if it goes for all pantheists.

 

what is the difference between pantheism and Buddhism?

 

Not a lot. Both are philosophies by which we can organize our life. They can be used together, too. Buddhism says about nothing about gods/divinity, instead talking mainly about how to end suffering; so pantheism can be used to fill that part in. Hinduism in pantheistic, and the Buddha came out of a Hindu background, so they clearly go together, or can go together anyways.

 

The universe.

But it no longer has the volition of a rat. Thus, it is only a deceased rat, but not actually a rat.

I don't have the exact same beliefs as TrippinBTM, but I'm also a pantheist, and I want to try and answer.

There is no "soul" to die when the body does. If you're a pantheist and you believe in a soul, your title should actually be "panENtheist."

If the soul lives on without the body (no longer in a pantheist world), I'd presume that it's the essence of your self, but without your self. That sounds odd, so let me give you an analogy: I imagine that the soul without a body is like a song without a guitar to play it. "You" are still the same song, but that song sounds different with each guitar that plays it. So in a sense, you'll be different in human form and different in any other form, and your "soul" is more of a blueprint of you.

When the body loses consciousness, there is no longer a "you" to change form while your body decomposes. Or, if you believe in a Buddhist-like idea of "no self," there never WAS a "you" to change form, because with every moment, there is a different realization of who "you" are.

Shane: I like your Nietzsche quotes, in your sig there. =P