adam@npois.UUCP (Adam V. Reed) (03/24/85)
Asher Meth writes: > Back to Humanism and my original questions to Adam Reed > (did you ever answer any of them ??) > - Do you not believe in the concept of a SOUL ? > and an AFTER-LIFE ? and a CREATOR ? I did not answer these before, so here goes: SOUL: I think of the soul in natural terms, as the essence of my mind's existence in the natural universe. My conceptualization comes from Aristotle's "De Anima", which I strongly recommend to anyone embarking on a serious study of this concept. AFTER-LIFE: I hope that certain aspects of my soul - the methods, theories and inventions I have created, the ideas I have taught, the good I have done - will live in the minds of others after I have died. I interpret the concepts of after-life and resurrection as referring to this hope. CREATOR: Available evidence leads me to conclude that the Universe came into existence at a specific time and in a specific place, and therefore must have had a First Cause. This, however, is the sum total of what I can claim to know about the First Cause. I don't even know whether the First Cause should be conceptualized as an entity or an event, or whether these categories could be applicable before there was a Universe for entities and events to be in. Historically, I consider the personification of the First Cause in such human terms as "The Creator" to be an (unavoidable) figure of speech. Today, and within my own mind, I would consider such personification to be a symptom either of blind faith or of sloppy thinking, and I prefer to engage in neither. The above are my personal views, and other Humanistic Jews are likely to think differently. This is as it should be, since being Jewish is to me primarily a matter of action, rather than a matter of belief. I should add that viewing religion primarily as having to do with belief, rather than with action, seems to me to be based on a Goyish (particularly Islamic or Christian) definition of religion, and very foreign to the Jewish tradition. Adam