John Dalmas 142 18 http://www.johndalmas.com http://www.johndalmas.com/webonizer_sitemedia/johndalmas.jpg http://www.johndalmas.com/guest/1/?refType=article&refId=20 Guestbook Posts http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/20 Dear John, You wrote: It's been suggested that the soul enters the body with the first breath. That makes as much sense as the belief that the soul began with fertilization. Or was the soul in the ovum from the start? Others, I suppose, would prefer to think the soul is in the sperm, but for every sperm cell that wins the race to an ovum, hundreds are also-rans, and die. What happens to their souls? Christian clergy in general preach faith in God. Might it might be appropriate, then, to have faith that God looks after the details, and accept the world as it is, to the extent they can? Just a few ideas. If we were a little cell in a growing fetus, this world would feel very chaotic. All sorts of things would be in flux. We go to the effort to grow a tail and then abandon the effort. We would have good reason to feel that it was a pretty random, careless state of affairs. I think about this in the context of Baby Soul seeking an ordered world in seeming chaos. And there is probably a cycle which starts with fertilized egg and ends with the ‘death’ of life in the womb. And there is probably a ‘Baby Soul’ stage in all of that. To us, looking from the outside, the process of making a baby is a predictable process, expressing a repeating order. The cell going through meiosis is not falling apart. The growth that follows is not accidental or random. Is this an intelligent design? There does seem to be some kind of intentionality about it. Michael has been channeled as saying that the soul enters the body with the first breath. I think that this argument is too colored by the issues of abortion. I don’t know what percentage of women live their lives with repressed shame and guilt because they have never come to terms with an abortion which they had done in the midst of a crises. Every consideration of the nature of a unborn child is seen through the filter of a fear that they have committed a murder. I am pretty much outside this issue - being a lifelong celibate. I can only observe how abortion has devastating effects on women. I have never had a friend who had an abortion who seemed completely at peace with it. The women I have known who have seemed at peace seemed morally dead to me, utterly self centered. These women have had multiple abortions, and see it as a bit inconvenient. I don’t start discussion about abortions with women because it seems insensitive. I believe that there are conditions under which an abortion may be the best choice, but I think that regularly using it as a kind of birth control is wrong. In the middle I don’t have any kind of certainty. If I accept that a body is ensouled at the first breath, it does exclude the notion that it is the end of a process of interaction between soul and the forming human body. I think of the picture of the surgery where the baby raises it’s hand to the surgeon. In the scheme of the levels of planes from Buddhaic to the Physical, there is no explanation for the protolife? which is occurring in the fetus. Cats have a hive entity - but what is the source of the existence of a living being before birth? This being can die and the mother’s life continues, it is independent of hers. I propose that the nature/nurture explanation is too simple. There is sperm and egg and a force which gives energy to their union. It is like the person who knit’s a sweater. This force is the part enters and allows or determines the process of fertilization. It begins the expression of the choices that makes the incarnation. And like the sweater, there is a point where there is just there is just a pair of knitting needles (the force that will make the sweater), the pattern (the DNA), and a ball of yarn (the environment from which the body is spun). As one knit’s the sweater, it is not possible to wear it - to be ensouled. When the last stitch is knitted, the knitting needles, which were my connection to the sweater are no longer needed. My relationship with the form of the sweater is utterly different, I can then enter it. I don’t know about the issue of karma, but if the someone grabbed the sweater I was knitting and damaged it to the point that the sweater could not be made, I would have a range of reactions. I have had a cat do this in the very early stages when the yarn was just too much fun to ignore. There would be a difference between someone destroying my made sweater and someone interrupting the process. Especially say, if the person who interrupted me was paying for the yarn and decided to stop. I think that this may be more the equivalent of the relationship between the mother and the soul preparing to incarnate. There may also be an equivalent relationship of knitting needles, plan and yarn in the physical universe. The Tao is knitting it. This is a kind of Intelligent design. And in the way that a cell in a fetus might feel a kind of chaos in its development, we feel the uncertainly of order in our lives. This is not proof that there is no God working as creator. I hope that you see this message in a better context than this teeny box:o) Barbara Hardy Barbara Hardy 2009-03-05T06:30:58-05:00 http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/20 Mr.Dalmus. Reading your books has been a pleasure and a spiritual inspiration for me. Over twenty years ago I read “Regiment” When I was in the army and I was very taken with your Hindo-Buddist-deist spiritual construct. It is quite realistic; from my experience of 40 years on the spiritual path seeking the truth about God/the One. The Hindus realize that the earth is quite old. Clearly those with eyes to see and ears to hear, realize that evolution is real. The evidence is clear, but everything is still just made of one substance and one energy which has taken many forms for educational purposes. The greatest evolution is that of the soul which evolves and learns lifetime after lifetime on schoolroom Earth. As you, and others have stated, we follow a different “script” each time to learn what we have been designed to learn. Our learning benefits God and ourselves as we are a part of that One. There is no religion in God, but you know that. People have to start somewhere to discover themselves in God and your books are a great introduction. Thank you for listening to the God within yourself and sharing it with others. Brett Wallace Brett Wallace 2008-05-01T14:02:38-05:00 http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/20 I would like to thank you for a most enlightening (and entertaining) read. This article (and others) seems to articulate several views that I have recently developed, both in regards to the Evolution/Creation/ God question and to ecology in general. I would also like to point out that I am a rather firm Catholic and currently an Engineering student. Once again, kudos and thanks. G Tellier 2008-03-16T17:18:40-05:00 http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/20 Once upon a time I over heard a man at work criticize evolution. he said "It's like you took a box of parts, threw it down a hill and ended up with a watch." I didn't comment at the time. But later I realized his metaphor had critical flaws. If you take a box of parts and roll them down the hill millions of times, and systematically filter for anything closer to the watch, you'll get a watch. This metaphor isn't exact. Evoltuion isn't aiming at anything. The filter is survival. Anything that survives better passes the filter, anything that doe not survive does not. But I realized what the guy was having real problems with. Douglas Adams said that space is too large to fit in the human imagination. The numbers are too mind bogglingly large. I think geological time is much the same. it defeats the imagination. It's almost impossible to picture 1000 years, let alone 1,000,000 years. Sometimes I look at biological things like eyes, brains and ovaries. and I think "You must must be kidding me! Those came up RANDOMLY?" It's difficult to imagine the incredible spans of time and how my generations of creatures have come and gone. Richard Dawkins came up with a nice metaphorical description in his book "The Ancestor's Tale" I try stretch my brain out and keep it limber. But 65 million years is heavy lifting indeed. I am not sure I can mentally budge that. Jay ~Meow!~ Jay Hailey 2007-12-23T14:41:26-05:00 http://www.johndalmas.com/sci-fi_essay/20 You tiwce refer to human evolutionary ancestors as "apes" which is not how a biologist would describe ancestral hominid species such as Australopithecus africanus. Apes, strictly speaking, are cousins rather than ancestors of Homo sapiens. Nonetheless, the early hominids were rather ape-like, so I can understand why they would sometimes be called apes. But in such a controversial field as human evolution, which arouses so much ire on the part of religious fundamentalists, it pays to be precise. People are just looking for their chance to misunderstand you. Other than that, I would say that you have presented a good over-view of the subject. David Palter 2007-12-17T11:19:23-05:00