Comments about ‘Defending the Faith: Religions have unique ways of looking at human 'souls'’

Who knows, nobody knows. But the Mormons do have perhaps the most comfortable contiguous philosophy of man's before and after life. It will be wonderful if true. Too bad man can't make the supernatural to be what he wants it to be; but perhaps wishing and hoping will make for a more positive day.

RE: Mormonism, with its radical doctrine of a persistent soul that existed before mortal life and can never be created or destroyed, offers an even starker contrast with Buddhist doctrine on this point than does mainstream Christianity.

Christians(Protestants,Catholic) and Jews believe that God created all that exists ex nihilo (out of nothing). Mormonism is quite different in its cosmology, claiming that God fashioned the universe out of preexisting material. God is eternal in some forms of LDS theology, but so is preexisting matter, including the material used by God to create human beings.

Is the Mormon God too weak to create ex nihilo? If so, then is he less than omnipotent?

The difficulty with Mormon gods instead of God, is that limited gods makes no sense because you have no point of reference for Absolutes. Even the philosophers Plato and J.P. Sarte understood this that the finite makes no sense without the infinite.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to *Destroy both soul and body in hell.(Mt 10:28)

"Mormonism, with its radical doctrine of a persistent soul that existed before mortal life and can never be created or destroyed, ..."

Only Jesus Christ pre-existed, which is why He is called the Only Begotten of The Father (in the flesh and in the spirit - on earth and in heaven). Only means ONLY. The soul of man and woman is created by the Lord God in the womb at conception per Zechariah 12:1 and 1 Cor.15:46.

Archie Bunker said "Faith is something you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe." Seems about right to me. Religions argue about the nature of the soul, when there is no evidence whatsoever that any such thing (poorly defined as it is) even exists. What a waste of time and effort! Let's spend our time here on earth living well and doing good, and forget the rest of this nonsense.