DB> And, he wasn't far off.  The atoms of your body are not different from
 DB> any others; but the software that you use to determine which body to
 DB> animate, and what to do with it- well that is unique.  If you accept the
 DB> idea of afterlife or judgement day, well then, you havta wonder what it
 DB> *is* that is being judged.  There's the idea that you will be judged for
 DB> your 'sins'.  To do that, there hasta be a record, a videotape of your
 DB> existence, which is all that you have [lacking a unique body in a unique
 DB> space] differentiating an Avatar you had from that of any other.
 DB> Nevertheless, I find this damnation business naive and childish,
 DB> preferring Plato's version as being reasonable and consistent with more
 DB> facts.
   Plato, of course, wasn't in the framework of the "sin" category but was
struggling with the perennial problem of how much of an orderly society might
be possible in a political realm in which so many souls are not curable 
i.e.,
incapable of conscience) and thus not able to search for attunement of human
order to the divine order present in the consciousness of those who are
capable of recognizing and responding to the tension.  There IS no guarantee
of rewards and punishments even in the non-hedonistic sense  - only the
eruption of the individual consciousness searching for and finding the
awareness for that existential tension between the hunan and the divine as
experienced in the living of a life.
   The question I'd like to ask both Socrates and Plato (and Ecclesisastes)
is: "What good does it do to forsake pure hedonism and hang around funeral
homes?"   Their reply MIGHT be - "well, it is better to have a sharpened
awareness than not to have it."  But is it?  Much of it seems to have the
flavor of a curse - not a blessing!
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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