souls?..if anyone can tell me what a soul IS, I might try to answer whether cockroaches or Cocker Spaniels...or Pope John...have one.

So many of these arguments are just anthromorphic projections and poetry and wishful thinking. Sure, that's all we HAVE to work with...and it makes for some very fascination concepts, but it is NOT a discussion that anyone can 'win'....unless some Entity decides to be much clearer about it than *he*(see...anthropomorphism..)has so far.

......I have to think that, if I were a Supreme Being, and had opinions about what my creations ought to be doing, I would not wait thousands of years between demos of my powers and clarifications of the rules. *wry smile*...Look at us (the human race...not just Mudcat)- bickering over little turns of phrase and killing each other over whether YOUR group or MY group gets this hill for a holy place! (yes...I KNOW there's more to it than that!)

What if the clouds had parted over Jerusalem yesterday and a BIG voice had boomed down from above..."Hey!! ALL OF YOU...STOP THAT!"

and what if a lot of other things............*sigh*