Write4U
Valued Senior Member
It sounds to me that you are proposing that any commonly shared held opinion or viewpoint creates a "soul", an emergent entity from shared thoughts.I have a dual definition of a soul. One, a collective consciousness similar to what you described.
Two, a spirit. Spirits can possess other souls, but it is possible to lose ones soul while retaining the collective consciousness.
I have trouble digesting such a proposition, but I am aware of the notion that individual minds can create an entity with a life of its own. These are called Tulpas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TulpaTulpa is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.[1] It was adapted by 20th century theosophists from Tibetan sprul-pa (Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་པ་, Wylie: sprulpa) which means "emanation" or "manifestation".[2] Modern practitioners use the term to refer to a type of willed imaginary friend which practitioners consider to be sentient and relatively autonomous.
I believe God is a created Tulpa and which has been willed a host of divine powers and motivations by humans. It's a myth which acquired a life of its own.
I believe there is a biological explanation for such an assumption. It's called Empathy, and it's caused by the shared property of "mirror neurons" in the brain, which allows us to experience the emotions of others, thereby creating a shared "understanding".
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathyDefinition of empathy
1: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. also : the capacity for this.
2: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it
It's remarkable that "false idols" are discouraged in scripture. Can't have conflicting Tulpas.
Idolatry literally means the worship of an "idol", also known as a cult image, in the form of a physical image, such as a statue or icon.
Wiki.In Abrahamic religions, namely Christianity, Islam and Judaism, idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than God as if it were God. In these and several other monotheistic religions, idolatry has been considered as the "worship of false gods" and is forbidden
All these naturally shared abilities do not suggest a common truth (knowledge) that a soul is has a real existence, but rather a common understanding and shared emotional responses (understanding), which may or may not be true, IMO.
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