what is a soul

[robtex]

I have a friend who is a Mason and he related a story from his childhood to me once. When he was about 12 his grandmother passed on. He was standing next to his dad viewing the open casket and asked his father, "where is grandma?"

She is right there said his father. No she isn't contended that is her body where is she? His father didn't answer the question but that was the day my mason friend became a gnostic (and later a Christian).

When he told me the story it made me think. There doens't seem to be much turbalance on the theory of wheather we have souls or not.

Do the people here believe we do and if so where do they come from and where do they go when they leave the body?

Is there any research on souls?

 

[TheERK]

There doens't seem to be much turbalance on the theory of wheather we have souls or not.

Actually, there is quite a bit of it.

Is there any research on souls?

Not really, because nobody knows exactly what to test for. Some may argue that positive results in parapsychology suggest a soul, but this is debatable.

 

[beyondtimeandspace]

A soul is simply a lifeforce. All living things, therefore, have souls. However, it is also believed that the human soul is different than non-human (or at least non-intelligent) souls. That is, it has an intellect and free will. Therefore, the human soul is a lifeforce that has intelligence and free will. If lifeforce is simply energy, then the human soul is a uniquely constructed form of energy.

 

[Q25]

Is there any research on souls?

how can you research something nonexistent?
long time back primitive people thought that breath is the soul,b/c dead people dont breathe, their soul left them

heres a more detailed explanation on why/how people started believing in souls
www.atheists.org/Atheism/mind.html

 

[Warrior61]

I have a friend who is a Mason and he related a story from his childhood to me once. When he was about 12 his grandmother passed on. He was standing next to his dad viewing the open casket and asked his father, "where is grandma?"

She is right there said his father. No she isn't contended that is her body where is she? His father didn't answer the question but that was the day my mason friend became a gnostic (and later a Christian).

When he told me the story it made me think. There doens't seem to be much turbalance on the theory of wheather we have souls or not.

Do the people here believe we do and if so where do they come from and where do they go when they leave the body?

Is there any research on souls?

Yes i believe Humans have a soul and non-humans do not have one.
What is a soul you ask well I can give you my answer.

God makes man in His Image.(Gen. 1:27) In His Image? What? In God`s image doesn`t mean we have supernatural powers it means we have a soul. Well what is a Soul? Well we can live forever because we have a soul once we die a Physically death our soul will live forever and since we have free will we choose where we want it to go Heaven or Hell.

 

[Godless]

The soul is just an invention of Plato to be morally just. Hence if one is immorally his soul would pay dearly after life.

The soul does not exist, just as "life after death" does not exist.

http://ct.essortment.com/platotheory_reym.htm

The soul is the "form" that plato speaks of, god would be another form of mystical greatness the father of all souls and such non-sense invinted by the mystical father Plato. Religionists are mostly platonists.

Godless.

 

[Godless]

*Well we can live forever because we have a soul once we die a Physically death our soul will live forever and since we have free will we choose where we want it to go Heaven or Hell.

LOLLOL, hahaha,, sorry this is just a load of BS that is so funny!!.

Godless.

 

[SKULLZ]

Well lets just pretend there was such thing as souls,my way to explain a soul would be to say that our brains are TV sets,and the soul is a recepetion,we recieve the signal of what makes YOU,so obviously when you die the tv set might be broken but the signal still exists.

Im just being hypothetical,i dont believe it either,but i do believe that if something exists it requires an explanation.

This would confirm the idea that you get your soul when youre born cos before youre born there was no mechanical device for the soul to work.

 

[John Connellan]

Well lets just pretend there was such thing as souls,my way to explain a soul would be to say that our brains are TV sets,and the soul is a recepetion,we recieve the signal of what makes YOU,so obviously when you die the tv set might be broken but the signal still exists.

Im just being hypothetical,i dont believe it either,but i do believe that if something exists it requires an explanation.

This would confirm the idea that you get your soul when youre born cos before youre born there was no mechanical device for the soul to work.

Why make it so fukin hard for yourself? I know u all want to believe that we are actually TV receptor like devices for fancy spirits and ghouls to enter but the simple fact of the matter is WE ARE NOT!!! I think it is about tie that humanity realised the futility in religion and belief in the afterlife.

 

[TheERK]

Why make it so fukin hard for yourself? I know u all want to believe that we are actually TV receptor like devices for fancy spirits and ghouls to enter but the simple fact of the matter is WE ARE NOT!!! I think it is about tie that humanity realised the futility in religion and belief in the afterlife.

Maybe you should read his post first? Particularly, the part that sounded something like "Im just being hypothetical,i dont believe it either,but i do believe that if something exists it requires an explanation."

 

[MarcAC]

A soul is simply a lifeforce. All living things, therefore, have souls.

I'd say all living things are souls. The Bible uses the term living being and soul interchangeably. The soul is the culmination of our being. Before we were God "knew" us. In the end times we will be changed from mortal to immortal. It's not that the mortal part will die and the immortal remain. There will be a change. We are souls...

Then some people seem to try to put the weird point across that souls don't exist. If you didn't exist how could you type the post? How would I read it and shake my head in pity?... Sorry... couldn't resist.

 

[Cris]

There is no such thing as a soul/spirit. This was an idea devised by ignorant people millennia ago who knew nothing about the human brain. The human brain we now know accounts for memory, emotions, and thoughts - things that were once assigned to a mysterious soul.

Without memory, emotions or thoughts the soul has no purpose – it has become a redundant concept.

Cris

 

[MarcAC]

Without memory, emotions or thoughts the soul has no purpose – it has become a redundant concept.

But there is still memory, emotions, and thoughts. Soooo... it's not redundant? Man... that was messed up.

 

[TheERK]

The human brain we now know accounts for memory, emotions, and thoughts - things that were once assigned to a mysterious soul.

Actually, no, you're wrong. The human brain does not yet account for the qualitative content of emotions. I'm not saying that it won't someday, but currently, sensations and emotions are not understood. What is understood is the clear causes of such things, as well as what the brain looks like when someone is experiencing those feelings.

 

[MarcAC]

Well it's all fixed now.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Cris: There is no such thing as a soul/spirit. This was an idea devised by ignorant people millennia ago who knew nothing about the human brain. The human brain we now know accounts for memory, emotions, and thoughts - things that were once assigned to a mysterious soul.

Without memory, emotions or thoughts the soul has no purpose – it has become a redundant concept.
*************
M*W: What the ancient ignorants may have thought was a 'soul' could be nothing more than natural electrophysiological impulses in the body.

 

[wesmorris]

I believe a "soul" could be described as the "mysterious" aspect of conciousness/life. Some would say it's the spark that makes the difference between something alive and not. Myself, if such a thing exists I would describe it as "the abstract aspect of mind", or "the meaning that underlies brain/body activity". Something like that. We certainly have that, but whether or not it's "immortal" is pretty much uknowable at this juncture.

I think if Hawking is right, the it must be immortal in the sense that the information that it holds/held cannot be destroyed... but that has nothing to do with whether or not there is any awareness associated with that information. It is in fact, quite unlikely given the current state of human scientfic knowledge that such a condition (awareness of any form, or intactness of identity in any form) could exist. That doesn't mean it isn't possible.

I agree that the concept in its usual usage is somewhat silly, but that doesn't mean that there isn't some grain of reality to it.

Given that my suspicion of the nature of conscousness includes the utilization of at least one extra dimension (in which meaning can exist), the idea of a "soul" may well fit into it in that if there is such a dimension in which meaning is encoded, there is no way to know (at this point) exactly what happens to that meaning once the brain is no longer encodes experiences into that dimension, and the idea of an existence of pure meaning (with no corporeal form) is so alien to my current existance that I'm not sure if it's possible to really contemplate it. I have gotten the feeling before though that if it were possible to exist in such a manner, it'd be a lot like dreams - no sense of time..

But that's all currently untestable hypothesis. So IMO, the jury is out for some time to come.

 

[Cris]

TheERK,

Actually, no, you're wrong. The human brain does not yet account for the qualitative content of emotions. I'm not saying that it won't someday, but currently, sensations and emotions are not understood. What is understood is the clear causes of such things, as well as what the brain looks like when someone is experiencing those feelings.

We know through a vast number of clinical studies, especially on brain damaged subjects that there is a direct correlation between physical changes to the brain and memory, emotions, and thinking abilities. That we don’t fully understand how the mechanisms work is not relevant to the conclusion that a physical brain is the provider of memory, emotions and thinking.

Further there is no indication that any form of supernatural or intermediate mystical force/energy or other medium is involved or need be involved.

Cris

 

[Cris]

MarcAC,

But there is still memory, emotions, and thoughts. Soooo... it's not redundant?

Well yes because we have a brain. Are you simply calling the brain the soul then? If not and you think an immaterial soul exists independent of the brain then how does such a thing maintain memory, emotions, and thinking abilities without a physical set of neural networks?

Man... that was messed up.

OK so why did you say it?

I'm assuming of course that you are referring to the concept of the soul that survives the death of the body - in which case if it is to be of any value it must have at least memories.

Cris

 

[SKULLZ]

Why make it so fukin hard for yourself? I know u all want to believe that we are actually TV receptor like devices for fancy spirits and ghouls to enter but the simple fact of the matter is WE ARE NOT!!! I think it is about tie that humanity realised the futility in religion and belief in the afterlife.

[deleted]
congratulations youre on my ignore list cos i dont wanna see any more of your flames heading my way for no reason.

P.s the quote in your signature is from me,i said that so youd know id not believe in souls,you steal my [deleted] words for a signature then the thanks i get is a flame, [deleted].