When do babies get a soul?
- Thread starter Orleander
- Start date
Hmmm...soul. I have debated this concept thoroughly with many different people. Speaking from a religious standpoint, I have no idea when I baby recieves a soul, as I am not religious. Do I believe in the existance of a soul?....Maybe. Do I doubt it? Yes. There is no physical proof of a soul, which makes it's existance pretty ridiculous to argue, but the concept of a soul has been felt and professed by many. In truth, I have no idea. I want to believe, I feel that there is the possibility, but is it just an illusion?...Probably. I guess we won't know until we die. Either we will know nothing or we will know everything.
Of course we do! And our dreams are given to us by the BFG! :bugeye:
No seriously, what evidence do you have for the existence of a "soul" other than none whatsoever?
Listen to Scorpius: http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/mind.html
Main Entry: 1soul
Pronunciation: 'sOl
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English soule, from Old English sAwol; akin to Old High German sEula soul
1 : the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
2 a : the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe b capitalized, Christian Science : GOD 1b
3 : a person's total self
4 a : an active or essential part b : a moving spirit : LEADER
5 a : the moral and emotional nature of human beings b : the quality that arouses emotion and sentiment c : spiritual or moral force : FERVOR
6 : PERSON <not a soul in sight>
7 : PERSONIFICATION <she is the soul of integrity>
8 a : a strong positive feeling (as of intense sensitivity and emotional fervor) conveyed especially by black American performers b : NEGRITUDE c : SOUL MUSIC d : SOUL FOOD e : SOUL BROTHER
You're not alone. There are billions of people on the planet who also want to believe in souls, and gods, and angels, and devils and other such mind-numbing, thought-inhibiting nonsensical myth and superstition.
So, ask yourself WHY you want to believe in such things? Does it make you feel better? Does it give your life meaning and purpose? Does it change anything at all?
Ask yourself honestly what purpose there is to believing in such drivel?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Ok well, i suggest that the thread-started picks one so we can all talk about the same thing.
when the baby forms consciousness and awareness, that would be a soul. The concept of a soul is not drivel.
Ask yourself why you feel emotions and sensation in your solar plexus or chest area??? It's just an organ, the heart right?? I don't feel emotion in my liver or calf muscle awwight?
It seems more strange people would not believe in a soul when everyone knows you not only have different sides to your personality with you as the central cpu but feel a sense of yourself and every emotional sensation and energy within your heart area and there is a whole life going on there which is quite different than pure cognitive thought.
Ask yourself why you feel emotions and sensation in your solar plexus or chest area??? It's just an organ, the heart right?? I don't feel emotion in my liver or calf muscle awwight?
It seems more strange people would not believe in a soul when everyone knows you not only have different sides to your personality with you as the central cpu but feel a sense of yourself and every emotional sensation and energy within your heart area and there is a whole life going on there which is quite different than pure cognitive thought.
That would be the brain. Yes, the concept of a soul IS drivel.
You're NOT feeling emotions in your solar plexus or chest area. You're "feeling" a biochemical reaction initiated by your brain.
Biochemical reactions in your body are not indications of a soul, they are simply biochemical reactions.
Where's the evidence?
Of course its not. Its a human construct formed, apparently, as an argument from ignorance. If nothing else, humans are good at making things up to explain that which they haven't figured out yet. The word "soul" has little more relevance than the word "firmament" to describe the barrier of the sky which holds the stars in place, each equally distant from the Earth's surface.
That's is the most ignorant question I've heard on this forum in a long time. What you "feel" is chemicals like adrenaline, which are released in the heart naturally in times of stress, excitement, etc. This perceived feeling isn't a 'soul' at all. Does that mean my stomach has a soul when I feel varied pangs of hunger? Does that mean the gall bladder holds the soul because it has feelings when constricted around a stone? If so, I'm a soulless bastard since my gall bladder is absent.
But, more importantly, does the recipient of a heart transplant no longer have a soul? Or does he now have the soul of the donor?
I realize such rationality isn't a natural frame of mind for the credulous or those who generally afraid to question their pre-conceived beliefs. But even a modicum of critical thought eliminates the belief that a 'soul' exists in the heart. Once that's excluded, the same process can be applied over and over throughout the body to arrive at the single anatomical part that has been demonstrated to affect personality and behavior if damaged, disrupted or changed: the brain.
The myth of the soul would appear to be nothing more than the set of neural processes and systems that exist within the human brain.
Most of that paragraph made little sense, but if you consider the 'soul' to be the sum of the neural processes that exist within the brain and cerebral cortex, then I agree. Humans (and other animals) have souls for as long as the neurons and synapses in these tissues continue to work.
Where did you get the idea I thought the heart muscle has anything to do with a "soul"? I was using that as an example that it was merely an organ. Give me a break, you don't feel just adrenaline or excitement but all types of emotions in your chest area. I don't feel love or sadness in my gallbladder. Sounds like bullshit to me.
Explain why.
Everyone knows that detection and control of symptoms and expression denotes causality. Its a matter of simple induction
Totally missing the point of the meaning of a soul. First it's a word attached to a phenomenon.
Do you not exist even though your parents initiated you? We can all be broken down into components as we are all carbon based but are you the same as the shrub outside the house or your cat??? NO. Do you still not exist though you will die and turn to dust one day????? What makes you think a unique soul that is you can't exist along with your physical body by all the uniqueness that is you??
If all living beings and have consciousness from developing a brain and have awareness how is that different from a soul??
Idiots, we are all different and the same but it's a matter of context. Biochemical reactions in this case is missing the point entirely.
And you still haven't answered what life is, consiousness, sense of self, awareness. I would say that is a soul.
Are you merely a bunch of fucking atoms smashed together with no apparent function.
Anybody can deduct and induct a process. Doesn't answer the biggest question of all now does it?
Do you not exist even though your parents initiated you? We can all be broken down into components as we are all carbon based but are you the same as the shrub outside the house or your cat??? NO. Do you still not exist though you will die and turn to dust one day????? What makes you think a unique soul that is you can't exist along with your physical body by all the uniqueness that is you??
If all living beings and have consciousness from developing a brain and have awareness how is that different from a soul??
Idiots, we are all different and the same but it's a matter of context. Biochemical reactions in this case is missing the point entirely.
And you still haven't answered what life is, consiousness, sense of self, awareness. I would say that is a soul.
Are you merely a bunch of fucking atoms smashed together with no apparent function.
Anybody can deduct and induct a process. Doesn't answer the biggest question of all now does it?