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What is a "Soul" - and how does one get one?

Dragonfly

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Tell me, what's a soul, and when do you get it?

Aside from the "feel good" aspect of it, why is there some assumption that souls will "live forever" in some other "dimension"?

What makes a soul?
When do we get one?
Can it ever "die"?
Do atheists have souls?

Or, is the idea of a soul just a coping mechanism to help people through things like death?

It's much easier to think that a loved one's soul lives on elsewhere even if the earthly body has died. <-- coping mechanism


So what's your thoughts and beliefs on the "soul"?

And...do any other animals have souls? :mrgreen:
 
Something you sell to Apple when you agree to the user agreement or buy one of their products.
 
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Also see Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, The Delfonics....
 
I had my soul removed and fed it to my cat. I read there is a lot of nutritional value for small animals.
 
This is an interesting question. I think there is something like a soul, but it's not what most people think of. Most people start with the notion that we have bodies which have an independent existence grounded in material substance, and a soul somehow attaches to the body. I suggest, rather, that matter is an illusion, and the primitive substance of the universe is conscious awareness. Souls, then, are a kind of locus of conscious awareness--just as bodies are commonly supposed to be loci of material substance.

If this is correct, it does seem possible for souls to die. The locus of conscious awareness would simply have to dissolve--though whether this is something that ever actually happens, I'm afraid I don't know. It also seems likely that animals have souls, and that, probably, everything has a soul of some kind.

I suspect the "assumption" that there is a soul arose out of observation of experiences which were once common, but have become less so for reasons that are fairly complicated. Reasoning about the nature of matter and consciousness seems to have provided independent support for the theory behind such observations, however. The Atharva Veda, for example, has some passages which suggest that the Vedic priests were thinking about primitive substances and concluded that matter could not ground consciousness, but that the reverse is certainly possible.
 
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1-Tell me, what's a soul, and when do you get it?

2-Aside from the "feel good" aspect of it, why is there some assumption that souls will "live forever" in some other "dimension"?

3-What makes a soul?
4-When do we get one?
5-Can it ever "die"?
6-Do atheists have souls?

7-Or, is the idea of a soul just a coping mechanism to help people through things like death?

It's much easier to think that a loved one's soul lives on elsewhere even if the earthly body has died. <-- coping mechanism


So what's your thoughts and beliefs on the "soul"?

8-And...do any other animals have souls? :mrgreen:

1- a soul is the energy / consciousness that animates the body. Can't say for certain, but certainly at some point between conception and birth the soul will "attach" to the body.

2- simply, energy cannot be created or destroyed. The soul is a form of energy.

3- do you mean does god (source, whatever word) create souls? Or more like what are the "ingredients". (Not that I really have an answer... Either all souls are in existence, or they are created by some unknown mechanism.

4- between conception and birth... Maybe the point of viability, 3 months ish.

5- is lean towards no, but it's possible that the soul energy could be too "scattered" and have to be reconstituted.

6- yes...

7- the soul does serve as a coping mechanism as a concept, but there is (in my mind) undoubtedly a "soul" that carries on after the body dies. That doesn't mean any one religion was right either.

8- all life has a soul... Not saying it would work like this, but let's say a bacteria has an 8 bit soul, a dog might have a 32 bit soul, a monkey maybe 64, and people like 128...

I know this thread was buried, but I liked the questions raised.

I also know that these answers are about 90% speculative.
 
A soul is, from my personal point of view, the essence of who you are. Our bodies, our lives, are temporary. When we die, our soul continues on in the energy of the universe. Our consciousness lives on past our temporary lives. Do atheists and animals have souls? In my opinion, yes. All sentient creatures have souls.

Now, though I do believe in souls and an afterlife, I fully admit that I don't know this is true with certainty. I believe it is this way, but I may be wrong. I believe the concept may simply be something my mind clings to out of a sense of hope that this life, this short life we all have, is worth more than just the blink of an eye in which I'll live it. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I do believe that there is more out there waiting for us after we die.
 
You get a soul by going to the "Soul Dispenser" government office and apply for a soul. You fill out a form and it arrives anywhere between 20-30 working days. Usually, it comes with a kitten too as a bonus.

In all honesty.
You get one from birth. It's yours. You just are born with it. I'm guessing "born" here means whenever you're born from a religious standpoint. You don't get more because you get just 1 but it's big and... you know... forever and you don't need another one. At least in Christianity.
The concept of soul is not just a Christian or abrahamic religion concept. It is found elsewhere in some fashion. For those religions, you know... it's by their rules.

Orthodox Christianity teaches that only humans have souls (humans means everyone, regardless of religion. so yes, atheists too have souls). Animals don't have souls. But I watched that animated movie a long time ago with dogs and doggie heaven and I like to think some animals have souls.
 
From the LDS perspective the soul is simply the spirit and the body. Without the spirit, and I think of the spirit as living light matter, the body would just be lifeless star dust. All living things have a spirit. Mortal death is just the separation of the spirit from the body. It is not really death.
 
Tell me, what's a soul, and when do you get it?

Aside from the "feel good" aspect of it, why is there some assumption that souls will "live forever" in some other "dimension"?

What makes a soul?
When do we get one?
Can it ever "die"?
Do atheists have souls?

Or, is the idea of a soul just a coping mechanism to help people through things like death?

It's much easier to think that a loved one's soul lives on elsewhere even if the earthly body has died. <-- coping mechanism


So what's your thoughts and beliefs on the "soul"?

And...do any other animals have souls? :mrgreen:

Try this:


 
Tell me, what's a soul, and when do you get it?

...

In my opinion, prerequisite to a 'soul' is the idea of substance dualism. That there is some kind of non-physical substance with no physical attributes that is separate from the physical energy/matter that we can see and interact with all the time. This makes things pretty difficult to begin with as by definition we are unable to attribute any 'physical' ideas to this substance: Can it move? Is it divisible? Are some bigger than others? etc. The moment we even attempt to attribute physical characteristics to it, such as by attributing size here:

8- all life has a soul... Not saying it would work like this, but let's say a bacteria has an 8 bit soul, a dog might have a 32 bit soul, a monkey maybe 64, and people like 128...

I also know that these answers are about 90% speculative.

we are attributing physical characteristics to it, and suddenly it's no longer a non-physical substance. If it's no longer a non-physical substance then surely it becomes tangible and measurable, which begs the question why have we never been able to interact with, measure or produce any evidence of it??

The only way to escape this issue is to concede that it is a completely non-physical substance, that 'lies beyond science' and the physical plane, in which case its entire existence is predicated on the fact that it defies investigation, which is incredibly fishy. As Ceist's video above demonstrates, almost all previous thought functions of the soul have been replaced by naturalistic processes in the brain, and the concept of a soul is now largely an emotional crutch.
 
In my opinion, prerequisite to a 'soul' is the idea of substance dualism. That there is some kind of non-physical substance with no physical attributes that is separate from the physical energy/matter that we can see and interact with all the time. This makes things pretty difficult to begin with as by definition we are unable to attribute any 'physical' ideas to this substance: Can it move? Is it divisible? Are some bigger than others? etc. The moment we even attempt to attribute physical characteristics to it, such as by attributing size here:

I agree because we exist in a physical universe, we will want to describe physical attributes to the non-physical.

Even the term "substance" is misleading in that sense. Can the soul "move", I would say yes, it can move through the physical space. Look at the nde, the people with this experience describe the soul above the body watching the scene, sometimes watching loved ones, etc..,

Divisible; can one soul occupy multiple bodies? Maybe... Can one battery power multiple lights? I couldn't give a solid answer here though.

Bigger / smaller; I think that's the wrong question. Containing more or less energy is probably the better question, some people are narcissistic and small minded, and there are mother Teresa types who devote their lives to the betterment of others... So, ya, some may have more energy, more developed, different emotional focus.


we are attributing physical characteristics to it, and suddenly it's no longer a non-physical substance. If it's no longer a non-physical substance then surely it becomes tangible and measurable, which begs the question why have we never been able to interact with, measure or produce any evidence of it??

I wasn't describing physical attributes, but more like "processing power".

The only way to escape this issue is to concede that it is a completely non-physical substance, that 'lies beyond science' and the physical plane, in which case its entire existence is predicated on the fact that it defies investigation, which is incredibly fishy. As Ceist's video above demonstrates, almost all previous thought functions of the soul have been replaced by naturalistic processes in the brain, and the concept of a soul is now largely an emotional crutch.

Not substance, energy, maybe energy field would be better... It does not lie beyond science, though it is nearly impossible to study an energy field that is intelligent and not necessarily interested in being studied, at least in the sense of in a laboratory detected by equipment.

I would note, that with all of our sciences combined, can only explain about 3% of the composition of the universe... Darkmatter, dark energy, etc... Completely defies our capacity to explain. Even a universally applicable definition of gravity defies science (though we have an explanation that is useful enough for our purposes)

Yes, the processes of the brain have been described quite accurately... But it's more of an interface between the body and the soul.
 
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