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Does the soul exist?

I'm not sure if I believe in the 'soul' per se but I do believe that every living creature is a spiritual being. I suspect that all spiritual beings are immortal but can't argue for that point. I also suspect that one day science will be able to acknowledge that the consciousness is external.
 
Radrook said:
That merely shows your profound ignorance.

The Bible contains historical records of the nation of Israel, records verified by history and archeology. Such as the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions and subsequent exile of the Ten Tribe and later the two tribe kingdom. The ascension and reign o f kings from Saul up to the deportations is record in First and Second Kings. The pre kingdom history is recorded in Judges. There are the warning statements of the prophets major and minor prophets. The poetic book of Psalms which composed of statements of praise that were sung. The life of Jesus Christ as recorded in Matthew Mark Luke and John.

The history of the founding of the Christian church and its development during the first century as recorded in the book of Acts. The many letters written to the congregations in Corinth, Philipi, Rome, to the Hebrews, by Paul are explanatory and instructional in nature. As are the two letters of Peter and the three of John.

Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, far from containing fables provides timely advice on how to live our lives wisely. And a host of other material which doesn't fit your mindless category of fable.

Question: It's obvious by your statement that you know NOTHING about the Bible. Since you definitely are ignorant of the nature of Bible content, or essentially KNOW NOTHING, how do you justify making such absurd tongue-in-cheek patently false statements? You must either have a very low opinion of other people's intelligence on this forum or else are counting on their mindless ant-biblical bigotry to back you up. Which one is it?



Addendum:

Leviticus = Instructions for the Levitical priesthood on how to carry out their priestly duties at the tabernacle and later at the temple built by Solomon.

Deutereonomy[second law] = A detailed instructions about the law under which the nation of Israel was to function.

Lamentations = An outcry of grief in reference to exile in Babylon.

Joshua= A historical account of the invasion of Caanan.
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In other words, fables.
 
The Heretic said:
I'm not sure if I believe in the 'soul' per se but I do believe that every living creature is a spiritual being. I suspect that all spiritual beings are immortal but can't argue for that point. I also suspect that one day science will be able to acknowledge that the consciousness is external.
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Why do you believe this?

Isn't it better to modify your ideas according to the evidence, rather than to hope evidence will one day match your ideas?
 
Isn't it better to modify your ideas according to the evidence, rather than to hope evidence will one day match your ideas?
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I see your point and agree. Like I said, I don't have a very strong argument for my suspicions. I may be dead wrong.

However, science doesn't know enough about consciousness to null my suspicions. There is no strong evidence either way so........
 
The Heretic said:
I see your point and agree. Like I said, I don't have a very strong argument for my suspicions. I may be dead wrong.

However, science doesn't know enough about consciousness to null my suspicions. There is no strong evidence either way so........
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The way I think of it is that we compare science, which has done a fairly good job at discovering the nature of most things, with some beliefs that people came up with to quell their fear of death. At least, we have no evidence that the belief is anymore than that. The only reason the idea has some traction is because so many people believe in it, but we know that doesn't mean it's true.
 
The way I think of it is that we compare science, which has done a fairly good job at discovering the nature of most things, with some beliefs that people came up with to quell their fear of death. At least, we have no evidence that the belief is anymore than that. The only reason the idea has some traction is because so many people believe in it, but we know that doesn't mean it's true.
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Your last sentence is right on. I agree. I don't fear death so I know my half-belief that we are spiritual beings is not a product of fear.
 
Perpetual Seeker said:
I don't really understand what you mean. I am pretty sure I'm conscious, insomuch as I am aware of myself and my surroundings.
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Being pretty sure you're conscious is not correlational with being conscious. I'm pretty sure I turned the air conditioner off before I left but then when I came I realized, I left it on.

Seriously, read Dennett.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Isn't it extraordinary that 99% of ghost/alien sightings occur at night, in the dark, when you are on the verge of sleep? You never, say, get your dead grandmother leaning over your lunchtime cup of coffee.
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Perpetual Seeker said:
I was just thinking exactly that. I guess people are more likely to imagine things at night because they can't see as well what is around them, so they have more of a tendency to make up things.
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Yes, that's one good reason. This is conjecture, perhaps, but another is that for a largely diurnal creature like Homo sapiens, the instinctual fear of the dark that probably many such animals have became translated into cultural forms. I would suggest that this is an example of the beginnings of religion: early humans would feel certain emotions (which involve physical reactions to stimuli), could not understand their cause (since it is a fair while before someone will understand evolution!) and begin inventing stories. In the case of ghosts coming out at night, when we combine that process with the visual illusions of shapes in the dusk and hallucinations of sensory deprivation and dreams, it is not hard to see how the common (ubiquitous?) myths of spirits and demons encroaching on the village at night would develop. The myth would reinforce any practical warnings about real wild predators, getting lost, falling down ravines, etc., and explain the general anxiety that the night inspires even when there is no immediate danger.
 
John Freestone said:
Yes, that's one good reason. This is conjecture, perhaps, but another is that for a largely diurnal creature like Homo sapiens, the instinctual fear of the dark that probably many such animals have became translated into cultural forms. I would suggest that this is an example of the beginnings of religion: early humans would feel certain emotions (which involve physical reactions to stimuli), could not understand their cause (since it is a fair while before someone will understand evolution!) and begin inventing stories. In the case of ghosts coming out at night, when we combine that process with the visual illusions of shapes in the dusk and hallucinations of sensory deprivation and dreams, it is not hard to see how the common (ubiquitous?) myths of spirits and demons encroaching on the village at night would develop. The myth would reinforce any practical warnings about real wild predators, getting lost, falling down ravines, etc., and explain the general anxiety that the night inspires even when there is no immediate danger.
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I like that explanation. Makes sense.

Of course people never question the belief anymore because they are in good company.
 
21 grams???

Okay, maybe someone can explain this to me. You all know the story of the dipwad who weighed dying people before and after death and came out with a difference of, I guess, 21 grams and this was supposed to be evidence for a soul - or something like that. What I completely don't get is this. The soul is supposed to be a non-physical entity and would, in my understanding of the idea, weigh absolutely nothing. In as much as a soul weighs nothing how any amount of weigh loss - I don't care if it's 40 pounds - would be an evidence in any way shape or form for a weightless soul completely escapes me? is the argument that since the soul is a purely spiritual entity it only weighs a little? I wonder how much do dreams weigh?
 
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Perpetual Seeker said:
I don't particularly care for the idea of one's consciousness just ending.
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But isn't it far scarier, if thought about at all - the notion of never being able to cease to exist even if you wanted to? To me, the idea of eternal existence is far more frightening than ceasing to exist. I'm just not ready to do it right yet. I guess if you can imagine a scenario where you could somehow continue to be you, but blissfully - say with a heroin IV - eternal life could be okay.

Here's is something that bothers me and I don't want to start a new thread - I find very scarey the idea of an infinite multiverse. Infinite universes where every possibility occurs. That would mean that there are universes in which other versions of you would, for example, be completely paralyzed and in excrusiating, intractable pain for countless years on end - or any other awful thing you can imagine. Maybe in some other universe you are being tortured mercilessly for being a heretic or you are forced to watch your loved ones crucified or on and on and on infinitely. Even if the me here is not experiencing these things, a gigantic number of other me's would be experiencing the most awful things a human being can experience.
 
I think part of the problem lies in people's need to perceive themselves (naturally) as a single, homogenious entity - that the self is a single indivisable thing, when, in fact, I am convinced that is not even remotely the case. Having been experienced the effects of a great number of drugs which effect the brain often in scary ways it seems obvious to me that our selves are complex and intricate trapestries of integrated mechanism which can become disintegrated - which is pretty scary. I am certain that many forms of madness specifically involve disintegration of the self - the tapestry of mechanisms and reactions and interactions. That doesn't make the self any less real or legitimate. It just means that the self as a free standing, homogenious entity does not exist. People tend to think that the idea that you can reduce things like the self or love or anything else to mechanisms that delegitmizes them. I disagree. Love, for example, is real, but it isn't just a single, free standing thing independent of chemical reactions and complex, difficult to comprehend mechanisms.
 
As others have mentioned, what is the soul anyway?

It isn't some kind of "life force", since we know that's all chemistry now.

So is it my consciousness? If so, then it does exist, and in a mundane manner, so to speak. Though we may not understand how the conscious experience arises, for now, there's nothing mysterious.

And if it's not my consciousness, then why care whether it exists or not?



We can go one step further. After the embryos have split, we can fuse 2 back together. They will grow up into a single organism, a mosaic of the two original embryos. Did I destroy one of the souls? Did I create a hybrid soul, half of each?
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And it's a real question, since this actually exists. It's called a "chimera", and there are examples of humans like this. A pair of what would have been fraternal twins with separate genetic codes, instead latch together and intertwine their cellurlar growth. It's the ultimate Siamese Twin. Where did the "soul" go? There were two. There must have been if we follow the rule that en-soul-ification occurs at coneption since the eggs were separate and separately fertilized.
 
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How can a question be meaningful in reference to a false definition of a thing? It's like defining an elephant as if it were a tree and then asking questions about elephants based on that definition. Of course hypotheticals or "Supposing an elephant were a tree..." questions are logically legitimate. But not: "Since an elephant is a tree, then how come....?" questions. Such questions are in essence meaningless within those illogical parameters.



BTW

Not trying to subvert the thread nor hoping to convert the godless. Simply giving my opinion.
 
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