What do you think about souls?

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14 Answers

Call me Z Profile
Call me Z answered

While I don't abide the biblical version, I get the intent. For lack of a better word, I define a 'soul' as that innermost sentient self. 

'Great souls have wills, feeble ones have only wishes.'  -Chinese Proverb

Jann Nikka Profile
Jann Nikka answered

According to the Bible, Genesis 2:7 Man is a living breathing Soul. Aka Your Body...

It's not inside of you.

otis campbell Profile
otis campbell answered

i sold my soul for rock n roll

Didge Doo Profile
Didge Doo answered

Personal opinion? It's that little bit of us that makes us individual. The personality, the subconscious, the sum of all our experiences and all our knowledge. Is it immortal? I'd hardly think so but that's a field in which there are some very interesting ideas and experiences.

Zack -  Mr. GenXer Profile

Some people don't have one.

John McCann Profile
John McCann answered

I try to limit my thinking to that which manifests itself in the real world.

Unless you meant "soul" metaphorically/pilisophically.

Abigail Connor Profile
Abigail Connor answered

You can transplant any organ, even every organ, into a different body, but that won't give the receiver the same personality as the donor. My theory is there is something more that makes us who we are that we are given at birth, and that is a soul. Now if matter cannot be created or destroyed then a soul is an everlasting thing, perhaps they get wiped clean and reused like the Buddhists believe, or maybe continue on without an assigned body, like "ghosts". I guess finding out when we get to the end is the fun in it all.

Cookie Hill Profile
Cookie Hill answered

Geneses 2:7 says And Jehovah God went on to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life,and the man came to be a living person." soul is the person himself. . And at Eziekle 18:4  it states, "Look! All the souls, "or lives,or person" to me they belong. As the soul of the father so also the soul of the son - to me they belong the soul who sins is the one who will die. Eziekle 18:20, "The soul who sins is the one who will die"

Tom  Jackson Profile
Tom Jackson answered

Some people try to separate philosophy and science as indicated above.

That's both misleading and a waste of time.

Aristotle explained multiplicity in the order of existence by two principles of being---primary matter and substantial form.

The relation of the soul to the body is a parallel concept---the soul, which is immortal---shares it's act of existence with the body.

Death occurs when it no longer does so.  Subsequently, the soul takes on a resurrected body---now changed to be appropriate for the new mode of existence we will find ourselves in.

Now if that---whether right or wrong---doesn't sound like something that is going to be fascinating for each of us.......Well frankly, I'd be concerned that your soul may have already left your body---possibly as a way of expressing its opinion about your philosophy.

Darik Majoren Profile
Darik Majoren answered

As a literal spirit that can move from your body to  . . . Elsewhere? I do not believe in it.

I believe the closest we have to what it COULD be is, our conscious and subconscious self. It is the several neurons firing all at the same time that give you thoughts, desires, and memories. It is those things we THINK we can control and those things that have been formed throughout the years forging that impulsive brain, to act on how it has been trained to.

PJ Stein Profile
PJ Stein answered

I once had someone tell me that according to the bible that humans are the only ones that have souls. Anyone who has a dog, or just about any pet, knows that can't be true. I contend they have the best souls. All you have to is have a bad day and they know and will cheer you up simply by greeting you. They also seem to instinctively know when you don't cheering up, but rather someone to just sit quietly with you. You cannot tell me something that connected to a person doesn't have a soul.

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Tom  Jackson
Tom Jackson commented
When I was in grade school, I was told they had a "mortal" soul as opposed to an "immortal soul."

Later, I was told they have an "estimative" sense rather than a cognitive sense.

I see in that the obvious value of differentiating them from humans, but I think it is far short of "explaining" the difference between us an other animals.

Personally, it pleases me to think that every pet (and perhaps all all animals) are the permanent pet or pets of angels and are simply loaned to us humans to enhance our lives.

To me, it's not "Do dogs go to heaven?"---it's "When do dogs go back to heaven?
Debbie Harrington
Animals also have souls and both go unto the same place.
mary adam Profile
mary adam answered

If we have no soul or something eternal then life has no intrinsic meaning. Without free-will you are just a machine (determinim and material). It doesn't matter what you do or accomplish you are a machine so it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter if you leave the world a better place, it doesn't matter about scientific accomplishment, whether you are free or a slave because at the end of it we all cease to exist all for no reason or meaning. The fact that I can contemplate my own life and death tells me we are more than that. Language comes from a mind. Us humans are very different to any other species, we adapt our surroundings to suit us, and we harvest our environment.  We are creative for it's own sake.  These ideas about the soul and people living in a different realms after death go back thousands of years, they are enbedded in our language, holiday rituals, the symbols around us, our music, stories, advertisments etc. The mystery schools of Babylonian and esoteric knowledge has been passed down, if these things didn't have a meaning then why bother?

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Darik Majoren
Darik Majoren commented
Mary, I have to tell you, I do enjoy our discussions. I find you both intriguing and fascinating and the world a better place with you in it.
mary adam
mary adam commented
I think you understand what I meant by inherent and intrinsic, as I said if the world starts for no reason and ends for no reason equaling to zero, then it has no inherent meaning. Anything that equals zero cannot have inherent meaning or value. 0+4+6+78+890+1002+10045=0 (still equals zero).
If we are driven by our genetics and environment then there can be no free will, and the fact that a person hasn't taken the same route as another is simply down to these two reasons. There cannot be any real choosing when self is an illusion and free will doesn't exist.
Thirdly anything we do enjoy or become sad about is reduced to chemical reactions what is love? A chemical reaction, that is what You and I are reduced, as is the accumulation of all our experiences and those of our children, and our childrens children, so on so forth until the world end's or humans become extinct. For me that is too sterile, devoid of passion, meaning and value.
However, I in no why dismiss the meaning you give it or anyone else, regardless of belief man is driven to find meaning and purpose.
Darik Majoren
Darik Majoren commented
"A chemical reaction, that is what You and I are reduced, as is the accumulation of all our experiences and those of our children, and our childrens children, so on so forth until the world end's or humans become extinct. For me that is too sterile, devoid of passion, meaning and value." -
I actually take great warmth and joy in the understanding of this (for me personally), but having been a believer for 25+ years I do not disregard your feelings towards this. I both understand and can hopefully learn to respect your views a bit more . . . it's been 15 years since I last looked on eternal spiritual things as a concept I believed . . . I guess I just might have forgotten what that experience was.

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