[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

I used to be an atheist. Then an agnostic. Now I am a deist, but not a "watchmaker" deist. I believe that we have souls and an afterlife, and I also am inclined to believe in the process of karmic rebirth. I'm not sure whether I believe these things primarily because it comforts me or because of personal spiritual experience that is irrelevant to this discussion.

Nevertheless, I do find myself going back and forth on the soul concept, as it's one of the more difficult ideas to grasp. We have no evidence that any soul exists. People report out of body experiences, but the nature of these experiences (unable to be replicated or observed) make them pretty dubious. The best evidence I have encountered for souls have been the cathartic spiritual experiences that I have had. Those can be explained/hand-waved away by atheists as chemical reactions, of course, but anyone who has had these experiences know how powerful and possibly life-changing they can be.

Many people report that they have memories of a past life, or at least feelings as such. I don't really believe that myself, but I understand its importance to many people. I sometimes see in animals the "soulful" look that many explain away as being evolutionarily beneficial in order to get the animals to be more accepted by humans. However, animal intelligence is undeniable, and I often wonder how complex their emotional lives are. I believe that universal emotions like love, happiness, and satisfaction are the best proof of a soul and a way that God "rewards" us for good behavior, but there are people born in situations such that they can never experience that.

I'm rambling a bit, but I would appreciate any input on this subject from fellow religious/spiritual people.

[RhetoricThug]

Promethean Passion

Of course I have a soul, I'm raw energy just like you

"It's that consciousness, not the objective material substrate of being, which should be regarded as the ultimate reality, there's no self-evident reason why dead matter should be given ontological primacy over living spirit. Although doing so has produced a massive increase in human technological power, it has left that power in the hands of an increasingly disenchanted populace, and that presents a mortal danger."

"It's the consciousness of the individual that transforms the potential of chaos into habitable cosmos."

-Jordan Peterson

Infinity loves you

[MistyTiger]

Yes, I believe in a soul. I admire Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle having read their works in Philosophy classes as a Philosophy major during undergrad. I think that the soul is part of our being. And as Thomas Aquinas stated, we all have an immortal soul that never dies.

I was raised as a Christian, all sorts actually having been to many denominations of churches from episcopalian, baptist, congregational, and a weird one that has a thing for snakes and speaking in tongues (don't remember the name right now).

Since my adolescence, I started to turn away from it but never became atheist. I think of myself as agnostic with hints of buddhism and hinduism. I really like Zen and reading Eckhart Tolle and Ram Dass.

[Pants-of-dog]

No, I do not believe in a soul that lives in after the body dies. It seems inconsistent with what we know of how the brain stores memories and is the basis for our personality.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I'm not sure whether I believe in a soul. I admit to vacillating day-by-day between atheism and agnosticism. I definitely do not believe, if we have a soul, that it possesses an ego. When we die, and if we continue on in some strange way, I don't think that whatever existence we might experience includes what we understand to be the self. All of our fears, obligations, burdens, and attachments we've had in this life don't continue on. If we do have a soul, I think we are somehow recycled back into the universe in some way. I hesitate to call that reincarnation because I don't like to go too far into theistic territory. I also definitely do not believe that a heaven or hell awaits souls, should they exist.

On most days I'd describe myself as an atheist, but with tendencies towards some of the concepts found in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Ultimately: I don't think the universe, or time, are what they appear to be. The concept of maya is simply fascinating and never-ending. Even if we don't have a soul, what we're made of will one day become part of another living being, and in a sense we will continue on in another form, which seems pretty neat to me.

I had a dream once where I was dying. My senses were going and my eyesight was the last to go. Everything started going to black and for a moment I remembered worrying about the people I never got to say goodbye to, the things I never did, the loose ends I didn't resolve. In a moment, I remember realizing none of that mattered. My sense of self started to fade away, but my last thoughts were a realization that although I lived that life, it wasn't really my life. It was meaningful, but it was transitory. It was just a play and I had forgotten I was just an actor. I woke up as soon as my sense of self dissipated.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I was raised as a Christian, all sorts actually having been to many denominations of churches from episcopalian, baptist, congregational, and a weird one that has a thing for snakes and speaking in tongues (don't remember the name right now).

That would be Pentecostal Holiness churches, e.g. Church of God with Signs Following. The Xfiles had a neat episode about a Pentecostal Holiness church called the Church of God with Signs and Wonders.

[MistyTiger]

That would be Pentecostal Holiness churches, e.g. Church of God with Signs Following. The Xfiles had a neat episode about a Pentecostal Holiness church called the Church of God with Signs and Wonders.

Thank you! That is the one! They sure knew how to preach and Sundays felt like rock concerts for sure. It was sure lively. But I do not really miss it.

[One Degree]

My belief would depend upon the definition of a soul. I believe we are made up of some basic force that ties the Universe together. Beyond that, logical reasoning makes anything else too complicated to accept, and I am not ready yet to totally abandon logic as my main means of understanding the Universe. For example; if humans have a soul then I can not reject the idea that all living things have a soul. I am forced to deny any definition that says only humans have souls. Evolution would make the distinction unacceptable.

[Balancer]

>DO YOU BELIEVE IN A SOUL?

Yes I believe it. However, it should be noted at once that the "soul" I call the totality of the higher nervous activity of advanced neural networks, with the number of neurons of 20-50 million or more. For example, in mice with 16 million neurons duschi yet. Very primtiny brain. In rats with 25-55 million neurons (various sources name different numbers) have the most germs of souls. The dog, 160 million neurons, already highly evolved soul ...

But the idea of an immortal soul I have somehow not there needs.

[jakell]

No, I do not believe in a soul that lives in after the body dies. It seems inconsistent with what we know of how the brain stores memories and is the basis for our personality.

As I said outside of this section:

The idea of eternal existence is problematic because we can ask ourselves which 'version' of ourselves goes onwards (which we could call the soul). Given that death is usually unwanted and hard to predict we could assume that the 'version' of us that goes on would be that one at the point of death, but this particular slice could be one of a multitude of selves that we have been throughout our lives.

The only ways around this, if we want to rationalise these things (which might not be the best approach), would be to somehow stabilise our inner world and self so it becomes unchanging which is something that is only really achievable by a buddhist-like detachment from the world.. or to assume that the soul is unaffected by the accumulations of life and that it is an internal constant.
With this latter one though, the soul can hardly be said to represent a continuation of what we see as our self, unless we die very young maybe.

The idea of a soul as a facsimile of our 'self' at death (or alternatively a previous version of this) is pretty much reflected in transhumanist fantasies of detaching ourselves from our physical bodies and pouring ourselves into a machine that will maintain our 'pattern'. There are many technical problems with the maintenance of a such a complex and functioning (ie living) pattern.
The idea of the soul as a very basic version of us (like a spark in relation to the fire it creates) is easier to contemplate.

In both these cases we are talking of something that lives after our death (although we might consider the second to be unrecognisable as our self), but do we always need to immediately connect the idea of the soul with the afterlife, as if that is its only function? Can the soul be addressed as something important whilst we are alive?

Materialism likes to reduce the human to its component parts, and posit that somehow our sense and awareness of self, plus all we think and feel arises (magically) from this complexity. Our metaphysical self is enormous though, to the extent that can overwhelm the physical, something that is self-evident in a digital environment.
I would suggest that the soul can be considered to be analogous to our metaphysical self, something that is not really recognised as a 'thing' by materialists, so here I am giving it a name so that religious and non-religious folks may at least find some common ground if they wish. Of course, the religious may want to take this basic idea a lot further, that's their prerogative.

[quetzalcoatl]

Take the following test. Multiple choice. Circle one option.

1. Matter alone is real.

2. Consciousness alone is real.

3. Mind and matter exist as polar opposites in a dualistic reality.

4. The solution is indeterminable. (skepticism)

5. Other (Specific _____________________)

Oddly, it only option 3 that is fundamentally out of step with empiricism. Number 4 has to be the first-order answer, since either 1 or 2 appear to equally well account for our experience of the phenomenal world. A second-order analysis reveals deep problems with 1 as well.

Number 1 has the philosophical disadvantage of removing its fundamental ground from what we directly experience. If I assume that only matter is real and mind is an emergent aspect of matter, then I start out with my experience being 'illusory' (or at least contingent) in some sense; this undermines the realism of any empirical conclusions I might draw.

Number 2 has the disadvantage of being tainted with idealism, or even solipsism. One avoids this by not considering mind as an individual or subjective process, but instead envisioning it a universal ground. Physical phenomena are not subjective but an emergent property of mind, allowing us to experience a common reality.

The problem is that we don't experience reality. We don't even experience our sensory input data. We experience only a construct of sensory data, mediated by our consciousness.

So my interpretation (or speculation) is that individual souls do not exist, and that what we experience is some temporary access to a world soul.

[MistyTiger]

Take the following test. Multiple choice. Circle one option.

So my interpretation (or speculation) is that individual souls do not exist, and that what we experience is some temporary access to a world soul.

Wow, still puzzling over your answer. A world soul? So that would mean that we share a soul with billions of people, good or bad? What is this world soul like? Is it inherently good or has it become corrupted?

If we all share the same soul, then how come some have a higher sense of morality than others?

[B0ycey]

I like to believe we all have a soul, but the way the brain functions pretty much debunks this notion. I mean, an outer body experience can be explained if you know anything about lucid dreams. All I know for sure is that when your brain deteriorates, your essence (soul) seems to go with it. I hope I'm wrong though. I quite like the notion that I am more than just neurons transmitting with each other and a spirit of me could lingers forever while my body decays.

[quetzalcoatl]

Wow, still puzzling over your answer. A world soul? So that would mean that we share a soul with billions of people, good or bad? What is this world soul like? Is it inherently good or has it become corrupted?

If we all share the same soul, then how come some have a higher sense of morality than others?

I use the phrases (perhaps incorrectly) world soul and universal mind as synonyms. An individual soul would have to retain some kind of memory or identity for it to make sense.

So, as I see it, humans (and perhaps other animals) evolved brain structures that allow them to dimly sense the universal mind ground state. Their individual ethical choices are just that: individual. You get no second chances, no Karma, no payback, no souls going to heaven or reincarnation.

[Paradigm]

Yes, but my view of the soul is more Aristotelian than Platonic. I do not believe in any sort of "ghost in the machine," as Gilbert Ryle put it. I guess I would say that I don't believe in a pre-existing, unchanging soul that exists independently of the body. My view of the soul is rather tied to my philosophy of time. I believe in what is sometimes called "moving block time" -- the idea that the present contains all past moments within it, such that no event, no experience, is ever truly lost, but exists as a kind of enfolded background within the unfolding present. I further follow Rupert Sheldrake in his idea of morphic resonance: the idea that patterns laid down over time influence similar patterns in the future, creating a "morphic field" that inheres in all organic (self-organizing) entities. I believe that what we call memory involves morphic resonance, and that morphic resonance is itself a kind of cosmic memory. I think such morphic fields could qualify as "souls." This also has implications for things like "collective souls" or a "world soul," and even a "cosmic soul," to which the name "God" is generally given.

[One Degree]

Our conscious mind knows very little about our unconscious mind. It functions without what we think of as 'us'.
How would we know the unconscious mind ceases when the conscious mind does? We have indications, yet we don't know enough to be sure. We may find the unconscious is our connection to everything else.

[MistyTiger]

I use the phrases (perhaps incorrectly) world soul and universal mind as synonyms. An individual soul would have to retain some kind of memory or identity for it to make sense.

So, as I see it, humans (and perhaps other animals) evolved brain structures that allow them to dimly sense the universal mind ground state. Their individual ethical choices are just that: individual. You get no second chances, no Karma, no payback, no souls going to heaven or reincarnation.

*Gulps*

Quite a sobering view. The part that is most startling is the no karma point. But in science, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If someone dies, where does the soul go or does it just linger in limbo or wherever it is located?

This is a fascinating thread. I have never read about people's opinions on the existence of a soul.

[quetzalcoatl]

@MistyTiger
My opinions are only opinions, and yours are likely to be as correct as mine. Ultimately, the issue is undecidable, so neither of us can be proven wrong. Perhaps, the best we can do is explore the consequences of our opinions, rather than decide their truth.

[MistyTiger]

@MistyTiger
My opinions are only opinions, and yours are likely to be as correct as mine. Ultimately, the issue is undecidable, so neither of us can be proven wrong.

But I am just sooo curious!

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

My belief would depend upon the definition of a soul. I believe we are made up of some basic force that ties the Universe together. Beyond that, logical reasoning makes anything else too complicated to accept, and I am not ready yet to totally abandon logic as my main means of understanding the Universe. For example; if humans have a soul then I can not reject the idea that all living things have a soul. I am forced to deny any definition that says only humans have souls. Evolution would make the distinction unacceptable.

I think that animals do have souls. I'm not sure what the implication of that would be on human souls. Would it mean we are less important, or do we have some kind of responsibility to other creatures? And I'm certain that plants and germs don't have souls, so does that mean that animals don't really have souls?

My opinions are only opinions, and yours are likely to be as correct as mine. Ultimately, the issue is undecidable, so neither of us can be proven wrong. Perhaps, the best we can do is explore the consequences of our opinions, rather than decide their truth.

I completely agree with this. I don't think it's possible to really be able to tell whether or not there is a soul, because it requires experience with what a life after death is like in a way that cannot be reproduced in live humans. Even if you "die", I don't buy the idea that your soul leaves your body. As long as you come back to life, I don't think you have experienced death because you didn't really have enough time dead to say what happens without you in the universe. Ultimately that's what a soul is, an attempt to grapple with the idea that you won't have anymore impact on anybody's life.

As for your test, I would lean towards 4. If I had to choose between the first three, I tend towards thinking that consciousness alone is real. After all, the only thing that I can really know about the world is that I at least exist. I could be wrong about that though, so 4 is the "safe", most logically sound answer.