The Soul - What Exactly Is It?
Confuzor
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2412Awaiting Authorization
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2412Awaiting Authorization
<div class="IPBDescription">And what are we without it?</div> <i>I originally posted this up on my church message forum. I don't really mind what opinions are posted here, <s>just don't give me garbage like "there is no soul" or existentialism</s> <b>Bah screw it, post whatever you want. Preferably, I wanted to see discussion that acknowledged a soul for the puposes of story concept I'm coming up with, but I'll read what else comes up here...</b> I'm just posting this for the sake of seeing what other takes there are to what a soul really is, and the effects with its absence in an individual. </i>
<b>DO NOT INVOLVE A "I'M RIGHT; YOU'RE WRONG" BSing CONTEST HERE. THIS TOPIC IS SIMPLY FOR PEOPLE'S VIEWS, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY CONTRADICT OTHERS.</b>
I don't exactly understand what a person without a soul is like by Christian definition. 3 definitions of which are most pertinent to this question found from dictionary.com:
- The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
- The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
- The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
Another definition: the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life
The bottom 2 definitions are very general, and don't give much information, except that without a soul, it infers you are dead, (wouldn't make much of a story now, would it? That is, unless my character is a non-sentient undead being. Oh the excitement!), whereas the top two provide a definition that tends to contradict what I've read and seen - and since there doesn't seem to be an official source of what a soul is from Christianity, there doesn't actually seem to be a right or wrong answer either.
1. I've seen a lot of stories in which a person is still "alive" without a soul. Examples include Bart Simpson when he sold his soul, the Nameless One from the game Planescape: Torment, and the reoccurring theme found in sci-fi stories where an android attempts to become a human, and if successful, we are given the assumption that they have "earned" a soul. In all of these cases, the souless individual is still capabale of thought and action. Emotion is where it starts to become weird. When Bart lost his soul, he eventually feels a deep sense of concern, of fear, rather than the feeling of "meh". They can still feel, but they also know something is missing inside them... some sort of gut feeling. However, they all still have the ability of "thought, action, and emotion".
2. From the sermons we've received, we already know that when we die, it's not the body that dies, and the soul only that goes to heaven. Rather, the body is reforged from death. The soul... will forever reside in this new and eternal body?
With so little evident of what the soul is actually responsible for, it's difficult for me to understand what visible bearing it actually has on a person. Personality? All you need is a little tinkering with the brain, and you get someone whose completely different, (google Phineas Gage; what would be most interesting to see is it it's possible for a devoted follower to lose faith after a serious brain injury. They now lack the capacity to accept Christ. Damn, that would be scary). Most souless individuals still also seem to be capable of emotion. And yet they always complain of something "missing inside them". Is this something that cannot be explained in words. To understand it, you must, (God forbid) experience it yourself?
Again, much of these views are based off games/TV shows/books/movies I've looked at.
Your views, please.
<b>DO NOT INVOLVE A "I'M RIGHT; YOU'RE WRONG" BSing CONTEST HERE. THIS TOPIC IS SIMPLY FOR PEOPLE'S VIEWS, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY CONTRADICT OTHERS.</b>
I don't exactly understand what a person without a soul is like by Christian definition. 3 definitions of which are most pertinent to this question found from dictionary.com:
- The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.
- The spiritual nature of humans, regarded as immortal, separable from the body at death, and susceptible to happiness or misery in a future state.
- The disembodied spirit of a dead human.
Another definition: the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life
The bottom 2 definitions are very general, and don't give much information, except that without a soul, it infers you are dead, (wouldn't make much of a story now, would it? That is, unless my character is a non-sentient undead being. Oh the excitement!), whereas the top two provide a definition that tends to contradict what I've read and seen - and since there doesn't seem to be an official source of what a soul is from Christianity, there doesn't actually seem to be a right or wrong answer either.
1. I've seen a lot of stories in which a person is still "alive" without a soul. Examples include Bart Simpson when he sold his soul, the Nameless One from the game Planescape: Torment, and the reoccurring theme found in sci-fi stories where an android attempts to become a human, and if successful, we are given the assumption that they have "earned" a soul. In all of these cases, the souless individual is still capabale of thought and action. Emotion is where it starts to become weird. When Bart lost his soul, he eventually feels a deep sense of concern, of fear, rather than the feeling of "meh". They can still feel, but they also know something is missing inside them... some sort of gut feeling. However, they all still have the ability of "thought, action, and emotion".
2. From the sermons we've received, we already know that when we die, it's not the body that dies, and the soul only that goes to heaven. Rather, the body is reforged from death. The soul... will forever reside in this new and eternal body?
With so little evident of what the soul is actually responsible for, it's difficult for me to understand what visible bearing it actually has on a person. Personality? All you need is a little tinkering with the brain, and you get someone whose completely different, (google Phineas Gage; what would be most interesting to see is it it's possible for a devoted follower to lose faith after a serious brain injury. They now lack the capacity to accept Christ. Damn, that would be scary). Most souless individuals still also seem to be capable of emotion. And yet they always complain of something "missing inside them". Is this something that cannot be explained in words. To understand it, you must, (God forbid) experience it yourself?
Again, much of these views are based off games/TV shows/books/movies I've looked at.
Your views, please.
Comments
This "soul" concept always puzzled me , it doesn't look very coherent. Do animals have souls ? If they don't , at what stage of the human life do you have a soul ? Do hydrocephalic (or any kind of mentally disabled) people still have a soul even though they react like vegetables ?
As you said , most of our character is determined by our brain , that is influenced by our environment. Babies who didn't have the possibility of interacting with their environment eventually died , you don't have them still here to write essays in their own unique language about the cruelty of thoses who deprived them of any link to the real world. I believe that we are nothing more than self conscious society products.
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Bravo...I was just about to say the same thing.
What kind of insight do you really think you will gain by talking only to people who think like you do...
Dropping disclaimers at the top of a post almost removes any validity the discussion could have otherwise had.
I have my own concept of a soul...but according to your disclaimer, Im not allowed to discuss it here.
I believe a soul is a part of you that governs your free will, emotions, and thought. It is inseparable from a human being, and only human beings have the ability to possess such a thing. "Earning a soul" is not possible, machines have set algorithms for thinking and thought, and as such do not possess free will.
The ability of a body to function without a soul exists, but it is like Alex in <u>Clockwork Orange</u>, forever set to one path and action, without the free will to choose differently.
In the case of someone who lost their soul, their last choices will reflect their thinking for the rest of thier lives. A devoted follower who has genuinely repented and accepted Christ will go to heaven regardless of their mental condition at the present or future.
What about mentally disabled children , who never had the chance to grasp the concept of "god" ? They're gifted a soul at their birth , yet this soul is unable to make a single decision. Should it go to heaven or not ?
If you think that a human's soul is not "inate" , then <i>when</i> do we acquire it ? During childhood ? When is an individual able to sin ? ect...
Having a soul is a binary state. If you consider the possibilities in real life , this is illogical. "free will" as you name it doesn't show any consistent effect in the early stages of childhood. At theses stages , babies just react to stimuli.
Free will? I think it's wrong to assume we have a free will since we'll always be affected to that choice. Yeah, you can do what you want, it's just not free will.
It has always puzzled me, if we have a soul, why are we soo meldable then? It doesnt really fit the description of an eternal everlasting being.
Lacking the ability to have free, abstract thought removes the ability to freely choose to sin against God, at least that's my understanding of it.
Edit:
I need to clarify. What I'm saying is that we don't need to believe in souls in order to feel better about ourselves or to actually have some kind of worth. I think it's more interesting that we are like this without some magical source driving us. What difference does it make to our beliefs if our emotions are caused by hormones?
But I'm open to the idea that I could be wrong. One basic principle of science is that things change, they don't die. So what do our memories and emotions change to when we die? It's hard to believe that these things which make us human just die off in a second and then we begin our slow evolution to fossil fuels.
Is our humanity a survival mechanism or some kind of divine creation? I believe it has to be both. We have to come from some source, so I believe in God. But, we still have to survive...
I guess I just convinced myself that I have a soul. Whatever, I don't feel any different.
Likewise, you can't disprove it either. Let's not concern ourselves with a "right" or "wrong" answer, please.
Anothe oddball view of the soul I've been thinking of, (not necessarily one I agree with) is that it acts much like a scantron card, . The soul itself is passive; it exists, but does little, if not, nothing to display itself outwardly. The actions that we do is basically like filling out a scantron sheet, and at the end of a life, this sheet is evaluated on a "karma score", or whatever it is based on the religion in subject. This scantron card cannot fill itself out! The physical body defines the soul by its actions, and without a body, the soul remains a "blank".
I'm not sure how many of you actually enjoyed the series, but remember the Beast Wars Transformer series? Regardless of what you thought about it, the issue of the "spark" seemed interesting. You'll notice that the sparks didn't determine what kind of bot it became; the bot itself had the potential to be good or evil, especially when taking account of the Beast Machine series that occurred after, where two of the good bots ended up corrupt, however, both ended up turning traitor on the bad side as well, indicating some sort of resistance to be part of its original nature? Never really watched Beast Machines though, it sucked. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
The concept of a soul, an individual anima, what makes you YOU.
Its a nice idea, and undoubtedly fluffy. Heres why it doesn't work for me.
If we're taking the soul as something individual to us, that remains after death etc, then it must be outside the physical. (Something which I think everyone agrees on).
If its outside the physical, then it must be unaffected by the physical (else death would destroy it).
Soooooo... here's the problem:
Head injuries - People's personality can change instantly following a head injury. Is that the soul? Has their soul changed? Why would it? Taking the soul as this nebulous insubstantial thing, how is the altering of a few neurons going to affect it? What about people in comas? Do they still have souls? People kept alive on life support? People that are brain dead? What about people that certified dead, but wake up?
If we're taking it as a more abstract Ka-like animating force, then I guess you can argue there is a force that moves things for the potential for a soul, to things that do - i.e. a collection of amino acids to a cell. Then I kind of understand what you're saying, something that separates the living from the dead, which as yet is unquantifiable. I'm personally not attaching any mythic significance to it. Else you need to go down the road of which living thing has a soul etc.
Um rambling. Lunch. Sorry.