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Human consciousness and self-identity are dependent upon neurological processes which cease to function at the point of death. The soul is nothing more than an irrational human belief that allows people to ignore the finality of death.
Whether or not one has a soul depends on the perspective you wish to take on the issue. In this case, I will take con.
It is nothing more than the pitiful desire of our egos that makes us want to believe we have a unique soul -- that we are beings distinct and separate from the rest of the universe. We do this because we fear death, but we also know death is inevitable. An immortal soul solves this problem, but it's just a fairy tail we tell ourselves to comfort our egos.
We have consciousness, but that consciousness doesn't belong to our bodies. To the contrary, our bodies are mere expressions of consciousness, much in the way a wave is an expression of the ocean. To say we are distinct and separate from the rest of reality is to say that the wave is distinct and separate from the ocean. It came from the ocean, it's attached to the ocean, and it will return to the ocean.
It's easier to accept that there is no soul when you come to the position that you don't have to live forever to be happy now.
I have to set my self over here, because I haven't seen any proof of it, but i am not firmly settled because even knowing how we live, doctors can't make things come back to life.
Let's say we could take everything that exists and put it in a jar. Everything right after the Big Bang. Everything before there was life. The elements in the periodic table. Energy. Light. Everything.
Now that is a closed system. You can call this closed system either God or Nature or Universe. I'll call it GNU.
Now GNU decides that it is going to take parts of itself to create a single cell that basically moves around, and consumes other parts of GNU..., transforming those other parts into energy (so it can continue moving and consuming) and leaving behind waste.
Now GNU is like, "WTF? There's poop on me!" So it creates something to eat the poop but that thing just creates more poop. So GNU creates something to eat the first 2 things it created in order to stop them from creating poop but it too creates poop. So in desperation, GNU creates death. And in death, the poop makers return to their original state and are reunited with GNU.
Except that is not where my story ends. It just doesn't end like that.
GNU then creates a creature that is sentient and is able to think for itself. It creates a poop maker that can create original thoughts. A poop maker capable of coming up with poop like..., "Let's say we could take everything that exists and put it in a jar...."
If not the most greatest thing I have ever heard, it is close to it. I say this with complete honesty. Your theory should be made to a book that I would sponser and if I have time, publish it or write a letter to a publishing company to publish your book. Your book will be a best seller and get government executives attention. After so, Obama will get word of this book and he will resign from his position because he realizes your perfection in thinking and Romney will take the spotlight. Since Romney is a Hard-headed Mormon and everyone else has agreed to your books logic, Romney will be the only person in believe of a deity known as god, thus, everyone dethrones him as a president. Finally, you, the author of this theory, will reign president of the U.S, mission completed.
Believe in a soul, that's like your religion which I wont try to dissuade you from , I just want to clear some things up.
there are numerous theories that the soul is an imprint of information in our brain on a sub-atomic level.
What you defined is D.N.A.
As for what you feel when someone dies that could be, even though I have no scientific warrant for this, a minor version of survivor's guilt or the fear Neanderthals had when someone in their tribe died meaning a harder time for the surviving members.
I think that there might be a possibilities of a soul. I have no proof. Nobody has proof. I think its possible. But im a little skeptical about it. I think this may be because I believe crazy things too much but I think its just like believing in aliens or something like that.
Soul: 1) the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/soul
According to the experts you have a soul. Do you not feel or think?
Take note, that I'm the only one that has provided my source.
(1) You used an online dictionary; hardly scholarly or scientific.
(2) The definition does not state that the soul is separate from the body, but rather that it is regarded to be separate. This says nothing more than that a lot of people believe in the soul; that does not mean it exists.
(3) The soul is primarily a construct of theological belief and originated through theological doctrine. Religion itself is unfounded and unsubstantiated, being as it is a matter of faith rather than of reason or science. As a derivative of religious belief, the soul is similarly suspect as a valid idea. The burden of proof is upon those who argue its existence, as it makes little sense to demand others to find proof against something which has not even been proven to exist to begin with.
(4) Most “research” that attempts to prove that the soul exists relies upon tying the soul back to a location in the brain, frequently by analyzing which parts of the brain are activated by thoughts of God. (See, for example,http://www.swedenborg-philosophy.org/journal/data/112b/Werner_Article&Lister;_Response--New_Philosophy_July-December_2009.pdf)
Far from validating the soul proponents’ view, this argument substantiates the argument against the existence of the soul as it demonstrates that belief in God and by extension the soul is a neuro-biological process (i.e. a naturally occurring phenomenon dependent upon the existence of a living, functioning brain). Upon death, the “soul” then ceases to exist; indeed the “soul” exists as nothing more than an idea and not as an actuality.
(5) For people who make the argument in more detail and rigour than I did in my post see (for example). They are God/spirituality related, and thus include considerations of the soul at least nominally:
1) If an on-line source is invalid because it is an on-line source than all on-line sources are invalid. Do to this I didn't even look at the links, you already deemed links as a non-reliable.
2) Who said the soul is a construction of theological belief; You?
3) Ever here of soul music? Does it have anything to do with religion?
1. My critique of your source was not that it was online, but that it was an online dictionary which does not have the same standards for selecting definitions as do print dictionaries. A piece of scientific research is scientific regardless of where it is published if it is accompanied by a descriptive methodology, follows the scientific method, and is peer reviewed. At any rate, you failed to address my point that your definition does not actually say what you claim it says.
2. I said that the soul is primarily a theological construct, and it certainly does have its origins within theology. I stand by that because I have never once heard an explanation for the belief in a soul that was independent from faith. Never.
3. Yes. For one, soul music emerged out of gospel. For another, the term "soul" when applied to things such as music or food or what have you is so called because it is purported to feed or comfort the soul... a theological concept.
2) You never citied a source. Are we supposed to take your word for it?
3) Soul did originate out of gospel; Is it still gospel? You were once a fetus; Are you still one? Better yet. You originated from an ape; Are you still an ape? Man is supposed to have evolved but not it's music?
I was referring soul to passion, not the text book definition.
"Another of the soul pioneers, Detroit-based vocalist "Little Willie John" Woods introduced the quavering gospel falsetto (that James Brown learned from him). The melancholy of Need Your Love So Bad (1956), perhaps his most intense performance, and Sufferin' With The Blues (1956) established the quintessential soul mood, while his versions of Otis Blackwell's Fever (1956) and of Titus Turner's All Around The World (1958) created an even more passionate style of singing." http://www.scaruffi.com/history/soul.html
1. Yes, and your point is what exactly? The method is devised by humans and not infallible, but it is a considerable improvement over mere faith-based assumption (your argument). Also, since you still have not refuted that you misinterpreted the definition you provided I’ll assume concession.
2. It is common knowledge you nitwit. Other than you, I do not know of a single person who would claim that the soul does not have predominantly theological origins and connections. Regardless, the soul is an assumption based solely upon faith (theological or otherwise) and so my argument still stands.
3. You are the one who asked me if soul music had anything to do with religion; I was merely answering your question with fact. And of course I am not still a fetus and no soul music is not gospel, however just as I have my origins as a fetus so too does soul music still have religious origins and thus a religious connection.
4. Soul as passion is not the subject of the debate; that question would be “Do we have soul?” not “Do we have a soul?”
5. Please do continue to completely ignore my evidence that the soul does not exist, since that was the actual the crux of the debate and the most relevant portion of the argument. Brilliant evasion of the facts, truly. Unless you can actually disprove that research and give me a single non-faith based reason to believe in the soul you lose this debate.
1. (a) Experience is not evidence of the soul, so your belief is still unfounded and thus a matter of faith. (b) The way you used it was a misinterpretation, as I explained and you still have not refuted.
2. False. Although I should not have name called, sometimes the term "nitwit" actually does apply. You have the wit and intelligence of a nit and that was merely an expression of my frustration in trying to have an intelligent conversation with someone who cannot think.
3. No. Read and think, please. My argument is that the soul originates from theology. As a response, your question makes no sense whatsoever. And you still have not responded to that argument, nor the argument that the soul remains a matter of faith because it cannot be proven.
4. What you consider soul and passion to be is contradictory to the common understanding of both of those terms, and at any rate is quite incidental to the actual debate at hand. You are sidelining into a semantic tangent which sidesteps actually addressing the crux of the issue which is this: belief in the soul is a matter of faith because it is not supported by reason or evidence.
5. As an artist, I do not create my works because I have a soul but because doing so feels fulfilling. At any rate, your example is still a complete conjecture and total hypothetical with no evidence to support it or even any reason to believe in it (other than for the sake of believing it... i.e. faith).
6. You also still have not refuted or even addressed any of the evidence I presented demonstrating that human faith is a byproduct of the brain's chemistry and neurological structure, nor that attempts to prove that the soul exists have inevitably led back to brain structure as well.
Consistent failure to actually address valid arguments supported by reason and evidence combined with a tendency towards irrelevant and unsubstantiated tangents leads me to believe you do not actually have anything substantive to contribute to your side of the debate. = I am basically done wasting my time here.
To avoid all the reading I copied and pasted the comments that reassured me.
Traditionally, scientists speak of the soul in a materialistic context, treating it as a poetic synonym for the mind.
The soul is dismissed as an object of human belief, or reduced to a psychological concept that shapes our cognition and understanding of the observable natural world
We definately don't have soul, just like we didn't evolve from apes. What makes you think that one might evolve to a higher plain? Humans never change and possibilities never exists.
Um... actually human beings have evolved genetically over time in ways that we can specifically identify. For instance, sickle cell in response to malaria.
We didn't evolve from apes. No textbook, or no revised textbook says that. Apes are a separate species that still exists to evolve from them would make their way of living unsustainable thus they'd die out. Like what happened with Mammoths and Elephants. That is an example of one species that evolved different ways causing one to die, because one wasn't working.
Instead the theories say we evolved from a species that the apes also evolved from. A similar ancestor. The theories have proof also. An ape has 97% common DNA with humans. That's close enough to be a cousin.
Our feelings originate in our brain, and are a product of brain structure and chemistry. Having feelings linked to a biological process is hardly a reason to think the soul exists.
We do. Intuitively I feel a soul exists because our brains imprints of the world are both physical and non-physical. If I were to say, "what are your memories," and I knew you very well, I still wouldn't be able to perceive what your memories are, because they are yours, thus your perception of the world is made entirely of your soul, and who you are. Even after you die, you take a part of yourself with you - your consciousness. Much like dreams, (both while sleeping in waking) that take place in a non-material environment.
DejaVu, phobias, and unexplained anxiety, stress, or sadness is what you might say could be linked to a soul
