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The Soul

Palamon

Palamon

Silence is Purple
  • Very Chatty Chatot Chatty Chatot Gold Heart Silver Heart
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    Do you believe in the concept of the soul?
     
    I do. I'm not sure how to properly explain it though, I suppose I believe that the soul is essentially one's essence of life. An essence that will live on eternally in heaven after death, leaving our physical bodies on earth. I view one's soul as something that allows humans to be connected to God and all other living life forms. I believe that all organisms possess a soul, from a mere caterpillar to a gargantuan blue whale, I even consider plants, fungi, and lichens to have souls as well.

    I think my strong belief in souls comes from my Christian faith and from learning about Indigenous Canadian spirituality and their traditional understanding of the soul and its relation to nature.
     
    My soul? What soul? >__>
     
    Part of me wishes to believe that souls exist. The logical part of me though? It's almost too convinced with everything simply being an emergent property of human cells. All these cells working together to make this guy. The guy typing this post, right this moment. Before we were born, we were part of the universe, not existing as a separate being. When we die, we just become a part of the universe again. The soul being a separate thing that can be extracted from the body after death is perhaps just a social construct. But we live in a society, so it's not too bad to think of souls as real things, just like it isn't too bad to think of other social constructs as real things, as long as you aren't harming anyone with that belief.

    The Catholic me raised by my religious parents, on the other hand, likes the idea of heaven and God. So I guess I'll always be at odds with the concept of a soul.
     
    Yes! I am a practicing Catholic so I believe souls exist. I don't think they're exclusive to humans though, which is a highly debated topic in the church, but I believe animals and plants have them too. I like the concept of animals going to some sort of Heaven too. I mean after all, they talk about lions leading the chariot when Jesus is supposed to return. And sure he could've just poof spawned them right then, but wouldn't it be cooler if they were lions that had gone to Heaven? I think so. As for plants, it just seems unfair to exclude them since they're alive too to some degree.
     
    I believe in souls to an extent. I like to believe. It's nice to think that people's souls are still around after they die, and reincarnation is cool to me. I've even watched documentaries about it, and seen things were people had dreams about past lives, and in their present life they reconnected from people they used to know before. It's such a neat concept to me. Though, they're only small beliefs, because in the end, I also feel like once we die that's all there is to it. :x
     
    Some of the non-serious replies in here made me laugh, but.

    Yes, I believe in the soul. I believe that everything, living or not, has one. I know we're more than just science and a brain and whatnot, just in my opinion. I don't follow any religion practice or anything, but I do still believe in the concept of the soul regardless.
     
    I'm using the word "soul" mostly because it's used so ubiquitous. However, I myself rather prefer the term "self". It doesn't come with the religious connotation, focuses only the individual itself and fully embraces the idea of mortality.

    At the same time I think that, while not immortal, the thought part of the self holds powers beyond the limitations that are the mortal shell. Imagine it somewhat similar to how the body can produce offspring. But instead of binding this ongoing generation to the same plane, the mental part holds the full potential of possibility expanding far beyond physical limitation.

    A strong will, in this sense, may be able to somewhere else, maybe an entirely different dimension, just by merely being freed (e.g. by loss of the outer shell, aka death), produce a spark of life. Essentially becoming like some sort of god creating an entirely real universe.
     
    I don't know really. I believe there's something.

    I like to do a thought exercise when I think about the existence of the soul. If you clone yourself, create a perfect copy with all the same memories as you. It's still not you, is it? But down to the atomic level it is exactly the same. So maybe the soul as the self isn't too far off. Maybe the soul is just your identity at the deepest level, beyond experiences or genetics or anything.

    I don't know, I think it's interesting to think about the soul - if it is real and if yes, what is it - but I'm not sure we'll ever really know.
     
    yes, because the thought that when I die I don't have any sort of consciousness anymore terrifies me. it's at least some sort of comforting thought that some part of me lives on, and the human body is nothing more than a husk that our souls live in.
     
    I believe in the soul, karma and reincarnation but it's not something I can prove, nor do I wish to, so I never talk about it in my day to day life.
     
    i'm generally apathetic on questions of the supernatural but nah i don't believe there's a soul or anything within or inherent to me that fits that concept - this doesn't necessarily preclude a belief in the non-existence of an afterlife, but i tend to take the jewish thought of focusing on the here and now, righting the wrongs directly and through our own actions, rather than giving any thought to the immaterial and the beyond
     
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    Yeah, I think I have a soul and I'm pretty sure my cat has one too. One of them. The other one is a mindless monster.
     
    Souls exist in most humans. There are a few humans that I wonder about.

    I'm not sure if animals have souls. Some might, some definitely don't. A lot of animals definitely have personalities. There may be a lesser version of a human soul.

    Plants don't have souls.
     
    I got two of my friends to sell their souls to me for Subway cookies once. I later gave them back written out all pretty as birthday presents (I'm not even joking...).

    Seriously speaking though I'm not sure what I believe on this to be honest. I do believe that this isn't all there is but I'm not sure how much I believe in us having/being eternal essences. Like I said before in a thread on religion or spirituality I have my beliefs, but they're fluid and not set in stone so I'd prefer to keep them to myself because there's every chance what I believe right now I might not believe in a year or even a few months.
     
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