hereticzero Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Who needs a soul? We breathe and we live. We all have that in common, even with animals. If there is an afterlife, we all go there. Rewards and punishments are for the living. If a person dies before being prosecuted for a crime, tough but that's life. Why do people need something special like a soul and everything else just dies and blows away in the wind? Only humans worry over death. Every other animal seems to take death for granted. Humans see a psychiatrist over the aspect of dying with no hereafter. We do not know that we are so special that only humans have souls. Christians claim atheists are arrogant about their resolve there are no gods. I think it is more arrogant to believe one's self is so precious that they absolutely must live forever in Never Never Land with an invisible sky-daddy. If we have a life after death, everyone will have their own because everyone has their own idea of what it is like, hunting grounds, golden streets, mansions, eternal forests, etc.. Why is a soul even necessary? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Who needs a soul? We breathe and we live. We all have that in common, even with animals. If there is an afterlife, we all go there. Rewards and punishments are for the living. If a person dies before being prosecuted for a crime, tough but that's life. Why do people need something special like a soul and everything else just dies and blows away in the wind? Only humans worry over death. Every other animal seems to take death for granted. Humans see a psychiatrist over the aspect of dying with no hereafter. We do not know that we are so special that only humans have souls. Christians claim atheists are arrogant about their resolve there are no gods. I think it is more arrogant to believe one's self is so precious that they absolutely must live forever in Never Never Land with an invisible sky-daddy. If we have a life after death, everyone will have their own because everyone has their own idea of what it is like, hunting grounds, golden streets, mansions, eternal forests, etc.. Why is a soul even necessary? No doubt the concept of a soul was created because it is obvious the body does not ever come back to life after death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev R Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 After all, if we just evolved from physical matter, where does the spiritual aspect come from? What is the spiritual aspect of life if not simply a method of viewing the experience of being alive? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Dennet's "Consciousness Explained" is only one of many studies of the human mind, none of which require an supernatural aspect. Soul is a type of food and music, nothing more. If the argument is framed as Dennet frames it, then Dennet does a good job of agreeing with himself. To offer a correction to a bit of a misnomer here, his book wasn't actually "a study", and it doesn't actually "explain" (or explain away) consciousness. Again, to take a word like soul and make it some sort of a scientific question, is to be way too literal, and entirely miss the meaning, what it represents, what it expresses. To provoke a thought here, what is "Ocean"? Does it exist? Is it real? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted March 11, 2011 Super Moderator Share Posted March 11, 2011 After all, if we just evolved from physical matter, where does the spiritual aspect come from? What is the spiritual aspect of life if not simply a method of viewing the experience of being alive? Damn, you're GOOD! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Again, to take a word like soul and make it some sort of a scientific question, is to be way too literal, and entirely miss the meaning, what it represents, what it expresses. To provoke a thought here, what is "Ocean"? Does it exist? Is it real? I see the world thusly: if you drop me in "ocean" I will drown. If you attack hell out of me with "soul" I will remain remarkably unaffected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 'There is no spoon.' -- An explanation of reality from one of the Matrix movies. The babble says that on the day that god made man he breathed life into his nostrils and he (man) became a living soul. I forget who the ancient theologian was that came up with the concept that a 'living soul' and a person's individual 'soul' were two different things. I could believe the 'living soul' as in we came to life or that we are alive as living creatures. I don't believe man has an individual soul. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Again, to take a word like soul and make it some sort of a scientific question, is to be way too literal, and entirely miss the meaning, what it represents, what it expresses. To provoke a thought here, what is "Ocean"? Does it exist? Is it real? I see the world thusly: if you drop me in "ocean" I will drown. If you attack hell out of me with "soul" I will remain remarkably unaffected. In other words, you don't know? Let's try it another way. Can you provide evidence for "ocean"? What exactly is "ocean"? Couldn't you say it's a collection of water molecules? That all those together, in a large body of water is given a descriptive word of an "ocean"? Now, what is a soul? A thing in itself you can look at as an object and measure it, prove or disprove it's existence, such as in Dennett's strawman of the Cartesian Theatre? Or is it a way to describe something non-material - as I've been saying. What also then is spirit? Couldn't it be described as the wetness of the ocean, that no matter where you are within it, where you go, at the crest of a wave or the bottom of its floor, it is equally always there? To make these literal things or objects, or even properties of objects, is to flatten the meaning straight out of them and make an error of reason in so doing, either in "believing" them to be "true", as in factual things, or in rebuttals against them being "not true", or factually false. It's the same error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Again, to take a word like soul and make it some sort of a scientific question, is to be way too literal, and entirely miss the meaning, what it represents, what it expresses. To provoke a thought here, what is "Ocean"? Does it exist? Is it real? I see the world thusly: if you drop me in "ocean" I will drown. If you attack hell out of me with "soul" I will remain remarkably unaffected. In other words, you don't know? Let's try it another way. Can you provide evidence for "ocean"? What exactly is "ocean"? Couldn't you say it's a collection of water molecules? That all those together, in a large body of water is given a descriptive word of an "ocean"? Now, what is a soul? A thing in itself you can look at as an object and measure it, prove or disprove it's existence, such as in Dennett's strawman of the Cartesian Theatre? Or is it a way to describe something non-material - as I've been saying. What also then is spirit? Couldn't it be described as the wetness of the ocean, that no matter where you are within it, where you go, at the crest of a wave or the bottom of its floor, it is equally always there? To make these literal things or objects, or even properties of objects, is to flatten the meaning straight out of them and make an error of reason in so doing, either in "believing" them to be "true", as in factual things, or in rebuttals against them being "not true", or factually false. It's the same error. Despite the fact that people have a hard time defining exactly what an ocean is, we all basically have an agreed upon concept of what an ocean is and we can see that oceans, according to agreed upon semantics, exist. Systems of semantics are very useful, and we would be very lost without abstract ways of representing reality and communicating ideas about reality with others. Perhaps systems of semantics can be overly strict and inflexible, but when semantics are watered down to the point to where words really have no meaning, then we have no real way of communicating. The extent to which we can establish an abstract representation of reality sets us apart from other animals. Obviously, soul or spirit can be a metaphor for a lot of things, but I do not thing we are talking metaphors here. We are talking about something resembling Casper the Friendly Ghost. Soul or spirit might make a good word as an abstraction for the functions of our physical brain. It might be used to describe various things. But in the context of this discussion, I believe we are talking about a consciousness each of us have that exists independently of our physical bodies that is the real us and that continues after our physical bodies die. I see no reason to believe that such a thing exists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 "Wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round" We usually wind up right back where we started A-man. If I can't detect it with my senses and it doesn't influence me in any way, why would I care of it's existence? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Perhaps systems of semantics can be overly strict and inflexible, but when semantics are watered down to the point to where words really have no meaning, then we have no real way of communicating. What if what you are talking about is not a flat fact? Why poetry, for instance? What is that trying to express or describe? I don't think when someone is talking about the soul, for instance, they are trying to describe a thing, really. They may frame it in simplistic, literalist language because they have no other way to conceptualize it, but it doesn't negate an underlying meaning or truth they are expressing through their simplified language. It's like mythology. I can hear someone say, "well what it is saying is true is just plain wrong," but was is it really trying to describe? On one level, of course it's not factual, but on another what it says is not invalid. So what is it that people are really meaning when they say something like soul or spirit? I can and do freely use those words and in no way do I see them like Casper the Friendly Ghost. But even the child who does see Casper as a real creature in time and space, is still expressing a reality beyond the symbol to him. As he matures, the reality takes on greater depth, and he will replace the magic symbols of his childhood language with more mature words, or at the least, a less literalist understanding of that Happy Ghost, recognizes that the white cloudy friend is about something beyond it's reference in cultural myths. I do not believe the language of science and facts can replace the human need for the more poetic expressions, as I think its language has nothing to do with human experience beyond the discovery of cold facts. No, it's not just a matter of semantics over definitions of reality, but entire language systems and the worlds they represent that express all the many faces of reality we experience as humans. It's been a long time since I referenced this, but for those that are interested in another view of this, this is a good article from a long time ago to read through if you desire: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1332 It talks about the mindset of literalism in the context of Biblical literalism. In a nutshell here, if you want to say a child's understanding of these things is fallacious, you can, but all it says is that them understanding it literally is incorrect. It doesn't however change the fact that people create these languages for a reason, and I do not believe for a moment it can be reduced down to the view that they are created for scientific purposes. Soul or spirit might make a good word as an abstraction for the functions of our physical brain. I never use it that way, and its doubtful anyone even steeped in their myth systems do either. It might be used to describe various things. But in the context of this discussion, I believe we are talking about a consciousness each of us have that exists independently of our physical bodies that is the real us and that continues after our physical bodies die. The context of the discussion was the OP's question, "After all, if we just evolved from physical matter, where does the spiritual aspect come from?" I believe everything I am talking about directly relates to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 Perhaps systems of semantics can be overly strict and inflexible, but when semantics are watered down to the point to where words really have no meaning, then we have no real way of communicating. What if what you are talking about is not a flat fact? Why poetry, for instance? What is that trying to express or describe? I don't think when someone is talking about the soul, for instance, they are trying to describe a thing, really. They may frame it in simplistic, literalist language because they have no other way to conceptualize it, but it doesn't negate an underlying meaning or truth they are expressing through their simplified language. It's like mythology. I can hear someone say, "well what it is saying is true is just plain wrong," but was is it really trying to describe? On one level, of course it's not factual, but on another what it says is not invalid. So what is it that people are really meaning when they say something like soul or spirit? I can and do freely use those words and in no way do I see them like Casper the Friendly Ghost. But even the child who does see Casper as a real creature in time and space, is still expressing a reality beyond the symbol to him. As he matures, the reality takes on greater depth, and he will replace the magic symbols of his childhood language with more mature words, or at the least, a less literalist understanding of that Happy Ghost, recognizes that the white cloudy friend is about something beyond it's reference in cultural myths. I do not believe the language of science and facts can replace the human need for the more poetic expressions, as I think its language has nothing to do with human experience beyond the discovery of cold facts. No, it's not just a matter of semantics over definitions of reality, but entire language systems and the worlds they represent that express all the many faces of reality we experience as humans. It's been a long time since I referenced this, but for those that are interested in another view of this, this is a good article from a long time ago to read through if you desire: http://www.religion-....asp?title=1332 It talks about the mindset of literalism in the context of Biblical literalism. In a nutshell here, if you want to say a child's understanding of these things is fallacious, you can, but all it says is that them understanding it literally is incorrect. It doesn't however change the fact that people create these languages for a reason, and I do not believe for a moment it can be reduced down to the view that they are created for scientific purposes. Soul or spirit might make a good word as an abstraction for the functions of our physical brain. I never use it that way, and its doubtful anyone even steeped in their myth systems do either. It might be used to describe various things. But in the context of this discussion, I believe we are talking about a consciousness each of us have that exists independently of our physical bodies that is the real us and that continues after our physical bodies die. The context of the discussion was the OP's question, "After all, if we just evolved from physical matter, where does the spiritual aspect come from?" I believe everything I am talking about directly relates to this. I think this really is a more literal than poetic discussion, but perhaps it doesn't hurt to put a poetic spin on the concept of spirituality. Even from a poetic perspective, it has no appeal to me, but I can see that it does for others. I guess I just have an engineer's mindset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev R Posted March 11, 2011 Share Posted March 11, 2011 what is "Ocean"? we just call it that can the law of identity be broken? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Discern Posted March 11, 2011 Author Share Posted March 11, 2011 My understanding of soul and spirit as a christian was this: Soul = Your mind, will, and emotions (ie your brain/character in the physical realm) Spirit = The equivalent of your physical body in the spiritual realm. That is, how you appear and manifest yourself visually in the spiritual realm. But yeah, whatever definitions are used, it does seem a bit superfluous. I don't know how much biblical evidence there really is for this concept of separating soul and spirit. One of those extra-biblical revelations that stuck with christianity I suppose. Though in my original post, I was just referring to "soul" as the concept of your eternal self after your physical body dies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Particles in the void. This is what we have inherited, and what a sad inheritance it is. I don't believe in the existence of souls, but I also think there is more to reality than matter. However, it seems if we do not strictly adhere to a mechanistic view of life then we must endure accusations of vitalism. This tragic battle between mechanists and vitalists wages on and neither side knows that there are alternatives. We need not be either mechanists or vitalists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Particles in the void. This is what we have inherited, and what a sad inheritance it is. I don't believe in the existence of souls, but I also think there is more to reality than matter. However, it seems if we do not strictly adhere to a mechanistic view of life then we must endure accusations of vitalism. This tragic battle between mechanists and vitalists wages on and neither side knows that there are alternatives. We need not be either mechanists or vitalists. Indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 I don't believe in the existence of souls, but I also think there is more to reality than matter. Well, of course there is more. There is everything that matters and everything that doesn't matter. mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 After all, if we just evolved from physical matter, where does the spiritual aspect come from? What is the spiritual aspect of life if not simply a method of viewing the experience of being alive? Damn, you're GOOD! Yes, I'm curious how you would respond to this Antlerman. How is spirituality anything more than psychology? When I'm dead I'm dead and won't care anymore, so necessarily, spirituality merely offers a way to view life -- a way which competes with other perspectives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dhampir Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 My understanding of soul and spirit as a christian was this: Soul = Your mind, will, and emotions (ie your brain/character in the physical realm) Spirit = The equivalent of your physical body in the spiritual realm. That is, how you appear and manifest yourself visually in the spiritual realm. But yeah, whatever definitions are used, it does seem a bit superfluous. I don't know how much biblical evidence there really is for this concept of separating soul and spirit. One of those extra-biblical revelations that stuck with christianity I suppose. Though in my original post, I was just referring to "soul" as the concept of your eternal self after your physical body dies. Thanks for replying to me. I have to say though, that what you are giving me is secondary descriptors. What I mean by that is that you aren't telling me anything about the makeup of the soul, merely the consequences of being/having a soul. What is a soul composed of? Is it pure energy? If so, then realistically, it can't exist for very long (if at all) outside the body. I'll explain that in another post. Some people believe it is a type of matter, which would make a little more sense, but then, what are it's properties? How does it interact with the living body? What is it's purpose-- ie. what point is there to a soul if there's a body? I understand these may not be questions with which you are familiar, but you have to understand that if they can't be reasonably answered, then there's no point trying to shoehorn this idea into an understanding of evolution, which, contrary to this "soul", has vastly more evidence and proofs. And by "vastly more" I mean any evidence whatsoever. I appreciate your comments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Valk0010 Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Depends on how you define soul. When I was a christian, I had no problem with evolutionary theory, in as so far as the soul issue went. But then again I had a really weird in comparison view of what genesis meant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 After all, if we just evolved from physical matter, where does the spiritual aspect come from? What is the spiritual aspect of life if not simply a method of viewing the experience of being alive? Damn, you're GOOD! Yes, I'm curious how you would respond to this Antlerman. How is spirituality anything more than psychology? When I'm dead I'm dead and won't care anymore, so necessarily, spirituality merely offers a way to view life -- a way which competes with other perspectives. I agreed with it myself. I had actually considered stating it this way but took the more 'verbose' path, as I seem to do. The reason I went that path is because if you look at the words "the experience of being alive" there is a great deal more depth to that then just your simple response to your biological existence. There is the whole consciousness aspect of it, the awareness of self, the exploration of inner depth, etc that is what can be called 'spiritual'. To give a crude example, I will never forget about 12 years ago when a friend of mine and I were at a restaurant along the St. Croix river having some drinks outside and having an involved discussion of human spirituality. Our discussion was centering on the great works of art, music, poetry, it's meaning, depth, impact on the world, it's nature in humans, the 'soul' of man, the 'spirit of man', etc. He was at the time of the mind of a French Existentialist, meaning an atheist (not the gnashing neo-atheists like Dawkins mind you, but the philosophical sort of old, Sartre, Camus, etc). A couple women who were sitting next to us overheard our conversation and invited herself into the discussion. She opened, "I find it so unusual and amazing to hear two men in a discussion talking about spirituality! I'm into spirituality too!," and then proceeded to start talking about her trip to Egypt and the power she felt inside the pyramids, the special crystals she had, and so forth. Were we incorrect in using the term? Should we have being using it strictly in the context of Ms. Bonnie's woo-woo, or in the case of some more child-like Christian view of a dualistic entity that floats above us somewhere? Or is it entirely appropriate to talk about certain aspects of our humanity, our certain awareness of being alive that is beyond just a mental engagement in the functional, ordinary, mundane? I agree very much with this statement, "What is the spiritual aspect of life if not simply a method of viewing the experience of being alive?". What view or perspective of that experience of being alive are we discussing? How are we looking at that, through what perspective? To me the spiritual perspective is not one which is unaware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Or is it entirely appropriate to talk about certain aspects of our humanity, our certain awareness of being alive that is beyond just a mental engagement in the functional, ordinary, mundane? I agree with that. Life is far to short to spend it just eking out survival and accumulating and maintaining things. I'm glad to see your response here. Sometimes you lose me in language that feels esoteric, but from this it appears we see things pretty much the same way, even if we choose to frame things in different language or focus in different directions. I personally don't feel the need to spend time talking about the spiritual aspects of life, though I do find my own ways of experiencing them. I can be very moved by film and song and I chose almost a decade ago now to just walk away from my cubical in D.C. and leave a stable life behind because it offered only a slow death. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Or is it entirely appropriate to talk about certain aspects of our humanity, our certain awareness of being alive that is beyond just a mental engagement in the functional, ordinary, mundane? I agree with that. Life is far to short to spend it just eking out survival and accumulating and maintaining things. I'm glad to see your response here. Sometimes you lose me in language that feels esoteric, but from this it appears we see things pretty much the same way, even if we choose to frame things in different language or focus in different directions. This is part of the whole problem of the debate with the radical materialist response to the mythological part of our past systems, and it's been the complaint since the Enlightenment. In taking that hard-core reductionist approach, focus on the humanities becomes pushed aside as 'too fuzzy'. It's a response to wanting Answers with a capital A in the failure of the myth systems of the Church to provide that any longer. But that pursuit and exploration into that 'inner dimension' is by nature quite subjective. I just finished reading a simple but well written book by Elaine Pagels on The Gnostic Gospels, where she gives a nice overview of the role that the Gnostic element of early Christianity played in the formation of what become Orthodox Christianity. The Gnostics were about finding inner truth, and not being told by a bishop what is truth. They were very much mystics in their rights, some were pretty out there, others, like the Valentian Gnostics, I would very much say got things "right", as far as that goes using their symbolism and myths. But that sort of pursuit was was too "fuzzy" in order to create a system of religion that your average person could be part of. So they dumbed it down to performing the rites of baptism and reciting creeds in order for someone to be called a Christian. And so therein lay the divide, sacrifice enlightenment for a religion of the masses. And this defined Christianity to this day, be it Catholic or their children the Protestants. Gnosticism simply could not survive the long haul because it didn't have this sort of rule of Authority in place, and it's truths or secrets were not written in cannons of scripture, but were shared knowledge of its adepts. So my point of all that is to say that what I see and agree with is that the whole pursuit of the spiritual aspects of our humanness, along with its need to further knowledge needed to break off the yoke of a system of control we outgrew - through evolution itself. But the trend has been to deny that part of ourselves in favor of having clear "Authoritative" Answers with capital A's such as we imagine is promised through empiricism! It's a fallacy. We were conditioned culturally to think like this through what I just described. Our spiritual pursuits fell under the dogma of bishops (or the cannon of approved doctrines called the Bible, in Protestant terms). And so in rejecting that Authority, the fuzzy pursuits of the subjective world got tossed over in the corner whilst the masses began looking to those who were amassing new knowledge through science to be the Beacons of a New Dawn of Man. It's the same issue now as then. How do you control the pursuit of the depths of that 'spiritual' nature without cohesion whipping apart into fragmented bits of craziness that doesn't hold a society together? This is no easy question to answer! Yet, to sacrifice that aspect of ourselves to "Evidence!", is really no different in effect than sacrificing it to the Dogma of Orthodoxy. It's just a new Orthodoxy, with the same old heretics! I wanted to add just one thought to that brief ramble of mine. I very much recognize what you say as in fact being that spiritual aspect of our nature. I too share it in the ways you describe. To add to this though is to say there are depths of that which are frankly limitless, infinite if you will, to what you could call "the Divine", infinite connection to everything through it. A term for that could be Depths of the Divine. It's that inner pursuit I would call a spiritual pursuit, but it doesn't end there but moves out from that inner enlightenment of "soul" if you will, out into the world. It is not the focus of the individual, but the individual in the world. This to me defines spirituality. And it is present at any level of that depth. I personally don't feel the need to spend time talking about the spiritual aspects of life, though I do find my own ways of experiencing them. I can be very moved by film and song and I chose almost a decade ago now to just walk away from my cubical in D.C. and leave a stable life behind because it offered only a slow death. It's funny you mention this as my boss at work is moving to France in a couple months to live out in the country with his girlfriend for the exact reason you stated. I kidded with him, "Take me with you!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 It's funny you mention this as my boss at work is moving to France in a couple months to live out in the country with his girlfriend for the exact reason you stated. I kidded with him, "Take me with you!" I'm going to Thailand for a month or two, where I'll be working with my laptop on the beach, probably next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted March 12, 2011 Share Posted March 12, 2011 Antlerman, I think I'm actually one tiny step closer to understanding you. And perhaps for many, such a form of spirituality is worth perusing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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