Has anyone played the 'its non existant lolollololol' card, seriously its not that great.

 

What has always confused me is the difference between a mind and a soul but I'm going to try and explain the difference.

 

A mind is a collection of memorys and experiances and skills, while the soul decides what to do the mind is that niggling voice at the back of our head that tells us not to but it also tells us how we could do things, it gives us the logic that if I wanted to turn on a computer I press the big button or if I want to smash a window I need to hit it very hard with a hammer. The memorys are also detached from a soul so if we travel to a different body we forget our psat experiences and skills but we are still that same person. What I find really hard to comprehend is intellegence (basically would you retain it) because I just can't imagine being less or more intellegent than I am today so I think I will settle for the fact that because we don't remember everyithing we can't get used to our intellegence.

 

A soul is what thells the mind what to do, as if the mind was a vegatated person and needs something in the steering wheel to actually function, physically it doesn't exist it just magically tells us what to do. its inside the persons body so it acts as the nerves as well. If I were to describe its shape I would describe it as being the same as a person but monochrome and glowing slightly with a translucent body. This doesn't work either because assuming people are reincarnated they would have a different body. So a soul has no shape, its just a metaphysical thing that doesn't exist but does it is the driiving force inside of us that can manipulate our brain.

 

The simpsons version of selling the soul isn't realistic, it should be a much more powerful thing, if you managed to leave the body alive with the mind gone than i can certify that the soul has travelled away but if you just get a piece of paper saying you are their soul than you should be able to legally do whatever you want with the person and if they want to stop you can say that they are not allowed to have an opinion and I can hurt their soul however they could claim that their body is being harmed which is a bit of a loophole. So next time you need to ask for their body, their soul. I didn't list mind because its useless to another person.

That is long, yet so very relevant:

 

http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost.html

 

Meol's link.

Your soul is your character.

With me its an IOU

 

sold 5 of mine to the devil

I never liked the idea or favored the idea of a soul. A mind, sure, body of course, soul? No. Its pointless really, your mind is pratically your soul in the first place.

Seems with a topic like this there would be little potential for intelligent debate, considering the lack of evidence to back up almost any opinion.

Or a different kind of debate. It's one thing to argue about facts, and another to argue about opinions and inferences.

 

Moving on...

I'd say it could define the person in question's personality, beliefs, and actions. If a soul is supposed to be 'who' a person is beyond the bundle of meat that they physically are, that's about it, anyway.

Whether or not it lives on after death is another thing. Might be cool if it did, might not. If it's an immortal thing, it's probably good that we don't know what it was doing before.

It's an interesting question because we had this discussion in a philosophy class at one point. Question is, is your 'soul' a physical thing or not? If you believe it is then where is it located? Because if you remove someone's appendix they don't suddenly lose all sense of morality and consciousness.

 

Tbh, it's one of those subjects that you can't really get too in depth into without darting off into the realm of the metaphysical, since souls aren't something that can be accurately pinpointed, and there's no actual physical evidence of their existence. Personally, I don't think we have souls, but we do have a sort of rough moral compass located somewhere within the depths of our brain that can be influenced by our environment and past experiences.

I remember reading an article that some guy weighed people before and after they died and there was actually a loss of weight. Of course, it's probably inaccurate but still.

Considering you empty your bowels when you die and blood and other materials don't move (moving objects add mass)...

 

I'll say expecting the same weight alive as dead is pretty foolish.

in real life the soul is the Neocortex, cut it out and the soul is gone.

It's that new car with the commercial with the hamsters. It's the square kia car, like a scion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but seriously I have no idea.

Something I conesume on a 1/5 ratio for LP.

I believe that there's no real "soul" just consciousness driven by cells in the brain. The uniqueness is attributed to some of the unmapped parts of human DNA.

Although everything about our cognizance can be biologically explained without leaving any room for a soul, I still hope we have souls.

This is all entirely opinion, since almost by definition a soul is something non-physical and so is beyond science being able to investigate. I'm an empiricist, talking about the soul makes for some nice literature and poetry, and provides a useful way of summarising a person's spirituality, but I see absolutely no reason to actually believe in the existence of one.

 

I agree.

 

I don't think souls exist but was intended as an idea given to people to prove that god is real and can neither be proven right or wrong and is why the idea is still debated today.

We communists are atheist. I do not have belief in this 'soul' that you speak of.

I just see the "soul" as a concept of sorts, a personification of our personality, if you will. This isn't something that can necessarily be scientifically discussed.

 

That being said, when someone here said "intelligent" debate, I think the word they were aiming for was "civilized".

But serisoulsly, how can you know what something is if you dont know what it does.

But serisoulsly, how can you know what something is if you dont know what it does.

Guessing! :mrgreen:

You can't know. I just assumed that this would end up as much a "what-if" thread as a "what do you think" one.

Could see a soul as a way for very short-lived early humans to lessen their fear of death on one end, you could say that they had the right idea and that you really do, to a degree, on the other. Not like anyone that knows either way can tell you, though. And not like scientists can kill some guy, bring him back, and ask him what happened without breaking at least a few ethical rules...Yet :lol:

Maybe a soul is the reason we cant make dead people live again

"If you wish to converse with me, define your terms" -Socrates

 

If you are asking about some semi-invisble misty thing that flies away when one dies, or a sort of "spirit" that goes to paradise at the end of a life, then I would say there is no soul.

 

However, many would say that the soul is simply a metaphorical representation of the "self" - that part of us that we feel makes us individual. Being an atheist, I would say our supposed individuality is a product of our inability to admit that humans are nothing more than animals and our consciousnesses completely cease to exist when we die.

 

For me, the soul is a tool for the poets and the believers. It is a way of expressing one's need to be more than a statistic - a thought, and perhaps a folly, but not an object.

I have no religious views on the matter. Call it a soul, but I believe that there is some kind of energy that persists after a person dies. I think that people aren't the only creatures to have a soul either, considering how many animal spirits have been seen and heard as well.

I forgot I made this,

 

Anyways, I don't collect souls, if I did, i'd probably want them autographed.

 

 

I've always felt much like speedyshel that the soul is a metaphysical manifestation of ourselves that goes to heaven or hell - that is sentient, with emotion, memories and feeling , However i've been exploring the paranormal, and have yet figured out how to figure out what a ghost may be in relation to the soul.

I forgot I made this,

 

Anyways, I don't collect souls, if I did, i'd probably want them autographed.

 

 

I've always felt much like speedyshel that the soul is a metaphysical manifestation of ourselves that goes to heaven or hell - that is sentient, with emotion, memories and feeling , However i've been exploring the paranormal, and have yet figured out how to figure out what a ghost may be in relation to the soul.

 

So you believe in Heaven, Hell, and ghosts? How does that work?

A Christian who believes in the Paranormal?

 

It's a work in progress.

Always thought that if the three options are Earth, Heaven, or Hell, a ghost would be a soul restricted to Earth. What I kept hearing as a reason is confusion on the part of the soul, usually caused by sudden death/trauma/etc. Or trapped by something evil/demonic, if you believe in that... Though if you accept the rest of this you probably do :lol:

 

Or it's some kind of imprint on the area in question. Say, something happened, the ghosts are what's left. Personified history, maybe.

 

I used to be mildly interested in that kind of thing. The "mildly" bit being an explanation for me bring wrong :lol: . From what I've seen ghost-related stuff can be fairly consistent. Always a focus on the bad/horror side though. You never hear about 'good' spirits. Probably just doesn't sell as well.