• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Does Man Really Have a Soul?

Scuba Pete

Le plongeur avec attitude...
Hebrews 6:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
 

mahayana

Member
Interesting topic, TVOR.

I did a thread on another messageboard called "A Question For Believers," asking why people believed that they had souls, what evidence they had that souls/spirits exist.

A few places where anecdotal evidence (which abounds in Paranormal literature) could be tested scientifically:

!. Out-of-body experiences
2. Telepathy
3. Ghost phoenomenon (temperature changes, magnetic field anomalies, etc.)
4. Past life
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
TVOR,

I'll cast my vote in for a soul, though I won't presume to offer scientific evidence (I'm not an empiricist anyway). SOGFPP's quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church encapsulates what I'd say also.

The only things I'd add, is that I believe animals have a soul, though not like humans, and that they think, have emotions, grieve, and everything else. I've had dogs that, if left, would refuse to eat and starve themselves to death. They are also capable of obeying commands. It seems a a very large stretch to me to deny they don't experience emotions or can't think.
 

Ceridwen018

Well-Known Member
Good say, No*s.

I personally don't believe in a soul, but I don't have any sort of problem with people who do (or their reasons for it) until they try to argue that there is scientific evidence for it. I'm very glad that you recognize that and don't see it as a negative quality.

Also, I agree that if there are souls, animals have them too. We really aren't much different from animals--oftentimes they're smarter than us as it is!
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
Thanks Ceridwen018,

I find it rather ridiculous to say that animals don't have one. You'd never find that in ancient Christian writings or in ancient pagan writings. I think it's a result of the conflict some folks have with evolution. Many Christians live with a pseudo-empiricist worldview and fear its results. If they gave a soul to animals, coupled with the advance of evolutionist theory, I believe there's an innate fear it will undermine the theology of the Image of God, and with that, all of Christianity. Even if I'm wrong on the cause, it isn't an ancient phenomona.

No, I don't see a lack of empirical evidence as a problem. In fact, I find a Humist-style empiricism (don't believe it unless it's empirically verifiable) problematic, and in many ways, very dangerous. As a result, I tend to get into disputes with any theist who places empiricism too highly as a result :).
 

The Voice of Reason

Doctor of Thinkology
No*s said:
... I think it's a result of the conflict some folks have with evolution. Many Christians live with a pseudo-empiricist worldview and fear its results. If they gave a soul to animals, coupled with the advance of evolutionist theory, I believe there's an innate fear it will undermine the theology of the Image of God, and with that, all of Christianity. ...No, I don't see a lack of empirical evidence as a problem. In fact, I find a Humist-style empiricism (don't believe it unless it's empirically verifiable) problematic, and in many ways, very dangerous. As a result, I tend to get into disputes with any theist who places empiricism too highly as a result :).
No*s - you are my kind of Theist. I think that you and SOGFPP embody what I think a good Theist should be - you believe as you do, based on FAITH, not science, which does not address what you believe. I can (and do) respect that. I don't agree, but I do respect it.
I struggle mightily with those that want to twist science to make it support something (religion) that it cannot address.

With respect,
TVOR
 

mahayana

Member
I'm surprised no one took on my suggestion that evidence for spirits or a soul could be tested.

First a disclaimer. I neither believe nor disbelieve that souls exist.

I mentioned four categories of claims about the paranormal. The first was past lifes. The claim I've been intrigued with is that some people, under hypnosis, have spoken fluently in old versions of languages that they never knew or studied. Would you agree that, if true, this would be evidence for reincarnation? My scientific test would be to videotape a session like this, have it transcribed and the details verified by impartial experts. At this point, I'm a total skeptic. What would it take to establish the truth here? Is this just a rumor?
 

HelpMe

·´sociopathic meanderer`·
great idea, not that it would serve many of the extreme skeptics like you may see here.

does it require a certain percentage of people to pass the test?or is one indesputable case enough?
 

cardero

Citizen Mod
No*s writes:The only things I'd add, is that I believe animals have a soul, though not like humans, and that they think, have emotions, grieve, and everything else. I've had dogs that, if left, would refuse to eat and starve themselves to death. They are also capable of obeying commands. It seems a a very large stretch to me to deny they don't experience emotions or can't think.
ceredwin018 writes: Also, I agree that if there are souls, animals have them too. We really aren't much different from animals--oftentimes they're smarter than us as it is!
I believe that there isn't really any difference in the souls of animals and people. The only difference that I have noticed is that the soul that chooses the physical incarnation of an animal
does so based on choices of experience, the amount of moments it plans to exist in that animal shell and it's purpose. It is our human perception that separates a difference.
 

HelpMe

·´sociopathic meanderer`·
actually may is right.the original meaning for the word soul simply means 'living being'.*points to the last part of post #83*

your parable does not apply.
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
carrdero said:
I believe that there isn't really any difference in the souls of animals and people. The only difference that I have noticed is that the soul that chooses the physical incarnation of an animal
does so based on choices of experience, the amount of moments it plans to exist in that animal shell and it's purpose. It is our human perception that separates a difference.

Interesting. While I may disagree, it is largely through different presuppositons and sources.

Have you ever read the Republic? If you haven't it includes a story about the souls of men choosing their next lives, including choosing animals. Odysseus chose to be just a peasant after all he'd gone through lol. It just reminded me of that.
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
mahayana said:
I'm surprised no one took on my suggestion that evidence for spirits or a soul could be tested.

I think it's because most people on this board's view of souls don't have much compatibility with some of the tests you mentioned, and they either haven't encountered the claims before or interpret them differently as a result. My beliefs would be incompatible, for example, and I've never encountered documentation of people speaking in languages that they didn't know.

mahayana said:
First a disclaimer. I neither believe nor disbelieve that souls exist.

I mentioned four categories of claims about the paranormal. The first was past lifes. The claim I've been intrigued with is that some people, under hypnosis, have spoken fluently in old versions of languages that they never knew or studied. Would you agree that, if true, this would be evidence for reincarnation? My scientific test would be to videotape a session like this, have it transcribed and the details verified by impartial experts. At this point, I'm a total skeptic. What would it take to establish the truth here? Is this just a rumor?

I don't know how I'd interpret it, but your criteria would meet my standards of *something* happened, with one exception. For a dead language, I want it verefied that the experts would actually know. Many of the older languages may have a few dozen experts at most in the world. Others will have more. But no matter what, finding an expert in any very old language is going to be difficult, and if the language is still spoken, it'll be still harder not to find someone whose perception hasn't been altered by the current languge. Then you have to find one that's willing to put his name on such a study. They have a very bad reputation.

That said, if it did meet such decent standards, there's still matters of interpretation. Lots of freaky things happen in the world. Take, for example, UFOs. People are seeing something, but I don't think it's space aliens coming to earth. It's the same phenomena, but with different explanations.

I'll have to look back up and see what other things you listed and will reply later if I know something about the subject. It's quite likely I know next to nothing about the subject, though. Then you can have your discussion *non-graphic smiley*.
 

Ronald

Well-Known Member
I can understand other religions, other than those that are to have sprang from Judaism, holding a belief of soul being an essense of man. For those that are out of Judaism, I'm at a loss

The Hebrew word for the word translated as "soul" is nephesh. Nephesh is an air breathing creature.
Animals and whales and the like are souls.

Websters defination is for the Germanic word soul is, "An enity which is regarded as being the immortal or spiritual part of a person."

So the secular view is we have a soul, the Judaeo-Christian view is we are a soul.

Choose your side. ;)
 

No*s

Captain Obvious
HelpMe said:
actually may is right.the original meaning for the word soul simply means 'living being'.*points to the last part of post #83*

your parable does not apply.

Can you read any of the older languages? For Bible-related languages, there's Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Other ancient languages include Sanskrit, Sumerian, and several others.

If not, how do you know? Remember, an English dictionary means absolutely nothing about an old language (and as far as I'm concerned, Strong's isn't much better). If you can, and it's Greek or Latin, would you mind a conversation on this board with me in one of them? While my Latin is rather poor, I would love to brush up on either it or my Greek with you.
 

cardero

Citizen Mod
HelpMe writes: actually may is right.the original meaning for the word soul simply means 'living being'.*points to the last part of post #83*

your parable does not apply.
What May is saying, and May can CORRECT me if I am mistaken, is that when man dies the soul dies with it or that the soul does not exist until the man does. The parable with the car is that a car is a car before a man gets in and drives. A car needs someone to drive it. Once the man dies he does not own that car but the car still exists as a car, the car does not get buried with the owner. The word living means- to be alive-BEing alive mans to exist. A soul (driver) exists before we incarnate into a human shell (car) and exists after the human shell (car) passes away. There is such a thing (whether May chooses to believe it or not) as Spiritual BEings.
 
Top