Do people have souls???

[AssassinJoe]

I have souls! I have tons of souls! Souls of the sinners, souls of the innocent, you name I got it! People just love selling there souls to me for some help from my infinite dark powers! I have so many souls I don't have any more room for them, so now I'm passing the savings on to you! With....
AssassinJoe's Soul Clearance Sale!
For the low, low price of only $15.99, you can go home with someone else's soul! There good for anything! Decoration, favor exchange with the devil, you name it! Order now, and you'll get a second soul for only hlaf price! Call Now!

 

[loc978]

...I think this was best put by Jack Nicholson's character in "The Bucket List":
We've all had hundreds of these discussions, and every one of them always hits the same wall... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipXBy1ZAbh4#t=1m10s]

 

[Misho-]

What was the saying...?
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?
I think that works here. Right now, we have no way of proving we have souls, or we have no souls.
As such, I keep an open mind. Maybe we do, maybe we don't.
Doesn't stop me from using them as a commodity.

I share this point of view actually, I really am all the way on science but... Science ain't perfect yet, so there could be a lot of stuff missing from our grasp like imagining God like a High Evolutionary or something and that every little thing that we've discovered thru science was actually planned out by complicated schemes so complicated that our heads would burst from learning them...

But for the sake of argument, souls or animas or spirits have been part of the human psyche loooooooooooooooooooong before there was any established religions and maybe it's part of our human nature to refuse the idea that we're nothing more than a meat husk with blood diesel grieffing the place up.

I would support the Idea that we do have souls/spirits in the sense that we live after our deaths through our actions and such (or in a Harry Potter way of tiny ball of light getting sucked off by wraiths), but I don't believe we will ever have souls in the sense of a particle or something that could be extracted from our insides and examined on a microscope or something. Besides what's the chances of a scientist actually seeing a soul and recognize it as such, he/she would just name it in a complicated manner and explain its the hormone that controls our sexual impulses or something.

 

[WaderiAAA]

A question that should be asked when discussing whether we have souls or not: What is a soul? I mean, from the way the word soul is being used, it seems to me like our extra self-awareness is the soul. If by soul you mean something that exists on an entirely different level/dimension from the body, then I agree with you that it would make little sense from an atheist point of view.

On the other hand, it is hard to accept the thought that all our actions are decided by chemistry. We discussed this in my Philosophy class, and the teacher explained his point of view like this: He picked up a book and started very lightly and repeatedly hitting a student in the head with some papers. He said: "According to materialism, what I am doing now is perfectly natural. Hitting him in the head with those papers is the only thing I can do in this situation. It isn't my fault - I don't control the chemical reactions that are going on in my head. Doesn't this explanation seem reasonable?"

So in short, the problem with thinking about ourselves as bio-robots controlled by chemical reactions is that having free would make no sense. Chemical reactions aren't random, so you can't choose anything "yourself". Then you can't say that anyone is evil, it is simply their brains that are malfunctioning.

For the record, I'm Christian, so I do believe in a soul - both due to my religion and the arguments mentioned.

Hope that gave you some useful input.

 

[Madara XIII]

I don't, I'm ginger.

Also, LEARN TO SPELL

Oh yeah!! If gingers don't have souls then how is Ronald Weasly affected by Dementors!?

You have 1 hour to present a 3 page thesis to counter my argument.....aaaaaaaaand GO!

It's a movie. A++ please.

.

.....*reads*...I see. Valid argument indeed, buuuuuuut YOU FAIL!!! I said 3 Page Thesis!! Do you Kiss your mother with that typing hand!?

No Grade for you!!!

Warning: Madara the Grading Nazi is not liable for any emotional trauma that may result from his criticisms

 

[Gigano]

No, they have personality, formed by genetics, other physical or medical factors (chemical imbalances in or trauma to the brain, development disorders etc.), the environment they have been nurtured in, and what experiences and bits of knowledge they have so far come across.

No "soul" is needed for individuality. Or worth. Rather, the idea that we should be something external from our current existence, possibly in the hands of some deity, seem to detract from both in this life and this world.

 

[DarthFennec]

I don't see why people would have souls. As OP stated, we can explain everything that goes on in the mind and body without referencing the soul. There's no evidence for or against a soul, to the point where we can't actually describe what it is without referencing the afterlife. So whether you believe in souls or not really depends on whether you take comfort in the idea of an afterlife or not. I personally would not like to live forever after I die, so I don't believe in souls.

 

[ThreeWords]

2 Almost everything we feel can be explained by chemicals in our head (and other parts ). Even things such as love and affection.

That, sir, is the entire basis of your essay.

What is the soul?
Start with an attempted definition, then relate it to the mind, point out that the mind can be shown to be only brain activity, begin to muse on the idea that the soul is the upshot of biological brain functions, then question to see if this means that there is no soul, or if it's just different to what you thought it was.

Indeed, ask if the ideas that of soul and brain chemicals are mutually exclusive?

Spin into out for a few pages, and you're good to go =D

I love studying philosophy

 

[adakias]

I dunno.

I've always liked the idea of reincarnation... Like, maybe our "soul" is simply a consciousness that is transferred from one body to another when the first has decayed and died. Whether it's true or not, I think I'm gonna believe in that. It's a comfort to have something to look forward to, rather than waiting to plunge into the absolute void. Fighting a battle of logistics is never going to successfully convince anyone, least of all me, so for my own sanity's sake, I'm going to reject logic in this instance.

So, yes. For me, we have souls.

 

[Palademon]

I don't, I'm ginger.

Also, LEARN TO SPELL

Oh yeah!! If gingers don't have souls then how is Ronald Weasly affected by Dementors!?

You have 1 hour to present a 3 page thesis to counter my argument.....aaaaaaaaand GO!

God said so.
..oh you said 3 page

 

[sramota]

No.
We have neurotransmitters.

 

[Halceon]

So i have to do this essay on souls for my philosofy class, and i just wanted to hear some differtent views on the case.

I dont think we have souls and that were just animals, biological robots, doing what our brains tells us to do with the help of pheromones, hormones etc. I base this on 3 things:
1 There is no scientific proof suggesting we have souls
2 Almost everything we feel can be explained by chemicals in our head (and other parts ). Even things such as love and affection.
3 I'm an atheist therefore i believe the excistance of souls would also open up a possibility for the excistance of deities.

What do you think + arguments for your opinion.
Have Fun!
(remember, this is a philosofical argument. No hating on other people for their believes etc)
Excuse me for my crappy English.

The way you've phrased the topic makes me have to say this:
NO! Only elephants have souls. U no can has!

 

[WaderiAAA]

I don't think so, I think that people just regularly confuse their 'minds' with their 'souls' (and even then, your mind is just a bunch of electrical and chemical responses in gray mushy matter).

Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is the right one. We have no solid evidence to support the existance of a soul, and therefore, at this time we must accept the fact that it probably doesn't exist.

So are you saying we should assume that everything whose existance can't be proved at the moment probably doesn't exist? What about Neutrons? They were believed to "probably exist" for decades before it was proved. They believed neutrons existed because it explained other phenomena on molecular level which they had observed. So if someone can give a good argument on how a soul would explain different phenomena, couldn't the existance of a soul be accepted as "probably true"?

 

[neoontime]

The question should be 'What is a soul?"....

NO, no it shouldn't!

 

[MassiveGeek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNau_Cdll3w watch this.

 

[WaderiAAA]

I don't see why people would have souls. As OP stated, we can explain everything that goes on in the mind and body without referencing the soul. There's no evidence for or against a soul, to the point where we can't actually describe what it is without referencing the afterlife. So whether you believe in souls or not really depends on whether you take comfort in the idea of an afterlife or not. I personally would not like to live forever after I die, so I don't believe in souls.

For some reason, this doesn't seem right to me. If you had said that you don't believe in an afterlife, thus you don't believe in a soul it would make sense, but what you are basically saying is that you don't believe in it because you don't want it to be true.

 

[Cowabungaa]

First, define "soul".

If you've done that we can continue with this discussion. See you in a couple of centuries.

 

[Danny Ocean]

If you have a soul, you also have a body. How does the soul interact with the body? We know that the body is a bundle of chemicals that is only affected by natural forces that we understand. If the soul is to affect it, it must employ natural forces.

In such a case, there is no reason to think the soul to be anything supernatural.

That, or the soul simply resides inside the body and does nothing to affect its actions. In which case, what's the point?

 

[Blind Sight]

I don't think so, I think that people just regularly confuse their 'minds' with their 'souls' (and even then, your mind is just a bunch of electrical and chemical responses in gray mushy matter).

Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is the right one. We have no solid evidence to support the existance of a soul, and therefore, at this time we must accept the fact that it probably doesn't exist.

So are you saying we should assume that everything whose existance can't be proved at the moment probably doesn't exist? What about Neutrons? They were believed to "probably exist" for decades before it was proved. They believed neutrons existed because it explained other phenomena on molecular level which they had observed. So if someone can give a good argument on how a soul would explain different phenomena, couldn't the existance of a soul be accepted as "probably true"?

Hence the use of the word 'probably' and the term 'at this time' in my post rather then an absolutist stance. I'm open to the idea, but the evidence does not point towards it.

To be honest the concept of a 'soul' just seems to be humans trying to define themselves as special in some way. It's far more egotistic then say, a neutron, thus I'm skeptical towards it.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

I do believe we have one. I'm also religious. I can't explain why I believe there is a God, it's just a feeling I have. And if anyone tries to convert me using logic or patronizes my belief, I will punch them in the head.

I can't really explain what makes me think we have a soul, I guess I just see the world and think "This is way too beautiful and grand to be a fluke."