souls...

[dannyday5821]

so...are you born with a soul? are you given a soul? do you find a soul? can you "really" sell your soul? where did the concept of a soul first emerge? is there such thing as a good or bad soul?

[eyeshade]

Hi Octavious, I don't necessary think it is intrinsic to human nature. But I think a lot of people have been done harm by different religions over the years about where their soul would end up if they did the smallest of things wrong and likewise the people who have committed attrocities but have been forgiven by some prayers, I don't think people know what to believe. I think people who have had near death experiences see things completely differently and realise there is a spirit, soul, whatever that connects you to something far reaching than just this life.

[Octavius]

Eyeshade the human concept (and understanding) of �soul� and where it ends up - should you not lead a �good� life - predates organised religion by several millennia.

[eyeshade]

Oh no doubt it does, I am merely using religion as a word that most people understand and peoples concepts are changing all the time. Science is now becoming more involved in the fact that there is something more than this life so could this be the soul or spirit, who knows?

[Supernick]

I can't even begin to contemplate the number of 'why?' questions already thrown up
Why would a soul get to choose where to go?
Where do new soulds come from?
Why can souls enter a new body and forget everything about their previous lives.
Why can some souls 'tell us' about objects they once used, but can't tell us anything remotely interesting about anything?
Why believe they go to a happy place?
Why not believe that all souls exit the body and then exist in terrible torture desperate to find a body to be complete again?
Why bother entering a body full stop? Just chat with your other soul pals.
There are billions of why's and no answers.

[eyeshade]

The answers may be there but we just haven't been able to tap into them yet I fear. A lot of the answers to your questions Supernick are also documented in many books, its wether one has an open mind and is ready to believe it or not.

[Supernick]

If we have no way of tapping into the answers yet, then why believe it? The only reason to believe things is that to the best of our knowledge it is the most likely answer. Things may change in the future, but we believe in the best evidence we have. Projecting ideas about a soul, and then waiting and weaiting for any evidence in the slightest to back it up seems as ludicrous as stating that fairies exist, and then saying that we just can't know anything about them yet, or have any evidence to prove them, but one day we might.
Being open-minded is not about accepting any statement you hear without question, it's about being in a position to allow an issue to be presented to you without prejudice and then questioning it accordingly

[eyeshade]

Some people have tapped into them, or think they have but not everybody would take on board their answers. Some people are of the opinion, clearly, that there is no soul or spirit at all. It is a question of what you believe. Who is projecting ideas about souls. All those people who have died and come back again must be wrong then, that'll please them all! Some of those didn't entirely go to a happy place, some when to a complete blank place with darkness. However with all the vast knowledge they have, you couldn't possibly put it all onto this page. You are quite right about the meaning of being open minded. I totally agree, I am open minded and question many things but I certainly don't say it doesn't exist or there is no "soul" if that's what you want to call it. Perhaps we should re-name this section, just call it Body and "What the Bleep do we know".

[Octavius]

As I said, philosophy!

Plato believed that everything in nature changes, but that there is an eternal world of ideas outside of the natural world. Plato thought that each thing that we see is an approximation of some perfect idea that exists somewhere else. We cannot have true knowledge about things that change, so we cannot actually know the real world, but we can have true knowledge about things that we perceive through our reason. Thus Plato was very fond of mathematics, because it involves solely the use of reason. Plato believed that people were made up of a body that is a part of the natural world but also an immortal soul that is in contact with the world of ideas. When we are born, our soul no longer has the knowledge of that world, but through experience we jog its memory and recollect the true and perfect ideas.

I don�t think we have quite got to grips with the metaphysical world yet, or whether it even actually exists. But Plato experienced logic and reason, he was also open to other ideas outside of his pure understanding.