Do we have a spiritual dimension/soul?

[slimfandango]

Or are we just a physical being?

[CHOPS'R'US]

This could cause a lot of arguments with this type of question the same as religion tends to do as everyone has their own views obviously but for me i cannot believe that we are just all physical as we think which is mental don't we but we get those mental experiences and knowledge through physical beingness don't we. I guess this is a very personal question so i can't imagine everyone agreeing to anyone same thing so i might write abit more later, can't go annyoing people already.........

[Cetti]

The soul is the very essence of who and what we are - life itself. It's what makes each of us unique and very special.

 That's about as deep as I'll go on a Tuesday ;-)

[FP]

I am not a religious person and do not believe in a god.  However, I like to feel that I am a 'spiritual' person.  This might sound weird but I know what I mean!  This is why I am currently interested in Buddhism as I am trying to explore spirituality.

[CHOPS'R'US]

Just another little thing that you may find interesting i once read a book which basically talked about atoms etc. Now as i'm sure you all know every single thing is made up of these little critters and it made it blatantally obvious that as we are all made up of the same thing we are all therefore one already and always have been just vibrating at different frequesncies and it was the ego that split the mind from the spirit/soul and that is why now we think we are all individual and different. And i guess when the first ever person met the first other person they took one look at each other and thought why are you different looking to me or why is that bush different to that one, i guess this is where conflict started......

[Merlin]

Slim

G K Chesterton, imo, would sometimes ask a question just so that he could argue against it or lure opponents into a trap. Having seen some other postings from you, I wonder whether this is a genuine question.

If it is, then I offer my humblest apologies for misunderstanding you.

Anyway, there is clearly a dimension to the human person that is not physical. Consider your abstract thoughts. You can point to the electro-chemical activity in a specific region of the physical mass that is your brain and say "There's a thought being produced", but that activity is not the thought itself, the thought, for instance, of what you think other people think of you. That is your thought and that thought cannot exist without you but that thought is not entirely comprised in the electro-chemical activity. You have your mind and consciousness and the 'inner person' that we all perceive whether we have any religious faith or not.

So there clearly is a non-physical aspect to the human person. What you want to call it is up to you.

Sorted.