Of souls, spirituality, and humanity

[hobojoe805]

Recently I’ve been pondering the idea of souls, the afterlife, and humans as a spiritual construct. I’ve decided to share my thoughts with you all in order to start a dialogue involving this rather illusive subject.

After much self-reflection, I have come to the conclusion that every living being in the universe has soul, or an essence of one. The essence is neither created nor destroyed, but is merely dispersed or reformed as necessary. When something dies, its energy is transferred to other newly forming beings. In a spiral of destruction and reformation soul “energy” (if we may be so bold) is recycled between the birthed and the dying.

So what of the souls’ purpose; what is its role? Although I’ve yet to theorize about non-humans, I have concluded that humans are comprised of three major parts: body, mind, and soul. The body or our physical being is the most familiar thing to us, because it is always the most used part. Every action requires the body, which in its frailty must consume other beings in order maintain its form. The mind has nothing to do with the functions of the brain those are controlled by the body. The mind is the accumulation of the body’s memories, will and logic. Our mind stores what we have experienced and controls our inhibitions. The last link in the human system is the soul, what we commonly refer to as our heart and our personality. This is the center where everything we “feel” stems from.

Mind, Body, and Soul all work together to maintain the being. The body gives stimuli to the mind which records it for later use. The mind keeps the soul in check, keeping our emotions from getting out of control. The soul regulates the body, making it react in certain ways based on memories relayed from the mind. If one part is weakened… it affects the whole system. If the mind is damaged it can effectively communicate with body or soul and problems occur. If the body gets damaged the mind’s and soul’s commands are rendered useless. If the soul is damaged or filled with negative energy, both body and mind begin to suffer and breakdown.

But the soul is a peculiar thing. Although when beings are born, they lack full control of their bodies, and their minds are without prior knowledge. Yet, somehow they still react instinctually in similar ways to stimuli; beings are born with something that vaguely resembles personality. This is where my theory about souls seems to stem from. If people exhibit a kind personality upon birth, then perhaps the mind and body are fresh; but the soul is, although new and different, comprised of other souls which would account for instinctual behavior.

So now for some major questions: Is there an afterlife?

No, unfortunately once you’re dead, you’re gone: your mind and body lost forever. However your soul merges and gives birth to new lives, which may or may not exhibit any of your traits (hell you might just give birth to a tree and a human, and some sort of fish thing…).

If we’re comprised of other souls, why can’t we recall past lives, and why don’t we exhibit random or conflicting personality traits?

Simple, the mind has control over memory, which the soul uses in order to develop personality, and how you respond to reoccurring stimuli. Since the mind is non-transferable, no past lives to recall, and since the soul is new and has no memories to work with, a unique personality develops, and thus has no conflicting traits.

Is there a god?

Okay this has nothing to do with the subject, but I thought I’d touch on this anyways. My answer: doesn’t matter. Whether one is created or whether we spawned randomly from some abyss is not important. My advice to people is just to live their lives, that best they can, in the end we all return to the universe; so have fun, we literally only live once.

Thank you for your time and patience. Once again this is the product of just me and my thought, and I’m in no way imposing them upon others. Feel free to critique, comment, add, and share your own personal theories. I hope this will stimulate our growth spiritually and as a people. May our reflections bring us closer to the hardest to find answers, and may we all shine like gold upon the sea of chaos that is life. *bows*

[link]

Originally Posted by hobojoe805

The mind has nothing to do with the functions of the brain those are controlled by the body. The mind is the accumulation of the body’s memories, will and logic. Our mind stores what we have experienced and controls our inhibitions. The last link in the human system is the soul, what we commonly refer to as our heart and our personality. This is the center where everything we “feel” stems from...

...But the soul is a peculiar thing. Although when beings are born, they lack full control of their bodies, and their minds are without prior knowledge. Yet, somehow they still react instinctually in similar ways to stimuli; beings are born with something that vaguely resembles personality...

Your theory is good, but here is a flaw. Scientists have been researching the brain and have found out many new things that is currently not common knowledge. First off, the brain has everything to do with the mind. The cerebral cortex, or the surface layer of the brain stores your memories and allows you to think. The frontal lobe controls moral decision making and applied logic. Feeling and emotions also come from designated parts of the brain, like the amygdala and hypothalamus. Depending on your genes and experiences, parts of the brain will be more developed that others causing personality. Not everybody's frontal lobe fully develops. Some people don't go through the experiences that cause it to develop, and those people tend to be very cold hearted. They're the people that wouldn't give a second thought to kill someone if doing so would save two. The brain greatly effects your definition of the mind and soul.

In the second portion, you are describing temperament, or in other words the personality of infants. Such personalities have been linked to genes, so it's depending on your parents, not the types of soul energy you have. Also, temperament can be easily changed when the child grows, meaning life experiences change your personality. So life experiences control what you say the soul controls, so personality is closer to your definition of the mind.

I do like your theory, but there are some big holes in it. These holes aren't impossible to patch though, so don't be discouraged by this post.

[hobojoe805]

Thank you link for your input.I was having trouble in those areas, but at least now I'm a step closer in explaining myself! And you've brought science into the equation, glorious!

[Mako]

Analytical skeptic powers go!

After much self-reflection, I have come to the conclusion that every living being in the universe has soul, or an essence of one. The essence is neither created nor destroyed, but is merely dispersed or reformed as necessary. When something dies, its energy is transferred to other newly forming beings. In a spiral of destruction and reformation soul “energy” (if we may be so bold) is recycled between the birthed and the dying.

The flaw with this is the flaw with all reincarnation beliefs. The population of organisms is not static. So unless there is an abundance of humans without souls, then this falls under the mathematical impossibility.

It also ignores that humans derive from a mother species. So when did humans get souls? Sadly, Scientology is the only one that has an answer for this particular question.

But you mentioned later that one can be reincarnated as something else. Well what gets a soul and what doesn't? Does everything get a soul, or only certain things. Amoeba? Flu virus? Rock? Every cell or every organism? What about pre-life? Before life existed, where was the soul then?

[Fire2box]

I think there is a afterlife, though I am not sure what exactly what it will be like. My main concern is if say my soul goes to heaven, will I still be exactly the way I am now up there. How long does forever last, wouldn't perfect bliss become mundane? So far these are all questions that can't be answered.

I am a Christian but I do believe fully in science as well. Until someone can see proof that god does not exist then they can worship anything as their god if they wanted to I think. What I was trying to say is I haven't seen science disprove god yet and I haven't seen god disprove science yet. Until one of the two happens I'll believe in both.


(note I said I think god is real, this is my opinion.. not me stating a fact.)

I also recall something from the end of a movie. "Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace."

[link]

Originally Posted by Mako

The flaw with this is the flaw with all reincarnation beliefs. The population of organisms is not static. So unless there is an abundance of humans without souls, then this falls under the mathematical impossibility.

He spoke earlier of "Soul energy" which he believes is in all living things. Mathematically, the amount of energy on the earth could be the same now as it was when the earth was first created, it was just spread out in different places. There could also have been stagnant soul energy that wasn't being used at the moment. So a mathematical equation could be "Total Soul Energy = Current Population + X" with X being the amount of people that could be created with the amount of energy on Earth. As the population gets bigger, X gets smaller, balancing the equation.

We can even add more variables for other living things with Soul Energy to the equation, but sense we don't know the total Soul energy, we can never know X, but as long as there is an X there is room to expand.

[dogboy]

Some people have more soul than others. James Brown had a lot of soul. So did Sam Cook. Sadly, I don't. I don't dance very well, and ribs are just too messy and spicy for my tastes. I do like Motown, however. But when I try to dance to it, I trip and fall. To make matters worse, I like and listen to classical music, so the argument stands, some people have more soul than others. This is why rocks and viruses have very little soul. When was the last time you saw one of them in the "Rib Shack" or downloading tracks of "Midnight Train to Georgia"? I'm guessing never.

Carrying this argument further, is there an after life? There must be because of radio waves. They continue on into space forever, carrying the great Motown tunes to the very ends of the universe, and since space has no end, so Soul goes on forever.

Is there a God? Yes, but who....is it the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, or a more hip God like Jimmy Hendrix? This is where you must have faith, faith in Hendrix, my all time God. He's the man and God.

Okay Mako, the glove is thrown. Remember when something similar came up a year ago. What is your take on my latest theory?

[Fire2box]

Originally Posted by dogboy

Carrying this argument further, is there an after life? There must be because of radio waves. They continue on into space forever, carrying the great Motown tunes to the very ends of the universe, and since space has no end, so Soul goes on forever.

on the TV show The Universe they were talking about how our radio waves might contact ailens. However they said over loner and longer distances the radio signal grows weaker.. not dead but weak enough to where its pretty much undetectable and will just merge in with the radio waves the universe makes naturally. So I guess its true the waves don't die, but its not like you can pick up a radio signal from 50 billion miles away and it comes in clear either.

[dogboy]

You realize the horror of this. As radio waves we go on, but we lose our individuality, our identity and our memories. It's sort of an analogy for what the OP is saying, however. Back to his topic, that's always a fear of mine, that after death, we have this vague memory of ourselves, but we are floating in some undifined reality, not really materializing into reality, sort of ghost-like, like a vapor, a mere memory of who we once were. I see another horror story coming. To bad Halloween is over.

As for soul, I believe it does exist, but like understanding God, what is one's definition of either soul or God? Is the soul something genuine being trapped in a physical body? Is God humanized so that we can understand Him in our terms? Or is God the energy force of creation, and is creation a complete mystery, and we as living entities, also mysteries. I suspect that is closer to the truth.

[Fire2box]

Originally Posted by dogboy

You realize the horror of this. As radio waves we go on, but we lose our individuality, our identity and our memories. It's sort of an analogy for what the OP is saying, however. Back to his topic, that's always a fear of mine, that after death, we have this vague memory of ourselves, but we are floating in some undifined reality, not really materializing into reality, sort of ghost-like, like a vapor, a mere memory of who we once were. I see another horror story coming. To bad Halloween is over.

That sounds like a awesome version of "Hell". My version is a endless white room with nothing in it but you and you never have any need other then longing for some form of contact.