Is This Thing Called a Soul Just a Fairy Tale

If I was going to examine the concept of soul, I'd first look at the 'function' of a soul.

Though the first reaction is one of 'mortality', i.e. if we have a soul, then that soul might:
1. continue beyond the corporal;
2. give us character;
3. allow some kind of expression of inner being;
4. give a sense of community;
5. demonstrate some kind of innate gentleness;

Old King Cole had a Merry one.
An old loving couple have Comfortable ones.
Musicians have a Rhythmic one.
Confidants have a Discretion filled one.
A wise person has an Old one.

Rather than a collection of proteins and enzymes, in the concept of 'soul', we have a unifying thing that makes us see a 'similarity' in each other; we all have a soul so we can't really be that different.

Even a 'bad' person might have the soul of a frightened child, and is just lashing out.

So, imo, since the concept of a soul has a lot of useful meaning then why not recognize it.

It doens't have to be a 'supernatural' thing, though it may have some kind of substance.

When we pass along, it may leave the confines of a single body and join a community of souls.

Doesn't mean there's a heaven or an 'afterlife'. In some ways that concept is more of a comfort to the survivors than to the decedent, perhaps.

I was struck by the idea a poster above had. We are each together, and events conspire to drive us apart. Having and sharing a soul is a reason to keep that from happening; to forgive, to reconcile.

Anyway, pardon the babble

2 cents.


[edit on 8-3-2008 by Badge01]

Babble on if you choose.
I see babble as random thought, we can babble therefor it must exist for a reason.

Babble on my friend.....Babble on

How can there be a soul if there is nothing giving it energy? They say death is like dreaming, but when we dream, something is still giving us energy to dream. But my guess would be to enjoy life now, i'm trying to come to the conclusion that there is no life after death and be happy with it. But it's hard. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't.

reply to post by sumperson

You asked for a peer reviewed study. I provided one.

You did not. A peer-reviewed study is a paper that has been looked at by a board of qualified scientists to see whether it is fit for publication. What you provided was a news story (actually a hoax, but that's neither here nor there) in an online newspaper. It was not about a scientific study, it was all about a new business venture in which people lose weight by selling their souls. Not the same thing at all.

You'll have to work harder for your 21 grammes of toast.

Here, this may help: Peer Review in a Nutshell

please just give it a chance.
don't blast me down right away

reply to post by sumperson

Don't take it personally, my friend. Making a mistake and losing an argument are not shameful so long as you don't make the same mistake or lose the same argument twice. As for being easily taken in by hoaxers, it's a sign that you need to learn more about the world and how it works. Above Top Secret isn't the best place for that, I'm afraid.

What is? Why, the world itself. I recommend getting out as much as possible, meeting and interacting with people in different occupations and from all walks of life, re-training yourself and changing jobs now and again, taking up and dabbling in new interests. If you're not the sort that makes friends easily, try getting involved in community projects and causes.

At all times be curious. Ask questions. Observe.

The words 'I don't know' are among the most valuable in the English language. Never be ashamed to utter them unless the matter under discussion is something you ought to know about -- such as your teenage daughter's whereabouts at midnight.

Travel, but never as a tourist. Find work in foreign countries and stay awhile. If you can't find work, be a bum, but stay awhile. Start a relationship with a local of the opposite sex (or the same sex, if that's what floats your boat) and try to get them to teach you the language and how to cook and eat the local food. Look for the real life beneath the skin of the country.

Get yourself the best formal education you possibly can. Supplement it with the best informal one you can devise. Remember that education is a lifetime process, one that continues through every waking hour, not just something you were forced to undergo for a few years as a child.

Always proceed from the following assumptions

1. truth is
   
2. everyone is innocent until proven guilty
   
3. the world is as it seems
   
4. the simplest, most economical explanation is generally the correct one.
   

Lose your religion, and your ideology if you have one. Religion and ideology are irreducible obstacles o knowledge and understanding.

Throw away your television.

Read history and literature. They are the best subjects for learning about human nature and how things work.

Finally, always remember that, while Above Top Secret is a wonderful place to come for entertainment (I am a great fan), you take what you read here seriously at your peril.

Now, for your entertaiment and other members', I submit another 'news story' from that source you quoted. I leave it to you to decide whether or not it enhances the source's credibility.

Avant News, 22 February 2008

[edit on 12-3-2008 by Astyanax]

reply to post by sumperson


When my grandfather died I saw his leave the body... I also saw a bright orb the color of the sun above his body... It is what I saw and the only thing I've come to conclude is it was him in our dimension saying goodbye to me... Then it circled around like a spiral and shot off upwards... I saw it as the family and myself were leaving the room, I was the last one out when it appeared and I'm sure nobody else saw it... Isn't that the way of life though... Everything extraordinary like this always seems to be in a very personal way and not a huge public scene... This leads me to believe that our connection to the lord is the same way... personal, the reason why he tells us not to judge and you wouldn't if you too experienced the same thing, but we don't, we all experience separate things. His gift to us is the ability to share our experiences with each other...

Originally posted by Astyanax
It was not about a scientific study, it was all about a new business venture in which people lose weight by selling their souls. Not the same thing at all.

What are you talking about ?

There are plenty of scientific studies on the 21 grams theory. Stop trying to obfuscate the topic.

The scientific community is far more willing to study the energy body or the soul than your average armchair skeptic...

because you see, the armchair skeptic completely ignores the scientific studies and will come up with endless reasons that such studies are not satisfactory. So be it. Armchair skeptics were never of any value to the scientific community anyway.

Hmmm.. Two different belief systems clashing in this thread. The belief that there exists no soul, and the belief that one does exist. They're not much more than that. Beliefs. Therefor it will continue to be a discussion on the forum.

I cater to the belief that there does exist a soul. Mainly because of the OOBE's that I've had and the encounters I have had with relatives I've had in my dreams not long after they died. They were alive and well and felt much stronger and more independent than any other characters I've encountered in my dreams. But then again, my experience is subjective and so is the experience of every single person here in this thread. Especially those who are so sure that souls do exist, and who are so sure that they don't exist.

I'll leave it at one (subjective) claim. Souls are the only things that exist. Everything else is just a creation of the soul, while at the same time it is part of the soul. Your physical body is a part of you, yet it is not the real you.

Some may identify their consciousness with chemical and electrical signals in the brain, while others may believe that the chemical and electrical signals are just the ways the soul uses to be able to function in the physical world. Like a radio signal translated into sound and/or video by a radio or tv.

Whatever the other person chooses to believe, let them believe it instead of imposing your own belief on them. Perhaps they're wrong, perhaps they may be more right than you are. Perhaps they will come to a differnet conclusion and belief in the future. Everyone is at a different stage of development in their life, and we have to respect that. It's the same with science. Certain scientific studies are not being accepted or are being ignored just because they are judged to be ridiculous, because it conflicts with the beliefs of others in the mainstream. Those studies don't get a chance until the opponents die. Then a leap is made to a different understanding based on more unbiased research (not that I didn't say objective) done in those fields.

reply to post by NewWorldOver

There are plenty of scientific studies on the 21 grams theory. Stop trying to obfuscate the topic.

Forsooth, another bidder for my immortal soul.

Show us yer knickers, then (metaphorically speaking, of course).


[edit on 12-3-2008 by Astyanax]

I didn't make this post for people to argue pointlessly......
Well maybe I did.

Anyways...
Why wasn't that a peer reviewed study in your eyes?

I provided a study that was carried out by multiple scientists.....and they all reached one conclusion. Unbiased from what I understand.
I consider that a peer reviewed study by my standards.

If the study I provided was innaccurate please tell me....maybe I was fooled.


But I have provided a conclusion based on multiple trained proffesionals opinions. It is much easier to just say it doesn't exist. Please provide an unbiased study concluding it doesn't exist....if there is one.

I didn't make this post for people to argue pointlessly......
Well maybe I did.

Anyways...
Why wasn't that a peer reviewed study in your eyes?

I provided a study that was carried out by multiple scientists.....and they all reached one conclusion. Unbiased from what I understand.
I consider that a peer reviewed study by my standards.

If the study I provided was innaccurate please tell me....maybe I was fooled.


But I have provided a conclusion based on multiple trained proffesionals opinions. It is much easier to just say it doesn't exist. Please provide an unbiased study concluding it doesn't exist....if there is one.

Originally posted by sumperson
Why wasn't that a peer reviewed study in your eyes?

I already explained what a peer-review study is, sumperson. It's in one of my earlier posts, which also carries a link to an article that explains pretty much everything about peer review in detail. If you read my post and that article, they will answer your question.

I provided a study that was carried out by multiple scientists.....and they all reached one conclusion. Unbiased from what I understand. I consider that a peer reviewed study by my standards.

Well, no. First of all, you did not provide a study, or rather a scientific paper describing one and its results. What you provided was a news article. That's a very different thing. A news article is not a scientific paper.

Your standards and mine have nothing to do with it. There is general acceptance of what peer review means, and that is the standard by which we judge whether something is a peer-reviewed paper or not.

If the study I provided was innaccurate please tell me....maybe I was fooled.

Alas, sumperson, that article you posted came from a comedy site. Avant News exists to wind up people who believe in crank theories and urban legends. Didn't you read the other link I posted, about a spy satellite falling on Osama bin Laden's head? That was from the same site.

Anyway, the article you posted wasn't a peer-reviewed study, because

1. It was a news article, not a scientific study
   
2. It wasn't peer-reviewed
   
3. In fact, it was a hoax.
   

Can't make it any clearer than that, I'm afraid.

I'm still waiting for the Guardian of the Cosmos to show up with his evidence for the existence of the 21-gramme soul.

Waiting, but not holding my breath.

Astyanax, your last reply made me think. I'm writing this for you. Its subject that I've never talked to anybody about, but I think you should hear it.

I'm not one to share family memmories. So listen closely. I have 8 siblings. When I was 2 my mom left C.H.O.F., a church/cult in Minnesota some of you might be farmiliar with. My mom took my 4 brothers, 3 of my sisters, and me.......and ran. One of my sisters stayed at C.H.O.F. with my dad, and when I turned five years old I started to see them both on weekends in the form of visitation.

I love my dad, and I always will, but let me tell you about my father. One day he picked me up for my visitation and took me to lunch at a deli by my house. He then proceeded to buy me a tuna sandwich with a coke. But as I was eating he stopped me, looked me in the eyes and said the following, "Ben, you know I love you, your a part of me............ your my son, but I have to tell you something. My phone got broke so you can't call me anymore..... and I won't be taking you on visitation anymore because I need time to find myself....But I'll call you every year on your birthday."

I didn't understand. It sounds strange but I just sat there, I didn't cry, I didn't ask why, don't know what I was thinking now that I look back on that day. But still, when my 6th birthday came around, I was waiting for the phone to ring.
It did and I answered right away. I waited all year for that call, but he didn't say happy birthday, he said, "Hey Ben, I wanna start seeing you again. Do you wanna get some pizza? I have a present for you."

I didn't know what to think, but for some reason I just hung up on him. He called the next year but I wasn't excited, I didn't want him to talk to me, but he called and my mom gave me the phone.

I sat there and imagined what he would do that night when he went to sleep.

I thought about him going to bed, pulling up the blankets and praying to god. I saw him praying, then he went to bed. It sounds dumb, but I started to get very sad because he didn't ask god to protect me. When the phone rang again I just unplugged it. I went outside and sat on my porch.

I sat and thought for hours until my Mom asked me to come inside. When I'm not religious but that night I prayed to god. I asked him to help my mom get off wellfare, I asked him to keep my brothers and sisters safe, then I asked him to watch over my father, I asked god to give him a good life, a good job, then I asked god to give him a nice wife.

When I was around 10 he tried calling me again, I didn't answer, but my mom did. When my mom got off the phone she told me that my dad got married. She also told me that he was starting his own business. I just sat there and nodded acting like I didn't care, but when my mom left me alone I found myself smiling. I started to wonder if god answered my prayers. I didn't sleep much that night, I just explored my mind. I started to wonder why God would exist in the first place.

I fell asleep before I could reach a conclusion, but when I woke up and I saw my Mom, I suddenly had a very comfortable feeling envelop my body. I will say again, I'm not religious, but at that very moment I felt like God was telling me to feel happy. I started too see her in a different way. She looked like she was glowing, she looked so happy.

I looked at her and in a split second, I started to see her soul. I didn't see an aura around her or anything like that. I just saw her smiling, and I felt what she was feeling. When I saw that smile I pretty much deleted my dad from my memory. I don't know if I saw her soul, but when I saw her smile I felt her soul.

That night I prayed to god for the last time. I was happy because I realized that if my dad was a better father, I never would have respected my Mother the way I do now.

I don't know if souls exist, but I don't think I could ever forgive my dad if I didn't have something in me

reply to post by sumperson

Thank you for sharing that story with us. You certainly knew trouble in your childhood, didn't you?

So did I. A troubled childhood followed by an extremely neurotic and frightened adolescence.

As soon as I left home those feelings began to disperse, but it was many years before I learnt the techniques and skills of self-control, self-confidence and the correct pursuit of happiness. I was very poor at them, a very slow learner. Still, I learnt them, while many, perhaps most people in my position never do.

Why is that? I think there are two reasons for it.

First, my teenage struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder helped teach me the trick of separating my rational side from my emotional one and taught me that happiness comes from following your head, not your heart. Notice that this is the exact opposite of the advice peddled by Hollywood and the self-help book industry. Yet in the day-to-day situations and conflicts of life, it is thought, not feeling, that shows us the right way forward.

Of course there are times when it is correct to follow you heart. These are usually the big, decisive moments in life, in which you put your future and your sense of self-worth on the line. In those situations you must first think your way clearly through the situation and the options available to you, but in the end you really have no alternative but to follow your heart -- open-eyed and in the full knowledge that doing so is inevitably going to cause a lot of damage, disruption and negative feeling to somebody -- most probably yourself.

There is a second reason I was able to learn and grow, I think, and it is simply this: I have no interest in being the same person I was yesterday, because I know that I cannot. I acknowledge change as the only constant and freely commit myself to being changed by life through the experiences it offers me. To embrace change is to put aside fear; and when you put aside fear, life opens up to you like a flower.

A word about your mother's soul, as you saw it. Given the situation and personal condition you described, I think it is fair to say that you needed to see something like that, something that would give you strength and courage -- so your brain made sure you saw it, and placed an appropriate if erroneous interpretation on what you saw.

But you're older now, and you no longer need the emergency emotional support you required at that moment in life. If you keep clinging to it with eyes tight shut you will certainly be unprepared to deal with the next crisis that springs up. At all events, such has been my personal experience: it helps to let things go, and never to believe too much in anything.

[edit on 14-3-2008 by Astyanax]

reply to post by Astyanax


Your not following me quite right, I didn't see my mothers "soul" floating around her. What I was trying to say was that at that moment I knew what she was feeling. I didn't so much as see her soul as I felt it.

Also, I would like to point out that I don't think of my childhood as tough, I had a roof, I had food, and I was loved. I've lived in horrible places, but we have it good here in america.

This thread isn't really going anywhere......

This thing called an ego is just a fairy tale. Culture is a fairy tale. The mind is a fairy tale.

Originally posted by dave420
reply to post by EyesWideShut

 

There's definitely no evidence to back up those claims... I'd like to know how you can say that with all certainty

I can't prove it to you Dave... It's something that hopefully you find out for yourself.