Are we purely material beings or do we have souls?

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Can it be maintained that we are both material beings and that we are stakeholders in a communal "soul"?

Firstly the use of the word "material" needs to be defined and I am very unclear as to how that can be done.

As the the second part of this I would suggest that the individual may be defined by its place within its social and material (

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) environment and so its sense of who it is is not a distinct thing but works in some kind of am osmotic way.

The idea of separate individual souls packaged up for some kind of holiday destination seems suited to an earlier understanding which it is very hard to fathom in retrospect .

My attempt at replacing that understanding does however fall down in the face of the clear realization that we will never know what actually happens subjectively to the sentient individual when that individual's life functions cease.

So everything is just an attempt to rationalize something that can't ever be understood.

 

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NO

Anything which can be detected and has properties

Not sure what this is BUT at a stab some sort of nature feel good feeling which seeps into the body

Soul is a made up concept so religion can claim that while the body rots in the grave the soul has gathered up the essence of you to cart off to heaven

As per above they rot in the grave sans any subjectivity

What's to rationalise?

Born

Live

Die


Not complicated

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Then had to copy paste backup copy

 

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Well, at least you're not insulted by the idea of being soulless.

 

Or unicornless

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Before we attempt to understand or rationalise perhaps you could demonstrate the soul, do you have one in a jar? Have you seen one? All I suggest is before you let fantasy overtake you let us start to work with what you know rather than waffle and waste our time.

Cards on the table please what real information do you have on a soul that is more than unsupported fairey tale?

I have found that when you try and nail down the soul it is just a word that describes nothing that exists in reality so if you can take us past that I would be grateful to read something from you that indicates a soul is more than pixie dust..or perhaps bull dust.
Alex

 

I think I was trying to find a meaning for the word "soul" that corresponded to something useful and was not distinct (not one for everyone in the audience)

My premise was that "soul" as currently and historically used was like a broken sign pointing to a town that did not exist


Can the idea of "soul" have any real application?I don't know ,but I am fairly sure people will continue to debate this down the years and probably with no real success

It is a good debating point though.

I don't ,as you ask intend to start with what I know because ,here I assess the sum of what I know to be zero or less.

I won't waffle though,I don't have the energy

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Rereading your post though I must admit that ,as a Catholic child I did make physical space in my bed for my "guardian angel" so I did try to convince myself of pixie dust then.

 

Transmigration of the soul
hmm.......................
would have the body as a host for the soul
much like a body as a host for a symbiote(in a science fiction series)?

one wonders if the body soul relationship is symbiotic, is it equally beneficial for both?

 

It's a great line, in that it communicates both your faculty and priority.

 

Why the need to indulge unsupported fantasy?

Why not call it for what it is..bullshit...no need for more than that.

No not at all.

You have the facts and you still don't know..you are not trying then..

Like who ..a rat bag minority of a country who's population is only four and one half percent of the world's population...the declining number of cultists world wide..face it the concept is on the way out and with good reason...people are leaving the churches and rejecting the fairey tales and it's speeding up.

Sure next debate can be are unicorn horns made of gold or silver.

Is that your excuse to just make shit up?

But yet you do.

OK damaged goods. Any chance of a recovery?

Anyways you don't have to worry about your non existent soul burning in a non existent hell...just worry if they are still hitting you up for cash.

Alex

 

From post 5

Soul is a made up concept so religion can claim thatwhile the body rots in the grave the soul has gathered up the essence of you to cart off to heaven

Might be if you have religious person and start quizzing them about souls

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Sure I make shit up but I will reassess my actions if I feel there are any adverse consequences to my imaginings.

I don't have much of a trying ethic. I have always waited for things to fall into place. (as I suggest above, I try to see this as a mind game than anything that consequential )

Naturally averse to confrontation

That would please me ,but then again what does my opinion matter,..not sure why you want to characterize whole segments of the population as belonging to a "rat-bag minority"..seems offensive






)

 

Nah, but certainly insulted by those who would say I don't have one.

 

Where is the soul located in the body?

 

It might be anywhere in the body that maintained a connection to its environment (so everywhere,including phantom limbs)

If I am still allowed to make shit up

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That's fair, but it begs the question of how the soul ( if considered an invisible, undetectable supernatural entity) can connect to the physical environment in that if it can should then be considered something physical or if it isn't physical, how it manages to connect to it's environment and still remain invisible and undetectable.

 

I am leaning to it being purely physical (which is why ,when we die and weigh the remains noone can find any extraneous weight-the "soul" dies along with the body)**.

In the same way that a word is physical (can be derived from its "first" gutteral expression and movement of molecules in caveman times ) but its meaning is metaphysical .

So the physical and the metaphysical are like conjoined twins.

The connection between the physical body and what is might consider its wider expression is what might be erroneously called a "soul"

**actually in relativity ,our "weight" also includes our relative movement ,so perhaps we do weigh less when dead? (we would curve spacetime less if we didn't move)

 

What you're saying then is that something that is physical cannot be detected? I don't think that would fly with most of science.

 

Well yes it can be detected because it is the whole physical body which has metaphysical properties.(I feel like a fish on a line,I realize that this is probably nonsense but I have to try and follow the "logic" of my half assertions)

The physical body can be detected ,and so can its thoughts but I wonder whether the connection of all that with the environment has some kind of related(metaphysical?) existence.

I know the Gaia theory has no takers ,but it is along those lines,perhaps with the world extending everywhere.

 

It's nice that you make the acknowledgement that you may make shit up and very nice that you will reassess your actions if you feel there are any adverse consequences to your imaginings for it is my witnessing of imaginings that finds me somewhat wound up over the last couple of days and I point to the Easter religious gatherings wherein participants arrogantly thumb their noses at calls for avoiding groups to help prevent spread of the virus.

Me neither...I commit to doing also...so good for you.

Refreshing to find we hold such in common.

Well I certainly did not intend to be offensive I think you are being over sensitive. Offensive would have me saying they were in the majority.

Enjoy your Easter holidays and let me say it has been an absolute pleasure chatting we must do it again sometime soon.
Alex