(Five-minute read) 

In this post, it is not my intention to argue the merits and demerits of a soul it is to ask the question – What is a soul?

Here are theories from philosophy, religion, and science, and in many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions there is a belief in a soul as the incorporeal essence of a living being. 

The word was first attested in the 8th-century poem Beowulf.

Sometimes said to mean originally “coming from or belonging to the sea,” because that was supposed to be the stopping place of the soul before birth or after death [Barnhart]

Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal. Meaning “spirit of a deceased person.”

There is no scientific evidence that shows that living beings have souls or that a soul has weight. We can safely say that the soul has no weight since the soul does not fit into any coordinates of our world’s time, space, and motion.

Our self-esteem is a picture of the well-being of our soul, and our emotions will let us know what kind of shape we are in. They give voice to the exchange of everything that is taking place in our pure and real experience. We feel moved by them, we feel touched. Something has reached into us and touched us at the very deepest level of our being.

If our eyes are the windows of our soul, then our emotions are the voice of our soul. They connect us to the very core of how we feel about ourselves, about others, and about life itself.

Our emotions give us the navigational information that we need in order to make decisions. They are always live and online.

So is the Soul just our emotions?

Is the soul the source of consciousness and all emotions, the originator of all emotions but it is always the chooser of how to act on emotions?

The Soul speaks to us through our emotions.

That there is no evidence of a ‘soul’ That there is no real mechanism to support the ‘soul’. So there is no rational or scientific explanation for explaining a nonsense idea that doesn’t exist.

Deepak Chopra:  ” The soul is the core of your being. It is eternal. It doesn’t exist in space/time. It’s a field of infinite possibilities, infinite creativity. It’s your internal reference point with which you should always be in touch.”

A good answer that leaves us with a lot of questions. 

What is the Soul made of or what is the nature of the Soul?

Did Christ have a human soul, and if so where is it now?  

Is the soul a life force that animates all living organisms, and which is one with the body?

Is it something immortal that could outlive the body, and which inhabits the body until death?

Has it got a weight?  Souls are not found during an autopsy. No magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has spotted a soul or the aura energy of a soul. 

Are the soul and the body distinct from each other?

Does a fetus have no soul?  

Does every living thing have a soul? 

According to the scientific definition of life, bacteria, and

individual cells are “alive.” so do bacteria, phytoplankton, ants,

and worms have souls?

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Without Soul, there is neither existence nor life!

It has no form but has infinite energy and cannot be divided.  It is entirely whole and it cannot come and go. It is shapeless and does not exist prior to conception.

The idea that the soul is a non-material entity stuck in the material body still has a big influence on Christian thought. The soul departs the body, bound either for another life or for the afterlife.

The concept of soul is one of the many things that people use to convince themselves that humans are divine creatures unlike everything else (don’t tell them we share 99% DNA with chimps).

What is a soul to you?

Do you have your own definition?

Perhaps the soul could be best described as thought from our standpoint which includes all life.

On death, the Maori believe that the spirit travels to the Pohutukawa tree, which sits on the very tip of Cape Reinga, at the top of the North Island – as far as man may go in New Zealand. The spirit then slides down a root of the Pohutukawa, to the sea below. The spirit emerges onto Ohaua, which is the highest tip of the Three Kings Islands, for a final farewell before rejoining the ancestors. 

The Maori believe all living things have a type of soul – the wairua.

Robots are soulless, so they can never experience emotions.

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Finally, many bodily functions can keep going for weeks and months after they’re considered medically and legally dead.

If we are kept alive artificially or we are in a coma a “vegetative state” How long of a wait is sufficient for the soul to depart?  

For me Death is death.

Without an emotional language, our relationship with ourselves is fraught with difficulty. And yet most of us have never learned to listen to ourselves and rarely even think about our emotional health as an absolute priority….. until something goes wrong.

Can we say that, in addition to our body, there is something else that is not physical?

In the end, you cannot feel the soul present inside your being so ‘Be thyself.’

If you do so the soul will look after itself as there is nothing beyond the body which affects it.

That is the secret of Christ.

Let me know if there is something in the comments.