User

I really don't like using the term "soul" because it implies to the vast majority of people that I believe in immortality.

I actually don't understand the usage of that term among non-theists. Loosely, my soul is my "essence", what makes me "User" instead of "non-User" (or veteran User ). But the term traditionally implies immortality as well as belief in an afterlife. I know that some non-theist philosophers use it (like Epicurus), but it seems loaded to me.

calladus

I don't mind it. My friends know I'm Atheist, and that I have a blasphemous sense of humor. I tend to play with the word 'soul.'

"He has the soul of an Artist!" (And refuses to give it back to the original owner!!)

I'm always intentionally confusing soul with sole (fish, footwear, singular). Sometimes I confuse it with Seoul. (My wife is Korean.)

I've been known to say, "I feel it in my soul." I've also been known to say, "I feel it in my liver." So my friends are a little hyper-sensitive about the word now. (Mission accomplished!)

As for the general population, I still make blasphemous jokes, but I don't say 'em aloud.

orpheus last chant

Me neither. And don't get me started with "heart". I switched it to "spirit". Doesn't even involve the inefable, err... stuff that soul was suppose to be.

I always have a chuckle by asking people where their souls are... After a little narrowing down, one friend confessed to thinking it hovered above the head....now that was funny.

Godot

So what are we to call "soul music" then?

LittleGuy

My opinion is that souls don't exist, but whenever westerners go through some intense emotional experience- whether via art or music or some such- they can't find any other word that conveys the "out-of-this-world", transcending quality and so they use the next best thing, a vague term that's roughly associated with those adjectives.

Yea....

And souls are pretty cool in sci-fi and fantasy fiction(getting off topic here lol)

Godless Wonder

The other day and it occurred to me that if the soul is really just the mind, and the mind is really just the brain . . . Hmmmm. Well, now this talk about "cleansing the soul" begins to make some sense. Hee hee.

Queen of Swords

I've always wondered what a soul was.

Does it encompass personality or intellect? If so, isn't it changing through at least the first part of our lives? And doesn't that mean that a baby which dies ends up in heaven as something of a blank slate, sans thought or character?

That would mean, of course, that there are significant differences between the soul of a baby and the soul of a senior citizen - unless that senior citizen had severe Alzheimer's or some other form of mental degeneration. Hmm. Unless the soul doesn't change even under such conditions? How does god tell souls apart, anyway? Do they happen to look like the fleshly receptacle they once inhabited?

This all raises the questions of what the soul is, what it's composed of and where it comes from in the first place. Does god snap his fingers and will another soul into existence each time he sees that sperm and egg are about to meet? Or does a soul bud off from god like bacterial binary division or yeast reproduction? That would explain the immortality part of daughter souls - they share some characteristics with the parent soul.

Just some random ramblings.

calladus

Actually I prefer the term 'heart'. In fact, I prefer referring to internal organs instead of mystical, etherial things.

She has heart, he has guts, bone tired, his brain has turned to pudding. All of this could be stated by invoking a soul in one way or another. (I think) I just find it more fun to invoke an internal organ instead!

At least I can prove that I actually have that internal organ!

Don Alhambra

Think of it in analogy to a digital computer. Computers are composed of a series of electronic switches (the hardware) which can be either on or off. Similarly, our brains are made up of vast networks of neurons which discharge with different firing rates depending on the task at hand.

Now, a set of switches is no good by itself (although I'm certain some hardcore programmers would beg to differ). What's important is the patterns in which those switches can be manipulated. These are the algorithms or the software that runs on the computer. The algorithms that run on the hardware of our neurons are classed as the mind.

Where does the soul come in then? Personally I think it links in with the conscious self in that the soul is how the mind thinks about itself. Your soul, as I like to think about it, is your conscious self. It's the part of you that knows (or at least thinks) that it's you. Just as the mind is a description of the patterns in the brain, so the soul is a description of the patterns in the mind.

Amos

I think just opposite. Our soul is the part of us that we do not know and once we know who we truly are we will have no soul left.