why do we have emotions? is it because we have souls? do we even have souls? if we do where are they?

Answer 1

We have emotions so our reasoning may have motion, expression, passion, etc. etc. If we were beings with reason alone we would know the truth, but not have the passion to pursue the good within the truth known. It indiactes that we have souls. However, it is not the primary reason why we know we have souls. It is because we have life, Intellect, and freewill that we know we have souls.
Yes, we do have souls. The soul is the principle of life for human beings. One may agrue that the heart is the principle of life or the brain. However, these are "A" principle of life but not "THE" principle of life.
If the heart or brain was the principle of life, then when removed the body dies and the heart or brain should still be living. But we have seen them in specimen jars in biology and no life is noted in them when removed from the human body. So, they cannot be the principle of life in a human being. There is something deeper within the physical that even gives the physical life and that is the soul.
However, let us not get confused here. The soul is not a ghost floating in our bodies. It is in union with our bodies. We are corporeal spirits, if you want to use a word for it. This is not to say that once an arm is amputated that part of the soul is amputated as well. That is nonsense. It would be better to say the soul, in union with the body, is the "whole person" that exists. So if one were genetically deprived of an arm or leg, the person has a whole soul still and not a quarter of a soul. This is because the soul is a quality in a person and not a quantity in a person.
May the Lord bless and keep you. May He let the light of His face shine upon you.
God's and your beast of burden
Fr. john

Answer 2

Naruto the idea of the "soul" or "spirit" is perhaps the stickies subject known to man. It is still something that has biologists baffled.

If you were to take a human apart atom by atom and put those atoms in a pile on the ground... we would consider that pile inanimate or "not alive". But yet for some reason when we are born and those atoms are put together to make a human the result is US, and this strange "conscience" that we have. It is something that I'm sure will remain unexplained for decades to come.

How do we know we have a soul? Well the best answer most of us can put is "I have a soul, I can think and feel, etc" but it's impossible at this point to take any measurements concerning the soul, etc.

If we really do have some sort of "soul" then it's reasonable to assume that other living organisms also have souls (perhaps with different levels of consciousness)... but then at what point does an organism no longer have a soul? Do plants have a soul?

What's funny is that people really think they are a lot more in control of their body than they really are. There are so many mechanisms and things that we do and we don't even think about. Exactly how much control do we have over our body?

"Do we even have souls? If we do where are they?" This is one of the greatest mysteries of life and no one will be able to completely answer you. I hope that before I die that science will be able to shed more light on the subject as so much in this field is unexplained and possibly unexplainable.

Cut off our leg and we're still conscious. Stab us and we're still conscious (assuming we're still alive) heck you can even cut out parts of the brain and we are still conscious. The best explanation I could give is that our soul or conscience is made up of all the cells in our body and the communication between these cells.

If you think you have 100% control over your emotions consider one thing... HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CHOICE WHEN IT COMES TO WHO YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? In all honesty... no we don't have a choice.

Great question but no "satisfactory" answer unfortunately.

Answer 3

Emotions are a sophisticated way to handle instincts.

Fear - keeps us from doing dangerous things. Our society has become so complex that we have fears about a lot of things that really don't make sense. It also is a response to perceived danger, giving us that extra "let's get the hell out of here" burst of adrenaline.

Anger - another response to a threat. It is our body gearing up for combat. Great if you are trying to someone from taking your food, but really silly if you get PO'd when someone cuts you off, or if someone questions your religious beliefs on an Internet Q&A site.

Love - the long term responce to the good old mating urge. Love (deep emotional attachment) means we are more likely to stick around to help raise chidlren. Great for family, not so great if you "love" a sports team to the point where you do stupid things and then end up trying to explain to people exactly why you are in jail for punching out a fan from the other team.

Emotions are there to help us survive as a cooperative group, if they are not allowed to make us stop thinking. We are three things - Body (kinda need that to hold the other two parts), mind/intelect (gives us the intellignece to figure out how to keep the body going and make thigns better for the little bodies we hope to make), and emotion/soul (gives us a drive to live together so we don't have to fight off wild animals to survive and desire to make more of us so we can live longer through cooperative effort).

Everything else we do is icing on the cake, or eggshells in the mix, depending on what it is and your point of view.

Answer 4

We are more fun to watch with emotions. If we didn't have these emotions then we would all be boring and too much alike. I like being just me and no one else.
I don't know about the souls part, I would like to thing that the "thing" that makes me me could be called a soul. I think that is the definition of a soul, the thing that makes you you and me me.

Answer 5

I feel that our souls control our emotions using the brain... which is why we can see the brain changing chemically with emotions... but it all happens to be controlled by the soul... why else would something like singing a song about god bring people to tears? It's not just a chemical thing, it's something that comes from deep within, a connection to God. Where is our soul... well, if you hold your hand up against a dark background, you can kinda see this weird aura around it... like slightly blurred line all around the body... haha... maybe that's it? Or maybe it's not visible to the human eye. Who knows?

Answer 6

If you are really interested in the answer to this question and not just babbling on about spiritual tripe, go to bfskinner.org and download "The Analysis of Behavior". This program will explain in great detail why we have emotions, under what conditions, how to create emotional states and how to treat them. This is a serious text that describes things in precise scientific terms backed by research that you can repeat and test. It is not child's play. It is not dogma. It is a scientific explication of data collected and analyzed.
After reading this program, you will feel that your brain has more power and you will have greater control over your life and the lives of others.

Answer 7

"Soul" is just a word used to save bad arguments. It doesn't explain anything, and "souls" do not exist.

We have emotions largely because our bodies have natural physiological responses to various situations, and we need to be able to respond to those responses (and therefore to those situations). There's a lot of interesting research on this (see sources).

Answer 8

1. Because God created us with emotions to allow us to understand him.
2. Yes.
3. Yes (this questions is just like ur second question btw)
4. Inside our bodies and they will leave our bodies when we die.

Think of flesh as clothing.

Answer 9

We have emotions because we have brains. The brain is solely responsible for anything concerning emotions.

Answer 10

psycologists say that emotions come from chemical reactions in the brain (hormons, like serotonine (depression), adrenaline) something (or someone) you like or dislike could make you produce those hormones that could control the rest of your body depending on the feeling...