Can someone please please provide an accurate and detailed description of what a soul is?

Question

It seems that the keystone of religion is the concept of the soul or spirit. Most religions have it and it seems to be a central aspect of the human experience. What is it, how can we define it, how can we "see" it, can we measure it, can we feel it (obviously), can we have religion without it, can we have athiesm with it?

Answer 1

The soul, according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is a self-aware ethereal substance particular to a unique living being. In these traditions the soul is thought to incorporate the inner essence of each living being, and to be the true basis for sentience. In distinction to spirit which may or may not be eternal, souls are usually (but not always as explained below) considered to be immortal and to pre-exist their incarnation in flesh.

The concept of the soul has strong links with notions of an afterlife, but opinions may vary wildly, even within a given religion, as to what may happen to the soul after the death of the body. Many within these religions and philosophies see the soul as immaterial, while others consider it to possibly have a material component, and some have even tried to establish the mass (weight) of the soul.


Most Christians regard the soul as the immortal essence of a human - the seat or locus of human will, understanding, and personality - and that after death, God either rewards or punishes the soul. Different Christian groups dispute whether this reward/punishment depends upon doing good deeds, or merely upon believing in God and in Jesus.

The Ancient Greeks used the same word for 'alive' as for 'ensouled'. So the earliest surviving Western philosophical view might suggest that the terms soul and aliveness, were synonymous - perhaps not that having life, universally presupposed the possession of a soul as in Buddhism, but that full "aliveness" and the soul were conceptually linked.

Answer 2

Think of a human as having three layers. The core is the spirit. The middle layer is the soul. The soul is made up of the mind, the will, the intellect, and the emotions. The outer layer is the body. The body is earthly and does not live forever. The soul and the spirit never die. They live on after death

Answer 3

The soul is that which a person ultimately is. I am a soul and I have a body, brain, and mind. My body is just a slowly rotting meat bag with good looks and poor eyesight it's not what I am. My mind is just a collection of my thoughts and my thinking process. My brain is just a chunk of flesh that electrical impulses representing my thoughts, sensory input, and my physical actions. When death and decay takes away my body, brain, and ability for thought to take place in my brain I will still exist as an immortal soul. There is no way to see it or measure it. Atheists don't believe in the existence of souls. They believe that we are just bodies, brains, and thoughts and there is nothing more to our existence. The soul is a vital part of all religions.

Answer 4

The soul according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is the ethereal substance — spirit (Hebrew:rooah or nefesh) — particular to a unique living being. Such traditions often consider the soul both immortal and innately aware of its immortal nature, as well as the true basis for sentience in each living being.

You can have religion without it.

You can have atheism with it.

Answer 5

The concept of a immortal soul that leaves the body upon death is not a Bible teaching.It actually comes from ancient Greek philosophy,actually pagan religious thought.
The original language terms (Heb.,ne'phesh;Gr.,psykhe')as used in the Scriptures show "soul" to be a person,an animal or the life a person or animal enjoys.In other words,we ARE a soul,NOT we have a soul.

Answer 6

First of all, you do not have and immortal soul, if you did, then why had no one gone to Heaven before Jesus came to the Earth, 4000 years had came & gone since Adam & Eve, millions of people had died, what did Jesus say to a man of the Pharisees, Nic·o·de'mus was his name, a ruler of the Jews.

John 3:13
Moreover, no man has ascended into heaven but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man.

What is a Soul?
Right in the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, we are told that the soul is not something you have, it is something you are. We read of the creation of Adam, the first human being: “The man came to be a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) The Hebrew word used here for soul, ne'phesh, occurs well over 700 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, never once conveying the idea of a separate, ethereal, spiritual part of man. On the contrary, the soul is tangible, concrete, physical.

Look up the following cited texts in your own copy of the Bible, for the Hebrew word ne'phesh is found in each of them. They clearly show that the soul can face risk, danger, and even be kidnapped (Deuteronomy 24:7; Judges 9:17; 1 Samuel 19:11); touch things (Job 6:7); be locked up in irons (Psalm 105:18); crave to eat, be afflicted by fasting, and faint from hunger and thirst; and suffer from a wasting disease or even insomnia as a result of grief. (Deuteronomy 12:20; Psalm 35:13; 69:10;) In other words, because your soul is you, your very self, your soul can experience anything you can experience.

Does that mean, then, that the soul can actually die? Yes. Far from being immortal, human souls are spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures as being “cut off,” or executed, for wrongdoing, being struck fatally, murdered, destroyed, and torn to pieces. (Exodus 31:14; Deuteronomy 19:6; 22:26; Psalm 7:2) “The soul that is sinning, it itself will die,” says Ezekiel 18:4. Clearly, death is the common end of human souls, since all of us sin. (Psalm 51:5) The first man, Adam, was told that the penalty for sin was death, not transfer to the spirit realm and immortality. (Genesis 2:17) And when he sinned, the sentence was pronounced: “For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19) When Adam and Eve died, they simply became what the Bible often refers to as ‘dead souls’ or ‘deceased souls.’

Answer 7

The soul is the consciousness within each of us. A unit of awareness. Soul and spirit are one. The soul is eternal.

Asking to see it, it feel it, measure it is the same as asking to see or feel or measure a thought.

Answer 8

The Pastor I study with says that the soul is the intellect of your spirit. I believe that your spirit is not some intangible, abstract thing, but that it is a truer you, that is not on the material plane. I do think you can feel your soul by feeling emotions.

Answer 9

My religion, Hinduism, says that souls finally reach god. Soul is the life without which one is dead.
So, all living have souls.
I am sorry, if we could see it, there would not have been so much discussion.
You can go with buddism, if you want to be atheist and believer in soul.
And dont worry much about being atheist, (if you are worrying being atheist), its is also path to god. Its not your fault if god does not make sense to you.

Answer 10

The soul is the seat of emotion. Plants have bodies, no soul, no spirit. Animals have souls, and bodies, no spirit(s).
Man is a spirit within a body and soul.
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