when people talk about the soul. what they on bout..?

Question

i thought it was my brain doing them things.. how dumb am i. it was my soul. my soul.. my what..

Answer 1

The seat of your feelings -

Answer 2

Don't think about it too much or it'll evaporate in a puff of reason!

Oh all right then, let's think about what a 'soul' *could* be. If it's postulated that consciousness, or awareness, or sense of self resides in the soul, it's difficult to see how this can be reconciled with the complete oblivion which accompanies general anaesthesia. How could a straightforward chemical, injected into the bloodstream, anaesthetise a soul so that it effectively ceases to exist during this time? If consciousness, in the form of a soul, were some kind of supernatural faculty, it would seem implausible that it could be completely disabled by a chemical.

How about some of the other things which we regard as essential parts of what makes a person what they are? How about love, compassion, reason, empathy, memory, conscious thought, character, 'spirituality' and so on? Well, there is really no plausible doubt that all these things are properties of the physical brain - We can alter all of these properties very simply with alcohol or other drugs, and observe how they change in people who have suffered significant brain damage. Previously placid people become uncontrollably violent, intelligent people become imbeciles, and so on. Stimulate the brain artificially, and the subject reports corresponding mental activity, e.g. 'religious experiences'. We can see from brain research that all these things - thought, emotion, sensation, character traits and so on - are correlated with activity in the brain, and some things can be identified with specific areas of the brain.

So, if all these faculties and characteristics of what we regard as the 'person' reside in the physical brain, as seems to be undeniably the case, and they all cease when the person dies, then what is left to be attributed to a 'soul'? As far as I can ascertain: Nothing. If there is no part of us that can continue after death, then there is no 'afterlife'... and if there is no afterlife, then most of religion is null and void.

Answer 3

God created man from the elements of the Earth, then he breathed life into him and man became a living soul. A soul is a spirit/body unity. The body is like a radio and the spirit is like the battery. The Bible says when a person dies, the spirit returns to God who gave it. The spirit is not a consciousness but a life force. The consciousness is in the unity of the spirit with the body. After death, from our perspective, it will be as though we are asleep. We will not experience consciousness again until the resurrection. Because we won't be aware of the passage of time, it will seem to us to take place immediately. We will be raised bodily from the grave. Those who are raised unto salvation will receive new bodies - like Adam and Eve had, strong, healthy, beautiful, free from the disease and corruption that disobedience brought into the world.

Answer 4

It's the product of body and spirit but not permanent. The body goes so would be the soul. With few exceptions where the fusion of the body and spirit automatically creates soul, believe me or not, Jesus has no soul. Even the Bible does not speak Jesus as having soul. He is all-spirit in that body. Having said that I would get one step higher by defining soul as ego. Soul is a product of the spirit in that body who ignorantly behave like he/she is the body instead of spirit. This erroneous assumption that he/she is the body leads to many complications and errors( Christians call it sin) through out life. The more errors the stronger the ego. But as one gets matured and realized some of the errors, intensity of the ego eventually subsides. You see why most old folks are kind, considerate, and loving? Life thought them valuable lessons. Perhaps few of them realized their ignorance and tried to change that by living in spirit rather than soul or ego.

Answer 5

the ethereal part of a human being having within it intellect, will and emotions.

intellect: the ability to ponder, imagine, formulate, analyze info, make decisions based on logic, understand and remember

will: morality; a conscience, the ability to choose between right and wrong

emotions: feelings (happy, sad, abandoned...), preferences based on sensations

*note, the soul is not contained within the mind, the mind is contained within the soul. the brain is only the body's link to the soul, and the soul is linked to the spirit.

*the spirit is an ethereal part different from the soul that can communicate with other spirits or access the spiritual realm

Answer 6

I believe when folks talk about a soul it's the thing that makes each person unique, what drives us. It also becomes the question, is this it? The belief in a soul makes life easier for many because you'll just keep going, be it in heaven or in reincarnation.

Answer 7

You Soul is you. It is what make you a living creature.

Animals are also referred to as souls in the Bible as well.

In this regard, human death does not differ from that of the animals. They too are souls, and the same spirit, or life force, energizes them. (Genesis 1:24) At Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20, the wise man Solomon tells us: “As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit, so that [in death] there is no superiority of the man over the beast . . . They have all come to be from the dust, and they are all returning to the dust.”

Some persons have said that what makes man different from the animals is that man has a soul but the animals do not. However, Genesis 1:20 and 30 says that God created “living souls” to live in the waters, and that the animals have “life as a soul.” In these verses some Bibles use the words “creature” and “life” instead of “soul,” but their marginal readings agree that the word “soul” is what appears in the original language. Among the Bible references to animals as souls is Numbers 31:28. There it speaks of “one soul out of five hundred, of humankind and of the herd and of the asses and of the flock.”

“There is no dichotomy [division] of body and soul in the O[ld] T[estament]. The Israelite saw things concretely, in their totality, and thus he considered men as persons and not as composites. The term nepeÅ¡ [ne′phesh], though translated by our word soul, never means soul as distinct from the body or the individual person. . . . The term [psy·khe′] is the N[ew] T[estament] word corresponding with nepeÅ¡. It can mean the principle of life, life itself, or the living being.”—New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), Vol. XIII, pp. 449, 450.

“The Hebrew term for ‘soul’ (nefesh, that which breathes) was used by Moses . . . , signifying an ‘animated being’ and applicable equally to nonhuman beings. . . . New Testament usage of psychē (‘soul’) was comparable to nefesh.”—The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1976), Macropædia, Vol. 15, p. 152.

“The belief that the soul continues its existence after the dissolution of the body is a matter of philosophical or theological speculation rather than of simple faith, and is accordingly nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture.”—The Jewish Encyclopedia (1910), Vol. VI, p. 564.

Can the human soul die?

Ezek. 18:4: “Look! All the souls—to me they belong. As the soul of the father so likewise the soul of the son—to me they belong. The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*Hebrew reads “the ne′phesh.” KJ, AS, RS, NE, and Dy render it “the soul.” Some translations say “the man” or “the person.”)

Matt. 10:28: “Do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul [or, “life”]; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul* and body in Gehenna.” (*Greek has the accusative case of psy·khe′. KJ, AS, RS, NE, TEV, Dy, JB, and NAB all render it “soul.”)

Acts 3:23: “Indeed, any soul [Greek, psy·khe′] that does not listen to that Prophet will be completely destroyed from among the people.”

Good information about a very confusing subject here....
or is it confusing after all?

Depends on who you ask doesn't it?

Answer 8

Hahaha, they on bout' the Second Mind of a Human Being.
A Spiritual SuperComputer that almost has a Life of it's own.
It does things at Your Direction, add, subtract, remember Things, so on.
The world (Doc.'s , Psyciatrist etc.) call it the Sub-Concious and the Consious.
I call it the Soul and the Spiritman.

Spiritman- First Mind,YOU (your invisible inside your Body)
The world call's you the Concious.

Soul- Second Mind, YOUR SUPERCOMPUTER (your invisible Spiritual Computer)
The world call's this your Subconcious.

Ditto.................

Answer 9

In the Bible, the soul is the mind body and emotions. Basically the essence of our humanity.

Sometimes the word soul is interchanged with the spirit. That part of us is the part that is eternal, the essence of who we are. The spirit is the part of us that connects with God and the part that will go on into heaven or hell after we die in our earthly body.

Answer 10

I doubted the existence of the soul until I experienced it directly.

Answer 11

Soul is your inner being...basically what makes you...YOU.

In a spiritual context it is beleived by some that your soul is the part of you that stays alive and is freed from your body.

(ex. "May God have mercy on your soul.")

In a musical context it is your deepest emmotion brought out through singing, playing an instrument, dancing...etc.

(ex. "Listening to her sing brought me goose bumps. She's got so much soul.")

Hope this helps.