Do you believe your soul exists after death?

Question

For me, I am curious, why it is easier for some to believe that coffee is still coffee, even if it spills from the cup - than your soul still existing after it leaves your body.

I think this is why I am not an athiest. Unless I am wrong in thinking that athiests don't believe in life after death as well as not believing in God.

Do you believe that your soul goes somewhere? Even if not some sort of 'heaven'?

Oh, that's interesting JAT. Hmm. Maybe using the word soul is bad terminology. What I am talking about is my awareness, my conciousness, this "I" that is inside this body. This "ME" inside this body, that is aware that the "I" is seperate from my body. Do you feel that the awareness of yourself and of your existence is just the function of the brain? So when the brain dies, you die?

It's difficult for me. I am not my brain. I don't know if I can believe that. Lol* But it is extremely interesting to me that you do! Thanks for sharing that. :)

Answer 1

There was something in your question that made ME curious.
1 - I have the coffee cup in my hand - I am aware of the coffee
2 - I spill the coffee
3 - I assume (correctly) the coffee lands as coffee.
Fine:

Now, how do I make even that first step happen with "soul?" How do I become aware of this "soul?" What is this "soul?"

UPDATE: Yes, you have a point . In some ways it's pretty obvious that my brain is NOT my mind, or my consciousness "itself." (In fact, that issue itself is sometimes called the "hard question" of philosophy.) But I have this sneaky suspicion that whatever the mind, or self-consciousness, is, it's going to be hard put to stick around if a Mack truck runs over my head.

There was an old Spanish philosopher who addressed this issue by claiming we could never conceive of our non-existence. (Miguel De Unamuno "The Tragic Sense of Life")

Answer 2

Officially an Atheist is one who doesn't believe in a Deity. Meaning they could believe in life after death without ceasing being an atheist. Most atheists however don't. It's easier to believe that coffee is still coffee, because you can still lick it off the floor, and have it taste like coffee. If you try interacting with the soul of a dead person, It's generally not as obvious. Do I believe in life after death? No. By definition Death is the end of life. Do I believe in a soul? Thats harder. The soul is defined as that part of you seperate from your experience, The flicker of the divine in you. If the soul is in you before you exist, Then that means it is seperate from you and thus you are not your soul. The basic makeup of a human being is experience. Your personality is defined by your previous experiences. Which means either the soul is made up of previous experience, Or its pure and not what you would generally call "you" at all. If its made up of previous experience, Then its not eternal. Meaning it dies with you. Either way, YOU don't live forever, But your soul may. Considering the complete lack of evidence for a soul though, I'll go with theres no such thing. What we call the soul is merely the collected experience of your mind forming a consciousness.

Answer 3

I think of the body and soul sort of like this: The body is a lightbulb and the soul is the light shining within. When a light switch is flicked off the power juicing the light doesn't just stop being. It just gets re-directed. So, by the same account the soul doesn't just die inside our body, the spark that is our soul goes elsewhere (when our switch gets clicked or we bite the dust). It might be a matter of being more positive than negative in your life. That's the type of energy your soul will carry for the rest of time. That's my simple idea of heaven or hell. Feeling good happiness forever (heaven) or feeling bad sadness for all time (hell).

Answer 4

The body is temporary lasting for utmost 100 years and the spirit soul is eternal. The body is like a dress we wear and just like when the dress is old and torn we discard the old dress and wear a new dress, we change new body (birth) when the old body is terminates (death).

Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change. Bhagavad-gita-2.12 & 13

Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both. That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul. Bhagavad-gita-2.16 & 17

Some excer[ts from the purport by, A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of ISKCON
(International Society for Krishna Consciousness)

There is no endurance of the changing body. That the body is changing every moment by the actions and reactions of the different cells is admitted by modern medical science; and thus growth and old age are taking place in the body. But the spirit soul exists permanently, remaining the same despite all changes of the body and the mind. That is the difference between matter and spirit. By nature, the body is ever changing, and the soul is eternal.


Lord Krishna gives further information in chapter two, verses 22 to 25, "As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones. The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind. This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same. It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable and immutable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body."

Answer 5

If you have a god, the soul joins a cosmic consciousness. Otherwise, the soul transfers to those who were part of the life of the dead person in the form of memories. In turn those memories transfer to the next generation after their death, in a dissipated form. The soul of the dead person has become part of the persona of future people, (multiple reincarnation).

Answer 6

yes, as much contempt I hold for about 90percent of organized religons, I have always, since I was little (with no or little religious interfernce or influence) believed there was something more. Not per say a heaven, but I believe I have a soul. I know I have nothing to back this I know it will easily be dismissed by more rational ideas and I accept it.

Answer 7

Yes soul exists after death and rebirth is true. Else, why a baby borns in a affluent house and another in a penury ridden
house? Because your birth depends on the good and bad deeds of this birth.

Answer 8

Death is only for the body. Soul has no birth or death. We can compare this with an example. There are so many mud pots. Inside the mud pot also the ether or sky is existing. If the pot is broken, the sky inside is one with the sky outside. Only the seeming obstruction, i.e., mud pot is broken. Likewise with the death of body, the soul inside the body as it seems, merges with the soul outside. nagarajan.

Answer 9

the question is tooooooo hypothetical. Of course a soul, if it exists, exists after death - the definition of soul is the spirit part of us all that survives bodily death. But does it exist? Where is it? Can you make it sing or dance or do magic tricks? I want to believe it exists but one thing I'm absolutely certain of: whether i believe in it or not, acknowledge it or not, it exists or does not. My belief adds nor subtracts nothing from my soul.

Answer 10

Yes. I believe our souls go somewhere.
A doctor told me once that he believe humans had souls, because when people die they lose 6.something (i don't remember) pounds, and no one has ever been able to explain why.
Of Course I thought "well, the heart stops beating, brain activity..all that" and I was told otherwise, all that has been accounted for.

Where it goes...I believe Heaven...I believe in God
But we may all interpret that as whatever we choose.