A question about the Christian Belief in a Soul?

Question

Like I said in the heading this question is solely about the belief in a soul, I'm not attacking your God.

Anyway, why do you believe in a soul? What is it about humans that lends evidence to us having a soul?
Also, why do you believe animals don't have souls? Is it because animals are not sentient like humans? Well, there is evidence that dolphins, elephants and gorillas have a conciousness and may be sentient. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_cognition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_intelligence
Why do they not have a soul? Why are they not accountable to God?

Wow! I can't believe adults take these fairytales so seriously. I think Christians need to wake up and smell the delusion.

Answer 1

Let them create their own God, if they're so smart!

Answer 2

God made man in Gods Image. Man is a trinity too. Body, soul & spirit. At the fall of mankind, the spirit died (denied the tree of life). Then within 1000 years the body died. Then the soul went somewhere where God put the soul. The wages of sin is death. With rebellion against God comes spiritual death. We are walking dead (spiritually) in our tresspasses & sins. Then we die physically & our soul goes where God puts our soul. Jesus said that to see the Kingdom of God you must be born again, born of His Spirit. So this is being whole again; body, soul & spirit. (Body is still corruptible until resurrection day complete). Personally I believe animals have a spirit or a soul. But not both. Because they aren't made in the image of God.

Answer 3

God made man in Gods Image.

Man is a trinity too. Body, soul & spirit.

At the fall of mankind, the spirit died (denied the tree of life).

Then within 1000 years the body died.

Then the soul went somewhere where God put the soul.

The wages of sin is death. With rebellion against God comes spiritual death. We are walking dead (spiritually) in our tresspasses & sins. Then we die physically & our soul goes where God puts our soul.

Jesus said that to see the Kingdom of God you must be born again, born of His Spirit.
So this is being whole again; body, soul & spirit. (Body is still corruptible until resurrection day complete).


Personally I believe animals have a spirit or a soul. But not both. Because they aren't made in the image of God.

Answer 4

We don't have soul, we are souls. The hebrew word nephesh which is normally translated as soul is applied to animals also, basically a bad translation.

Should be living being or living creature.

We do have a spirit (breath) which animals don't have because we are created in his image.

Job 32:8
But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.

Answer 5

You are mistaking "soul" for "spirit".

Plants, animals and humans have "body".
Animals and humans have a "soul".
Only humans have a "spirit".

The body is the physical - no big secrets here.
The soul is where the personality, will, emotions, intellect reside - yes, your dog really loves you, and your goldfish can learn. (mine does)
The spirit (for lack of a better way to put it) is made up of the same kind of material as God is. It is an eternal thing and it's where our souls will reside forever. Right now, our souls reside in our physical bodies.

In English speaking churches, I see so much of a confusion between the soul and spirit - not so much in Spanish speaking churches - dunno why.

Answer 6

They don't sin, they didn't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and we are the ones made in God's image.
If you don't believe in a soul, then what other explanation is there for mediums being able to talk to people about a loved one that they never knew existed until that time

Answer 7

Yes, I do believe in souls because we are souls, animals are also a souls. In the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, we learn the accurate meaning of "soul." Regarding the creation of the first man, Adam, the Bible says: "Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul." (Genesis 2:7) Clearly, the soul is not what a man has but what he is. It occurs some 700 times in the Bible, and it never refers to a separate and ethereal part of a human but always to something tangible and physical.—Job 6:7; Psalm 35:13; 107:9; 119:28.

What happens to the soul at death? Consider what happened to Adam at his death. When he sinned, God told him: "You [will] return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19) Think of what that means. Before God created him from the dust, Adam did not exist. After his death, Adam returned to the same state of nonexistence.

Simply stated, the Bible teaches that death is the opposite of life. At Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10, we read: "The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten. All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol, the place to which you are going." ( Sheol means a memorial tomb)

This means that the dead are unable to do or feel anything. They no longer have any thoughts, nor do they remember anything. The psalmist states: "Do not put your trust in nobles, nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs. His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish."—Psalm 146:3, 4.

The Bible clearly shows that at death the soul does not move on to another body, but it dies. "The soul that is sinning—it itself will die," the Bible emphatically states. (Ezekiel 18:4, 20; Acts 3:23; Revelation 16:3) Thus, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul—the very foundation of the theory of reincarnation—does not find any support in the Scriptures. Without it, the theory collapses.

Answer 8

He is not "our" God. He does not belong to us. He cannot be owned.
All creation belongs to Him.

I am not knowledgeable enough to answer your question about the soul, and plenty of other posters have given excellent answers.

But I do know this from the Bible about God and animals:
"Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God." Luke 12:6, NIV

Answer 9

You now talk, walk, feel, and do whatever you do. After you die, the corpse is there, but there’s no life. Why? Because the soul that used to occupy that body no longer lives there. Hence the proof of the existence of a soul.

Answer 10

Adam BECAME a living soul! ,,It doesn't read that one was put in him. Best you study up on, BREATH??? Eccl.3: 21 has your answer. Attack our God? Dude,,,thats like a snowball attacking a Lava flow. :-) :-) :-) You didn't know the old KJV used 'soul' in that very passage.? You go ask God! Yeah, go ask Him!

Answer 11

All life has a soul