Why the soul?

[flipdeadshot22]

Beyond faith and religion, why do some people still insist that there exists a soul? Why can't we be comprised of only matter, but matter so intricately woven that we are still too technologically infantile to understand the pattern in its weaving? I mean, if DNA, the human retina, the cerebral cortex, Dr. Penfield's experiments, the nervous system, a cell's physiology and an MRI's or ECGs outputs can be affected by thought alone, what room is there for some mystical non-material soul? Why do some people require it in their world view at all? Is it simply a concept spewed out by the ego to allow a human to personify himself as something more than matter, as something more than the mundane 9-to-5er that most of us are?

To me, the more I learn about the Universe, the more wonderous everyday life becomes... I think the words 'soul' and 'spirit' are tags that we stick onto physical systems of such grandiose complexity that we seek to cover them up with simple all encompassing words to either mask our own ignorance, or to brush aside the fact that we can erode our ignorance through study and determination in seeking the truth.

[ChrisV]

The number of atheists who believe in a soul is pretty small. It's basically limited to New-Age hippy types.

[DougShrapnel]

3 reasons that I can think of, off the top of my head. It's usefull. Meaning that the term describes your attitude toward living. Councoiusness has not been fully explained. And finaly the term is pervasive.

[FortunaMaximus]

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Why do some people require it in their world view at all? Is it simply a concept spewed out by the ego to allow a human to personify himself as something more than matter, as something more than the mundane 9-to-5er that most of us are?

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I tend to think it's an irrational crutch to help the majority of people cope with their own mortality.

Ego, indeed. "I'm never gonna die, so I must have a soul. And the soul can't perish, so I'm gonna exist forever."

And people seem to fight this concept nearly their entire lives. I guess it's a matter of finding oblivion abhorrent. People would rather exist than not, and they cannot draw comfort from the logical concept that if you no longer exist, it wouldn't matter.

Continuity seems to be a valued human trait. I'm sure there's an inherent danger in the fact that if the majority of people didn't have this to hold onto, the species would go into a stall and downslide. "What's the point?"

Strange, isn't it. Evolution seems to fight this on its own by mandating that people reproduce and survive. This drive should be significant evidence for the fact that there is no such thing as a eternal Paradise yet.

Reproduce and spread like fungi, maybe our descendants will develop the technological sophistication to build a permanent Paradise and the ability to reach backwards across time and pluck the dead and bring 'em forward.

(Although that's my personal hope. That we would in later time, be able to do this ourselves without exterior help. It'd be more of an achievement than blindly wagering on an already-existent God.)

[MidGe]

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I tend to think it's an irrational crutch to help the majority of people cope with their own mortality.

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Indeed it is to be in denial. The strangest thing is that I find mortality a rather liberating fact and one that does give a semblance of meaning to an otherwise absurd and unsatisfactory phenomena. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[flipdeadshot22]

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3 reasons that I can think of, off the top of my head. It's usefull. Meaning that the term describes your attitude toward living. Councoiusness has not been fully explained. And finaly the term is pervasive.

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"It's usefull. Meaning that the term describes your attitude toward living."

I don't fully understand what this is supposed to mean; how do you equate the idea of a disembodied, imortal entity associated with every sentient being to be a term that "describes your attitude toward living"?



"Councoiusness has not been fully explained."

So you're implying that everytime we can't fully explain some aspect of our environment, or ourselves, that we simply chalk it up to some supernatural phenomena? With this mindset we'd still believe that the sun moved across the sky because a god on a chariot moved it.


"And finaly the term is pervasive."

And this makes the concept of a soul more useful...how?

[NotReady]

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Beyond faith and religion, why do some people still insist that there exists a soul?


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Assuming that if you deny the soul you are a materialistic naturalist one of the best counters to this is the argument from reason. I think Kant first formulated it, then Balfour in England, then C.S. Lewis included a version in Miracles. The basic idea is that if our thoughts are nothing but the random motion of electrons then reason is an illusion and the laws of thought have no meaning. How can one bit of matter think about another bit of matter?

A more recent version is by Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason. A short article by him on this can be found here.

Richard Carrier of Infidels has written a detailed rebuttal and Reppert has replied to that.

[Bork]

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Beyond faith and religion, why do some people still insist that there exists a soul?


[/ QUOTE ]

Assuming that if you deny the soul you are a materialistic naturalist one of the best counters to this is the argument from reason. I think Kant first formulated it, then Balfour in England, then C.S. Lewis included a version in Miracles. The basic idea is that if our thoughts are nothing but the random motion of electrons then reason is an illusion and the laws of thought have no meaning. How can one bit of matter think about another bit of matter?

A more recent version is by Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason. A short article by him on this can be found here.

Richard Carrier of Infidels has written a detailed rebuttal and Reppert has replied to that.

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One might as easily ask how can a soul think about a bit of matter. Seems to me be more difficult to explain than how matter can think about matter.

[MidGe]

From the link: [ QUOTE ]
...I will present a model of the atheist universe which I will call mechanistic materialism...

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Straw man argument!

[NotReady]

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Straw man argument!


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I think it's called defining your terms.