Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so I argue that yes, some sort of celestial energy exists within us. We're literally stardust with consciousness and a body. I think there is some portion of ourselves that cannot be created nor destroyed, most definitely. I'm still an agnostic, but I lean closer on the spectrum to some sort of spirituality.

Available evidence seems to suggest that your belief is incorrect. Read the books by Dr Jim Tucker of the University of Virginia.

In the area of poetry yes. For anything else religious, it's pointless and imaginary. If had an soul I threw it away, like with religious books, I put in the trash when I turned my back on religion/god over 10 months ago.

Soul, spirit, mind, consciousness, self awareness, and other similar labels tend to be used sloppily and inconsistently, with the result that people talk past each other all the time concerning them.

I no longer really care to discuss these things with people who can't or won't clearly define those terms so that I can agree at least for the sake of argument / discussion to use those definitions. Even then, people's thinking is so facile and muddled in this area that their use of these terms is fluid and ever-changing in practice, even after they settle on a definition.

If "soul" means an eternal / immortal component of what makes me who I am, such that my consciousness survives death ... no, there's no evidence for that, and lots of reasons to lean away from it rather than towards it. In fact, in most conceptions, the soul is a supernatural construct that somehow transcends the natural world, and like all supernatural beings and realms, is conveniently non-falsifiable, and so CANNOT be evidenced.

I take the word soul as a synonym for mind. It is not physical, but is entirely dependent on the physical brain. When the brain dies, the soul, or mind, dies with it. It does not survive the death of the body.

No. Not at all.

Since it can't be located and there's no agreed definition of what it is, I cannot see how anyone can "believe" in it. Colloquially some people use it to mean the essence of a person, their core personality perhaps. Ok, I won't argue with someone about that. It's matter of semantics. But as a kind of metaphysical "thing" that lives on after us, floats to heaven, or a parallel universe or whatever, no, I don't buy that.

I think our experiences make us who we are not a brain or a soul.

The only kinda soul I know I have is the musical kind. I've tried to sell my immortal soul for some extra bread several times but either it doesnt exist or no one is in the market. They're probably layin low after the housing bubble, investing in hemp if they're smart.

The nature of our several phases of consciousness are unusual and I can see why people would think theres a soul. We have our mind and primary consciousness in the brain. A lot of us feel like we are an observer sitting behind our eyes piloting this thing. Buddhism and taoism have a lot to do with questioning "who is it that knows there is no ego?" There really isn't a singular entity in your head piloting this thing. Ego is an illusion that we build out of the narrative of our sensations. It's a collaboration of cells and chemicals and electricity firing between storage devices, fuelled by organic capacitors sending information along busses. We are an organic computer AI that thinks it has a sense of self beyond what we can see and explain but theres no particularly good evidence for it.

Then aside from the mind we also seem to have emotions and instincts resonating from our heart and gut feelings as well. I know a lot of gut feeling is inspired by subtle sensory and visual clues that most of us aren't even conscious of. Catching a microexpression of contempt or disgust from someone while they kiss your ass and getting the feeling they can't be trusted for example.

Then love and emotional despair get felt in the heart for some reason, even though Im sure all of this is being processed by the brain it seems to route certain reactions and feedback systems to the heart and gut to act as big red flags for how you're feeling. Thats the best sense I can make of it anyway.

I like soul as a concept, as in "he's an old soul" or "has a lot of soul" because theyre expressive of someones overall character in a useful way and I can't think of a better way to put it. But its a nebulous concept at best to describe the depth of someones feelings, heart, loyalty, authenticity, originality etc.

Theres not a ghost or spirit living in us. Although I think there is somehow an undercurrent of conductivity or resonance between us that was once interpreted as spirits. It can be tapped into and cause energy to pass in a crowd, it's the origin of ecstatic experiences. It could just be an evolutionary reward system for creativity and community to set off our happy spiritual experience chemicals when we're in a tribalistic group, but it happens in every culture somehow.

Pentecostal tentmeeting revivals, hari krishnas and buddhists spacing out to chants, african drum circles, jazz jam sessions, breakdancing parties. Everyone who gets together and chants/sings/drums/dances in unison will report an ecstatic, euphoric, spiritual experience. All that means is we're supposed to do it. Whoever claims to know why and extrapolates that to mean the ghost in our bones will burn if we don't deny ourselves all other sources of goosebumps except the culturally appropriate source of goosebumps can feel free to suck my entire ass. I'll take it where I can get it.

no. there is no such thing as a soul. soul yes; aretha franklin sang soul. A soul, no.

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I believe what the ancients were referring to when they used the word soul was just the mental/emotional component of a person. They didn’t have the scientific understanding of it we do today, so of course they attached unnecessary superstitions to it, but I think that’s what they were talking about - the personality that resides inside the body. They thought it survived the death of the body and I don’t but we’re talking about the same thing as far as living people are concerned. Yes, our brain is the material substrate for it, but as Marvin Minsky said, the mind is what the brain does. Soul is an old fashioned word for the brain’s behavior.

Spending my life on stage watching folks dance, I can honestly say, some people have soul, most don't.