God is a construct created by man to avoid having to face the reality of a finite existence. Those that believe, believe their devotion and adherence to god's desires will "save their immortal soul." IS the soul anything more than just another construct of an extended existence?
I'm not sure...imagine if when you died a little bit of lifeforce or energy containing info unique to ourselves is cast into space...electrickery.?...where does it go?....the Victorians had the idea of a "geat memory"....
Soul! I am assuming, correctly or incorrectly, that this is a conscience of being: fear, courage, a desire for learning, some desire of comfort. It seems that some humans think that they are the only ones that have this "soul"; some dogs have loyalty and bravery. Cows bawl when their calves are taken away from them-----to be locked into a cage and turned into 'tasty' veal. HOW GROSS! Humans seem to have no connection with compassion; they are only connected with their own self-centered interests. And does the mind exist after the 'meat/body' no longer exists? Nature has never sent a messenger to tell us.
Considerable efforts have been made by some researchers to measure and hence confirm or refute the existence of a soul. These measurements and other experiments have mainly had to do with measuring changes to a human body from before, at the moment of, and closely following death. So far none of the said experiments, and measurements have been able to detect anything that could be remotely considered an ongoing entity that would then be nameable a soul. So, lack of evidence equals evidence of lack.
Not to belabor the point, but a basic rule of scientific inquiry is "absence of evidence" is NOT "evidence of absence." You may just not be looking in the right place or with the right tools.
Theoretical physics says: No.
This is a joke, so don't take offense, but all I could think when I read this was: "Heaven help us if we don't agree with theoretical physicists!"
I think the soul is a a poetic concept, a metaphor for consciousness, but nothing literal in terms of metaphysics.
Nice
Maybe there is something inbetween metaphysics....dark matter ..?(what is darkmatter)....
Given that without heaven or hell, what would be the purpose of souls, I dug up the following story to start you off.
The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question:
Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.
As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.
With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."
THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"
I don't think heaven or hell has anything to do with souls, but the student's answer is genius
While I read that piece many many years ago I wold direct anyone to snopes.com/college/exam/hell.asp for a more accurate description of where it came from.