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Do we have a soul?--

For all we know, the universe was for many billions of years before I came to consciousness. It will be for many billions after my body rots away. Is my being & memories only a brief spark in this enormous process ? Time is the only thing we know that doesn't change. It is always now. What happens when, as far as we know, our nows end.

Religious fairy tales tell us of eternity. We think of eternity as a very long time. But is eternity now. We have an old joke, people dream of eternity, but they are bored on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Scientists have no idea what the connection is between consciousness & brain activity. They know they can create certain feelings & thoughts by stimulating areas of the brain, but the relationship between the firing of synapses & the flow of neuro -hormones with experience is unclear. We don't really know how physical brain activity relates to consciousness. Does our consciousness end when our body dies?

But then what are our lives? Are they, as Shakespeare said, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, signifying nothing" in the maelstrom of existence? Scientists tell us our universe may be only one of many universes, and this universe will someday end with a bang or a whimper. Does it matter to us that the universe will end, because our petty lives will end much sooner?

Many dream of a hard drive existence, called the Akashic records, where our egos & experience can be stored &, perhaps, called up later. We would love to believe our precious selves are not ephemeral blips on the vast cosmic panorama. In other words, do we have a soul, something of our being that will survive physical death? We would very much like it to be so, but liking it to be so doesn't make it so. Our wish cannot create reality.

Remiforce 7 Aug 30
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4 comments

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The traditional soul concept seems improbable to me. Who or what is it that is supposed to be having a soul? For me the question is, “Who or what am I?”

I doubt very much if eternal life is in the offing for us as individual personalities. Every experience changes us, and the whole illusion of self is held together tenuously by a thin thread of memory. There is eternal life IMO but it is the eternal life of the whole, of ultimate reality beyond the senses.

I wrote a short novel that explores the question, available in the Kindle Store as The Staggering Implications of the Mystery of Existence. The book contains woo and is unfit reading for proper atheists of the physicalist bent. 🙂

0

Why oh why are you wasting your precious life on this drivel? And mashing up "Akashic records"with xianity, too? Focus on your actual Life!

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Do we have a soul? IDK. Does your dog have one? How about that snake named Charlie.

To escape the chains of religion and yet be drawn right back into it is not what I want to think about. If Akashic records were real they would have nothing to do with souls.

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Enjoy life! Celebrate the wonder of the universe. Participate in hedonism. Take pleasure in making humanity better help others and appreciate human accomplishments. That is what I hope to accomplish before I die.

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