Do you have a soul?

Do you have a soul? If you do, please tell us about it.

It brought a tear to my eye.

core...

Does that make me an apple? :shrug:

Unless you mean like Aretha Franklin.

Different people believe different things, I am curious to hear different beliefs on this matter.

I was taught that the soul was the "spirit" that literally separated from your body at the moment of death and went either to heaven, purgatory or hell. I used to wonder about how it would be any fun to go to heaven if I didn't have a body anymore, just this invisible "soul" who wouldn't be able to play or do anything else that was fun.

I don't believe in anything that lives beyond us or outside us, but the word "soul" is as good as any metaphor to describe the essence of a personality and conscience.

Tat sam asi, as the Hindus say. Jesus said it is That in which we live, move, and have our being. Lakota people would say it is that which joins all our relations. A Muslim mystic would say there is nothing--save That.

Ever read Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj?

but I will google him and find out more. Thank you.

soulful. On edit, nevermind, not as many as I first thought. Damned first impressions. :-P

I am a lonely visitor.
I came too late to cause a stir,
Though I campaigned all my life
towards that goal.
I hardly slept the night you wept
Our secret's safe and still well kept
Where even Richard Nixon has got soul.
Even Richard Nixon has got
Soul.

Traffic cops are all color blind.
People steal from their own kind.
Evening comes too early for a stroll.
Down neon streets the streaker streaks.
The speaker speaks,
but the truth still leaks,
Where even Richard Nixon has got soul.
Even Richard Nixon has got it,
Soul.

The podium rocks in the crowded waves.
The speaker talks of the beautiful saves
That went down long before
he played this role
For the hotel queens and the magazines,
Test tube genes and slot machines
Where even Richard Nixon got soul.
Even Richard Nixon has got it,
Soul.

Hospitals have made him cry,
But there's always a free way in his eye,
Though his beach just got
too crowded for his stroll.
Roads stretch out like healthy veins,
And wild gift horses strain the reins,
Where even Richard Nixon has got soul.
Even Richard Nixon has got
Soul.

I am a lonely visitor.
I came to late to cause a stir,
Though I campaigned all my life
towards that goal.

You would have to define your terms.

St. Paul saw humans as having three components: body, soul, and spirit. "Soul" was equivalent to what we would now call the "ego," the individual personality, and it did not normally survive death. "Spirit" was identical with the Logos or Word, which was the eternal aspect of Christ. The point of becoming "christened" was that the soul was taken into the spirit, so one became one with Christ, and hence survived death. In the course of 2000 years of course, this idea has been interpreted many different ways.

Personally, I can't see any reason, or need, for the ego to survive death. But I do think there is a fundamental field of consciousness that is eternal, an idea that western science is beginning to embrace. How exactly it relates to individual consciousness, I don't pretend to understand. But I do find the fact that "person" comes from the Greek word "persona," which means mask, suggestive.

Yes, I believe I do.

in me, or about me, that will survive after the death of my body. When my body dies, every aspect of my being will cease to exist.

Metaphorically speaking, yes, I have a soul.

I stepped away before posting the rest: Realistically, I understand no mechanism by which something with the properties generally ascribed to a soul could exist, so no, I do not have a soul.

I got bitten by a bed bug and it gave me syphillis.

I'm inclined to say no.

The concept of a soul was developed by humans to explain the complicated aspects of higher consciousness, self awareness and the ability to feel empathy etc..While we certainly don’t know everything about the brain, we know enough about it to know that all those things attributed to a ’soul’ are simply biological processes of the brain.

What is your answer?

I usually hear soul being used to refer to what lives on after death. I don't know what happens after death, but I have a feeling that not much happens at all.

Some people seem to believe that a soul can be damned if you murder, pray wrong, or touch yourself (down there).

Other people seem to have a different take on the soul, it seems like they are referring to some second spiritual brain.

I don't think that there is one true definition of soul.

What "happens" after death is the same of what "happened" before I was born: nothing. I didn't exist before I was born and I will not exist after I am gone. Once your brain goes, you go. What would be the answer to "what happens to your soul after Alzheimer's disease?" :-)

I personally would use the word "soul" as the essence of a person. Like a metaphorical "soul" who is still "alive" after death only because people who remember the person give us their take on what the person was all about.