What, exactly, is the soul?

[lewisnotmiller]

It's a trick question, @lewisnotmiller

The decoding key is in "happens to this non-physical entity after you die". The key action phrase is "non-physical" and so physical death would have little overall effect on this entity, even as it welcomes you back into the greater identity from which you emerged.

Oh, I get the question. I just keep my poetic thought for when I'm writing for fun, and keep things pretty simple otherwise.

Dead people are woem food, near as I can tell. If they want to get all circle of life about it, I don't see that as a bad thing, really. But that's just based on what we currently know, and can test via scientific method. Who knows what's on the other side of that particular curtain? I mean, probably not anything vaguely like Deepak Chopra claims, but yeah...

 

[74x12]

Well?


.​

I think it's your "mind" rather than simply your "brain".

 

[Al Ibn Al Amra]

I never died .

 

[Trailblazer]

From my perspective, the entity, or if you must, the soul, is an independent agent that is focused on ceaseless creative endeavors in a multitude of arenas and all simultaneously. In your terms, not mine, these endeavors would likely be considered "spiritual", but go far beyond of humanity's primitive ideas of spirituality. Personality is primarily an energy essence or action personified, if you will. And yes, the entity is intimately aware of who the creator is.

You are teaching the advanced course.

I agree that the soul is “more than” the personality, but that is what most people can relate to so that is how I describe it. Since we can understand the personality, it is obvious to me that the soul is MORE than the personality, given the soul is “a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel.” Gleanings, pp. 158-159

Given the soul is a mystery, it makes sense that it goes far beyond of humanity's primitive ideas of spirituality.

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm not sure if I would prefer one over the other - an existence over just death - and I can't see it affecting my life here and now either way, so I will just have to wait with bated breath.

Ditto on that, because I am scared to death of death since I know a big change awaits me and I do not like change that much. I am a creature of habit.

One of my primary concerns is whether I will “see” all my forum friends and my cats on the other side.

I will just have to wait with bated breath.

Knowing another life exists after this one does affect my life because it is an added incentive for me to improve my character.

 

[Trailblazer]

You can have a perfect mathematical description of a record player. You can have a detailed map of every scratch on the record. But you still can't hear the music.

The soul is the music and a person's body is the record player and record. Does one's music keeping playing after we die. I think we all melt back into the mind of God and we then get replayed in other people. There are only so many ways a human being can be. We are all much more similar than we are different. You can probably go as far to claim we are all the SAME person with the same human mind. We just have different experiences and ways of expressing what it means to be human. Some people are protective. Some people are generous. Some people are egotistical a holes.

I believe that after his physical death the soul of man will retain the self-same individuality, personality, consciousness, and understanding that characterize his life in this world. However, I also believe we will be interconnected with other souls more intimately than we are in this world, because here the mind and human ego get in the way of who we really are.

So what I believe is that after we die we will be faced with who we really are and realize what our hands have wrought in our days. This is often referred to as a life review in near death experiences. I think the life review will go on longer than a few minutes, although there is no time as we know it in the spiritual world, since there is no sun to measure it by, no Sun, Moon, or Stars.

I believe that after we die we will realize who we have become and that will be what we have to work with in the spiritual world. Although we will be able to progress, it won’t be as easy as it is here, but since we will have an eternity that kind of makes up for the difference.

As the child in the womb is developing the arms and legs and eyes and ears it will need in this material world, after we are born into this material world we need to be developing the spiritual arms and legs and ears and eyes we will need in the spiritual world.

 

[Trailblazer]

Haven't the faintest idea, and would tend to think it is more a concept than an actual thing. But...no idea.

Haven't the faintest idea, and would tend to think it is more a concept than an actual thing. But...no idea.

I guess you mean that whatever happens is in one’s imagination rather than a reality?

Admittedly, the belief in an immaterial soul is practically impossible to parse out unless one has some kind of guidepost such as a religion.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Ditto on that, because I am scared to death of death since I know a big change awaits me and I do not like change that much. I am a creature of habit.

One of my primary concerns is whether I will “see” all my forum friends and my cats on the other side.

I will just have to wait with bated breath.

Knowing another life exists after this one does affect my life because it is an added incentive for me to improve my character.

With the latter, I suspect that many of us can be comforted by not being much worse than almost any other in this regard, such that the prospect of death holds no particular fears for me even though I will have a list of 'crimes' longer than most perhaps. We are often the pawns of fate in many ways - so that's my excuse.

 

[Trailblazer]

With the latter, I suspect that many of us can be comforted by not being much worse than almost any other in this regard, such that the prospect of death holds no particular fears for me even though I will have a list of 'crimes' longer than most perhaps. We are often the pawns of fate in many ways - so that's my excuse.

Naw, I'll bet your list is not as long as most of us have.

 

[dfnj]

I believe that after his physical death the soul of man will retain the self-same individuality, personality, consciousness, and understanding that characterize his life in this world. However, I also believe we will be interconnected with other souls more intimately than we are in this world, because here the mind and human ego get in the way of who we really are.

So what I believe is that after we die we will be faced with who we really are and realize what our hands have wrought in our days. This is often referred to as a life review in near death experiences. I think the life review will go on longer than a few minutes, although there is no time as we know it in the spiritual world, since there is no sun to measure it by, no Sun, Moon, or Stars.

I believe that after we die we will realize who we have become and that will be what we have to work with in the spiritual world. Although we will be able to progress, it won’t be as easy as it is here, but since we will have an eternity that kind of makes up for the difference.

As the child in the womb is developing the arms and legs and eyes and ears it will need in this material world, after we are born into this material world we need to be developing the spiritual arms and legs and ears and eyes we will need in the spiritual world.

The thing is when you are under anesthesia you have no thoughts.

So here's what I think happens when you die. When you die you have two choices. Your first choice after you die is you can look directly into the face of God and experience God's infinite beauty. Or, your second choice, for whatever reason you feel you are not worthy of staring into the face of God, each of us being our own worse critics, and you turn away from looking into God's face.

So what happens with each choice. If you choose to look into the face of God and experience God's infinite beauty, what you experience is the very best possible experience one could have. Experiencing God's infinite beauty is a million times more satisfying and fulfilling than just having a brief moment of experiencing sex. You become so enamored with God’s infinite beauty, all time ceases to exist, you stop having conscious thoughts, and you melt into the mind of God experiencing eternal Heavenly bliss.

The God experience is greatest possible experience one can have by definition. No other experience is so fulfilling and complete than the God experience, again, by definition. The God experience is like every cell in your entire body is having a simultaneous orgasm. Even though this only happens for a few nanoseconds before physical death, with your brain operating at 100% heightened neural capacity, it feels like eternity to the conscious self.

The second choice, for whatever reason, you decide to look away from the face of God. At that moment, God immediately gives you the power of omnipotence. Your mind enters a free-form delusional state where anything you imagine spontaneously comes into existence and is experience. Again, with every cell in your body heightened in excitation time slows down. For just a few nanoseconds you experience having the power of omnipotence for what is essentially eternity.

An omnipotent God can certainly dole out the power of omnipotence and still retain all his powers.

Now at first this may sound like a really good thing. But after millions and millions of years, or what just seems like millions of years, which is only nanoseconds real time, living out all your petty profane desires and imaginations you will become extremely bored. Your mind will have exhausted every possible thing it is capable of imagining. Every possible conceivable scenario of experience will have been played out millions of times over. After having sex with two chicks 10,000 times is probably enough. Eventually you will decide there's no point in turning away from God any longer and you will turn back and look into the face of God. However, this time you don't look away. All the reasons you would have to look away have been resolved during your stint with omnipotent powers. And just after you look into the face of God you have a very brief thought where you think what the heck was I thinking when I turned away the first time? Time will then cease to exist and you experience everlasting heavenly bliss.

Now some of you may be thinking, gee, you die, you turn away from God and you get rewarded with the power of having omnipotence. This may sound unfair if you are immature in your thinking and you take pleasure at the thought of sinners suffering. Or maybe your heart is full of hate and you are seeking revenge against people who have sinned against you. But from our omnipotent all-loving God's perspective, what better way to win over someone’s love so absolutely and completely than by perfectly giving them everything their heart desires?

The real sad thing is why anyone would ever waste any time at all with their own petty and profane desires when they can be looking into the face of God basking in the glow of heavenly eternal bliss. Nothing we can imagine or invent could ever come close to experiencing God's infinite beauty.

And from our omnipotent God's perspective, that is a God of unconditional love, everyone is eventually saved and gets to experience eternally heavenly bliss. Again, there are a lot of haters out there who want revenge so this idea everyone is saved regardless of our Earthly sins or how we practiced our religion doesn't work for them. But this way of thinking about death makes more sense because what is God going to do with the billions and billions of Chinese souls who practice Buddhism. I just can't imagine a God of hate who would be so unforgiving.

This is not something you read in the Bible. You read this and you just know it in your heart it is true. If not, then you will have omnipotent powers and you will have to work out whatever it is that you feel so strongly about.

 

[Hawkins]

Humans are designed to live an eternity. However for a reason we have to live our earthly lives here on earth. Our body will in the end decay. Without a soul our identity is thus discontinue from that point. No one can tell who exactly you are after that point (except God knows). If you are familiar with how unique key is used in databases, you may know that why a more permanent identity unit is required to unique address the same person throughout the scope of eternity, which is our soul.

Humans will have to rely on a body acting as an image for us to recognize each other. However even when we humans at the time without a physical body, the angels can still reckon us. They can tell who each of us is by recognizing our soul.

 

[Trailblazer]

The real sad thing is why anyone would ever waste any time at all with their own petty and profane desires when they can be looking into the face of God basking in the glow of heavenly eternal bliss. Nothing we can imagine or invent could ever come close to experiencing God's infinite beauty.

Thanks for sharing your theory of the afterlife.

I believe that we can experience God’s Spirit after we die but not directly. I believe it needs to be mediated by the messengers of God who will be in the spiritual world to assist us, if we want to be close to God.

It is a mystery to me what will happen to nonbelievers after they die; nothing specific was revealed in my religion. What was revealed is that people on earth and in heaven can pray for them and by the mercy of God they can advance towards God, if God chooses to allow that. Everything we have or ever will have is dependent upon the bounty and mercy of God.

I agree that it is such a waste of time to be concerned about our own petty and profane desires in this life or in the afterlife. The difference is that we can get away with that here as long as we have a physical body, but we will not be able to fulfill those desires after we die because we will not have a physical body and that world is purely spiritual. So an apt description of hell is someone who is attached to the physical world and their physical desires they can no longer fulfill. In that attachment to self and desire they distance themselves from God. An apt description of heaven is being close to God.

 

[Trailblazer]

Humans are designed to live an eternity. However for a reason we have to live our earthly lives here on earth. Our body will in the end decay. Without a soul our identity is thus discontinue from that point. No one can tell who exactly you are after that point (except God knows). If you are familiar with how unique key is used in databases, you may know that why a more permanent identity unit is required to unique address the same person throughout the scope of eternity, which is our soul.

Humans will have to rely on a body acting as an image for us to recognize each other. However even when we humans at the time without a physical body, the angels can still reckon us. They can tell who each of us is by recognizing our soul.

I believe that after our physical death, our soul goes to the spiritual world and we retain the self-same individuality, personality, consciousness, and understanding that characterize his life in this world.

The soul is the person himself; the physical body is pure matter with no real identity. The person, after he dies and leaves his physical body behind remains the same person, and he goes to the spiritual world where he continues the life he conducted in the physical world. The soul takes on some kind of a spiritual form made up of heavenly elements that exist in the spiritual world. I assume that form will be recognizable by other souls. We cannot possibly know what that world is like, which is one reason what no religious scriptures have ever described it. It is a Mystery of God.