What, exactly, is the soul?

[LuisMarco]

Good day, People.
OK.
An extract from The URANTIA Book about the soul:

Foreword | Urantia Book | Urantia Foundation
(...)
0:5.6 (8.6) These qualities of universal reality are manifest in Urantian human experience on the following levels:

0:5.7 (8.7) 1. Body. The material or physical organism of man. The living electrochemical mechanism of animal nature and origin.

0:5.8 (8.8) 2. Mind. The thinking, perceiving, and feeling mechanism of the human organism. The total conscious and unconscious experience. The intelligence associated with the emotional life reaching upward through worship and wisdom to the spirit level.

0:5.9 (8.9) 3. Spirit. The divine spirit that indwells the mind of man—the Thought Adjuster. This immortal spirit is prepersonal—not a personality, though destined to become a part of the personality of the surviving mortal creature.

0:5.10 (8.10) 4. Soul. The soul of man is an experiential acquirement. As a mortal creature chooses to “do the will of the Father in heaven,” so the indwelling spirit becomes the father of a new reality in human experience. The mortal and material mind is the mother of this same emerging reality. The substance of this new reality is neither material nor spiritual—it is morontial. This is the emerging and immortal soul which is destined to survive mortal death and begin the Paradise ascension.

0:5.11 (9.1) Personality. The personality of mortal man is neither body, mind, nor spirit; neither is it the soul. Personality is the one changeless reality in an otherwise ever-changing creature experience; and it unifies all other associated factors of individuality. The personality is the unique bestowal which the Universal Father makes upon the living and associated energies of matter, mind, and spirit, and which survives with the survival of the morontial soul.

0:5.12 (9.2) Morontia is a term designating a vast level intervening between the material and the spiritual. It may designate personal or impersonal realities, living or nonliving energies. The warp of morontia is spiritual; its woof is physical.
(...)

And the Wikipedia entry on URANTIA is biased and inaccurate (but with its own goodies at the same time):
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08...opics-are-vulnerable-to-information-sabotage/
luismarco, 'white', 34, born and living in Mexico City

 

[shmogie]

Christianity outgrew its progenitor and changed the face of religion, just as children outgrow their parents and become their own women and men, changing the face of the continuing family. Christian theology is not simply a continuation of Judaic theology.
The NT IS the written amalgamation of Greek and Hebraic ideas, because the entire NT was written in Greek, from a perspective that was heavily influenced by Greek thought. So, we don’t really have a purely Hebraic, written understanding of Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, but the Judaic religious authorities branded him a heretic and had him put to death. So, according to the Bible, Jesus wasn’t a very good Jew. His ideas were already exhibiting a major shift from Hebraic theology while he was alive and teaching. And the religious authorities didn’t like it.

So, whatever we’re left with cannot be separated from “pagan” roots and made “pure,” just as a Martini cannot be separated from its Vermouth and be called a “pure Martini.” Nor, in it’s separated state, can it be called the “highest expression of gin.”

Whatever the proto-church thought of the soul is what we have. Gin is not “corrupted” by the addition of Vermouth; it becomes something entirely different, and is placed in a different class of beverage, with legitimate qualities unique to it — no matter where the origin of the gin. Some people drink their Martinis wet, some very dry. Some drink them with an olive, some with a pearl onion. Some drink them with vodka instead of gin. But it’s still a legitimate Martini, and not a shot of gin, with a mixology all its own. Thus it is with an understanding of soul.

Sorry, I categorically reject your stated opinion. Your theology is very faulty.

 

[sojourner]

Sorry, I categorically reject your stated opinion. Your theology is very faulty.

I’d argue that it’s not theology so much as as it is ecclesiology. You’d have to torture history pretty hard to bend it enough to claim that “Real” Xy is purely Judaic. Because ALL the evidence we have of the proto-church is Greek in origin and/or influence. Xy simply does not exist without it.

 

[shmogie]

I’d argue that it’s not theology so much as as it is ecclesiology. You’d have to torture history pretty hard to bend it enough to claim that “Real” Xy is purely Judaic. Because ALL the evidence we have of the proto-church is Greek in origin and/or influence. Xy simply does not exist without it.

Eschatology ? End time theology ? I don´t know who we is, but what you and whomever, suppose is rejected by a plethora of Bible scholars , university theology depts., seminaryś and theological writers. In addition, the NT speaks for itself,

 

[Audie]

Christianity outgrew its progenitor and changed the face of religion, just as children outgrow their parents and become their own women and men, changing the face of the continuing family. Christian theology is not simply a continuation of Judaic theology.
The NT IS the written amalgamation of Greek and Hebraic ideas, because the entire NT was written in Greek, from a perspective that was heavily influenced by Greek thought. So, we don’t really have a purely Hebraic, written understanding of Jesus. Jesus was a Jew, but the Judaic religious authorities branded him a heretic and had him put to death. So, according to the Bible, Jesus wasn’t a very good Jew. His ideas were already exhibiting a major shift from Hebraic theology while he was alive and teaching. And the religious authorities didn’t like it.

So, whatever we’re left with cannot be separated from “pagan” roots and made “pure,” just as a Martini cannot be separated from its Vermouth and be called a “pure Martini.” Nor, in it’s separated state, can it be called the “highest expression of gin.”

Whatever the proto-church thought of the soul is what we have. Gin is not “corrupted” by the addition of Vermouth; it becomes something entirely different, and is placed in a different class of beverage, with legitimate qualities unique to it — no matter where the origin of the gin. Some people drink their Martinis wet, some very dry. Some drink them with an olive, some with a pearl onion. Some drink them with vodka instead of gin. But it’s still a legitimate Martini, and not a shot of gin, with a mixology all its own. Thus it is with an understanding of soul.

Lotta fancy words to describe cultural appropriation.

 

[sojourner]

Eschatology ? End time theology ? I don´t know who we is, but what you and whomever, suppose is rejected by a plethora of Bible scholars , university theology depts., seminaryś and theological writers. In addition, the NT speaks for itself,

What has eschatology to do with this?? Or do you not understand the term “ecclesiology?”

I don’t know who you read, but I’m on a first name basis with a number of said scholars, and I hold a degree from one such seminary as you mention. Show me one ancient, valid, written source for Xy that is not culturally influenced by some culture outside of Judaica. I know you won’t find it in biblical texts.

 

[sojourner]

Lotta fancy words to describe cultural appropriation.

No, not cultural appropriation. Cultural influence and blending.

 

[Windwalker]

Do you think those who use metaphors confuse metaphor with facts unkowningly?

Well yes. They think they are speaking of facts, when in fact, they are using a metaphor. They simply mistake the metaphor as a fact. In such a world, metaphors make no sense. They don't see a "beyond".

 

[Trailblazer]

What, exactly, is the soul?
Well?.

Everyone has an individual soul that comes into being at the moment of conception and continues to exist for eternity. The soul is our true identity. The soul communicates its desires through the brain to the physical body, which thereby expresses itself. The body is just a vehicle that carries the soul around while we are alive on earth, a place to house the soul. The soul is our self, our true reality; the body is just our outer shell.

The nature of the soul is a mystery no human mind will ever unravel.

“Thou hast asked Me concerning the nature of the soul. Know, verily, that the soul is a sign of God, 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. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him. If it be faithful to God, it will reflect His light, and will, eventually, return unto Him. If it fail, however, in its allegiance to its Creator, it will become a victim to self and passion, and will, in the end, sink in their depths...”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 158-159

We cannot know the nature of the soul but we can know the function of the soul.

The soul cannot be perceived in the material world except as it is expressed in outward signs and works. The human body is visible, the soul is invisible. Nevertheless, it is the soul that directs human faculties. As outer circumstances are communicated to the soul by the eyes, ears, and brain, the soul communicates its desires through the brain to the physical body, which thereby expresses itself.

The soul animates the human body. The body needs a soul or it cannot live, but the soul does not need a body, so it continues to exist after the body dies. The body is destructible and temporary so eventually it dies; the soul is indestructible and eternal so it lives forever in the spiritual world.

The soul is the sum total of the personality so it 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. 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.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's what's left of you in a non-physical sense after you die.

That is correct. See my response to the OP above. #89
So what do you as an atheist think happens to this non-physical entity after you die?

 

[Trailblazer]

The soul to me is the place in me where i feel all my loves, hates, and ambivalences, because those feelings are uniquely mine and i have to live with them. My mind is supposed to serve my soul as a place of understanding. Its all the stuff of being you cant explain in terms of matter and energy.

That is essentially what the soul is since the soul is the sum total of the human personality.
You have heard my rendition before but I have now changed it a little. See my response to the OP above. #89

 

[Trailblazer]

The so-called "soul" is that aspect of personality of which the average human animal is largely unaware but does, on occasion, sense first hand. Oddly, given that it is the primary aspect of being/identity, it remains focused mainly outside of physical reality and has interests elsewhere.

I fully agree with everything you said, except for the last part of the last sentence.

In this physical life, the soul can be focused on physical reality or spiritual reality, but it is far preferable for it to be focused on spiritual reality.

There will be no physical reality in the spiritual world (afterlife).
One depiction of hell I have heard is wanting what you can no longer have.

“Thou hast asked Me concerning the nature of the soul. Know, verily, that the soul is a sign of God, 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. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him. If it be faithful to God, it will reflect His light, and will, eventually, return unto Him. If it fail, however, in its allegiance to its Creator, it will become a victim to self and passion, and will, in the end, sink in their depths...”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 158-159

 

[Trailblazer]

Regarding: The Divine Spark of G-d in us.
A lighter somewhere needs a new flint then, since I feel no such.

Sorrow not my friend.... I do not feel that touch either, but sometimes I hear that Voice.

For me, the soul is a colloquialism for the totality of our being, which was born into existence via our parents......

You were right up to that point because the soul comes into existence at the moment of conception.

..............and will dissolve into nothingness when we die - apart for whatever we have done in life to affect others and any works we might have left that might last beyond the memories of a generation or two - or more if we justify this.

No, it will not dissolve into nothingness after we die, it will continue to exist in the spiritual world forever. For a more detailed explanation, see my response to the OP above. #89

 

[Trailblazer]

The soul is who we are.

Right on. That is exactly what it is.

See my response to the OP above. #89
Such an important subject, given it is who we are.

 

[Trailblazer]

The first two sentence are fine, other than 'original definition". Therewould have been other religions with other ideas then as now.

You are correct about that. There have been other religions with other ideas.

I think the correct definition would be something like "an imaginary way in which the human mind remains conscious after the body dies".

That is pretty close. The soul is a way we remain conscious after we die but it is not something we can imagine, since it is a Mystery of God.
See my response to the OP above. #89

It is only your opinion that the old Hebes were right, all other faiths past present and future being "bogus".

It is his belief but what any of us believes does not determine what reality is. God determines that since God created the soul.

 

[Trailblazer]

Unless the concept of soul also comes from other sources, perhaps from oral tradition. Biblical texts have no corner on the market of spiritual authority.

Nor does Christianity have a corner on the market.

 

[Windwalker]

Ok! So making things up and saying they as facts is metaphor.

You don't seem to understand that that is what a metaphor is! It imagines an "as if" view of reality, putting a pattern on the face of the vast Openness that is Reality. We do that every moment in every thought, imagining a world made up of these "things" we call them with our language, drawing a box around a collection of objects, like mapping out Orion of out the vast sea of stars.

We are pattern recognizers, and all we are doing is mapping out this pattern or that and give it a name. These are "as if" statements about something wholly beyond imagination. As Timothy Leary said, "All science is metaphor". From a macro perspective, such is the case. All language is all well, I'll add.

I definitely do not mistake talk of "spiritual realms" etc as fact.

Well, first you'd have to start with what you imagine "spiritual realms" mean to you when you visual them. Then, I'd probably point out that there are very real experiences people have, but that language about such experiences should be understood as metaphors, trying to describe something beyond words, and such. Then I'd ask if you could allow for that or not. If not, why not?

Metaphor for what, who knows.

For something beyond the mind's ability to grasp? The Great Mystery? That's what I'd say.

Maybe the "spiritual types" are those whose imaginations haven't yet been flattened?

And just maybe "spiritual types" are dopey dreamers who are out somewhere
past the orbit of pluto.

Do I sound like that to you? Do ever read any of my posts? I pretty sure of whatever reputation I have around here, being a "dopey dreamer out somewhere past the orbit of pluto," would hardly fit at all. I'm quite grounded in my thoughts on these things, and the things I am not just from my own thoughts, but are drawing from a long list of academics and philosophers dealing with things like language, sign, symbol, metaphor, etc.

I think the question I'd like to ask you, is why would you automatically assume just because some people believe literally about these metaphors, like the soul, imagining it could be weighed or something, that they constitutes all the thought and all the thinkers out there on the subject? Why are you doing that? Can you explain?

Hard to deny that some of them are not exactly that! Meta,you know, phorically speaking.


ETA. I read Flatland when I was 8 yrs old.

Did you get to correlation to how those that see the world only as a mechanistic reality, are living in a two-dimensional version of a multi-dimensional Reality? A Reality where speaking of things in metaphor seems the only way to describe the tangible experience of it?

That Reality is not a separate "realm", but this realm, right here. But it's just unseen by those who live in Flatland while it was right there the whole time.

 

[Trailblazer]

That Reality is not a separate "realm", but this realm, right here. But it's just unseen by those who live in Flatland while it was right there the whole time.

That is what I believe as well. It's right here.

 

[qaz]

No, I am pointing out bs

> is this not an example of the 'facts not in evidence" that I was saying
ye spiritual ones speak?

what bull****? care to elaborate?

 

[YmirGF]

I fully agree with everything you said, except for the last part of the last sentence.

In this physical life, the soul can be focused on physical reality or spiritual reality, but it is far preferable for it to be focused on spiritual reality.

There will be no physical reality in the spiritual world (afterlife).
One depiction of hell I have heard is wanting what you can no longer have.

“Thou hast asked Me concerning the nature of the soul. Know, verily, that the soul is a sign of God, 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. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him. If it be faithful to God, it will reflect His light, and will, eventually, return unto Him. If it fail, however, in its allegiance to its Creator, it will become a victim to self and passion, and will, in the end, sink in their depths...”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 158-159

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.