Do all humans have souls?

buyeye said:
I'm sorry for not being clear , no there is no such object called a soul but you can use the word soul to refer to any living creature.
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Yes we have done this before. But I'm more interested in op's concept of a soul. He doesn't mean it in that sense from what I can tell.
 
buyeye said:
A soul = living creature, man or beast
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Are you telling me worms, ants, slugs, fleas have souls?

Are you..... telling me..... bacteria, Ecoli and a flu virus....... have souls?
 
Keeper said:
Are you telling me worms, ants, slugs, fleas have souls?

Are you..... telling me..... bacteria, Ecoli and a flu virus....... have souls?
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No, please read entire posts it's not that hard. I even edited the post to highlight the "are"

To quote myself again
there is no such object called a soul but you can use the word soul to refer to any living creature.
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Well now we have to expand the initial question to, " do all living things have souls?"

It is of my opinion no, all living things do not have souls and this includes all humans....
 
Mortymoose said:
Well now we have to expand the initial question to, " do all living things have souls?"

It is of my opinion no, all living things do not have souls and this includes all humans....
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What leads you to conclude that not all living things, particularly humans, have souls ? Is there a selection criteria ? What would that be ? Is it random? Considering humans, when would the soul be "acquired"? Conception, birth, sometime between conception and birth ?
 
Scooby_Doo said:
If astral projection was real then you would have no significant brain activity as astral projection is an 'out of body' or separate from your physical body. The fact that you can measure brain activity during an astral projection 'episode' proves that its all in your head and not real.

Unless you are implying that you need your brain to be out of body? In which case... derp...
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I'm not sure how you would know this. Aside from your brain needing to keep your body alive while your soul is galavanting, it would also need to maintain a link to the body or the body would die. Or perhaps your soul can't leave your body while you are alive but rather expands beyond the boundaries of the body... so many possibilities. Many reports of astral projection mention a cord that connects body to soul...

DrJohnZoidberg said:
We have just countered your argument regarding joy and that is indeed measurable, it's not some magical state you go in to, it is a physical reaction in your brain.
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Actually you haven't countered my argument at all. You say the EEG measurements (or whatever scan you choose to use) are measurements of joy. Please tell me then, how do you know these are measurements of joy?
After all, you can't measure joy, examine the EEG readings, compare the two and conclude that the readings are accurate measurements of joy. So, I still maintain joy has no physical properties and cannot be measured. Unless you can explain how you know the measurements are measurements of joy and not something else.

Nick333 said:
Emotions are a physical response to stimuli. You measure them by measuring body chemistry and brain activity.
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Again, how do you know what you are measuring? Is joy real or not? Is it some kind of delusion?

OrbitalDawn said:
He's just arguing for the sake of arguing. He enjoys doing that. :D
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No I dont! :p
murraybiscuit said:
So does a fetus have a soul? How about somebody with advanced dementia/neuro-degenerative disorder. Siamese twins? Or severe mental retardation? How about self aware animals like bonobos and dolphins? Is your soul dependent on memories? If not, what else would your soul take into the afterlife? What about people who have no ability to form memories - what does their soul contain? Is your soul your identity? Is it your memories? Is it your preferences? I really don't know what this thing is. Help me out.
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I can't answer all your questions but I can tell you this - that curious being asking the questions is the soul. Not 'your' soul because 'you' are the soul. Your body collects and processes data and passes it to you (soul) which experiences, lives, makes choices, etc
 
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joelus said:
Actually you haven't countered my argument at all. You say the EEG measurements (or whatever scan you choose to use) are measurements of joy. Please tell me then, how do you know these are measurements of joy?
After all, you can't measure joy, examine the EEG readings, compare the two and conclude that the readings are accurate measurements of joy. So, I still maintain joy has no physical properties and cannot be measured. Unless you can explain how you know the measurements are measurements of joy and not something else.
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I'm sure with more research I would uncover a lot more study into this field, here is a quick link on emotions being measured with biosensors: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-24842-2_4

Not saying it's a viable technology yet but here is proof that computers can be programmed to read certain responses and interpret them as emotions.
 
Mortymoose said:
I have a strong belief in life after death, along the lines of we all have souls, each life a test on the building of ones soul, at one stage I believed all humans had souls, but that belief began to falter when you see what hatred some people afflict on other humans, the rapist,murderers,soldiers..... The world is just a sick place , at times I often think that earth might actually be hell........

So do you believe that all humans have souls?
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They have soles but them rapists and murderers are only going one place when the world is rid of them... And it's not heaven. :beer:
 
supersunbird said:
Does having a soul have anything to do with having a conscience? Can one have a soul without having a conscience?
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I see a conscience as a sort of moral compass figuratively the two could be one and the same. Literally the object called a soul is not based on scripture and cannot be proven scientifically.

Scripture does use the word to refer to any living creature. So you can use the word as a figure of speech but scripture doesn't say that souls go anywhere just that you die.


Ecclesiastes 9:4-6
For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten.6Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion anymore to time indefinite in anything that has to be done under the sun.
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Since I am a living thing, yes, I am an ensouled body i.e. I have the form of a living thing as opposed to a non-living thing. And since I am a human, the soul has various operations/functions including vegetative (nutrition, regeneration, reproduction etc.), locomotive ( I move), conscious (I am aware of myself) and intellectual (I can think about and reason about abstract concepts and understand them).
 
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