Do we have a soul?

[fuzzibear]

What evidence is there for the existence of a soul in human beings?


[no stupid answers from user: 'Bluevern' please]

[ummmm]

I don't think there is any evidence. There are a lot of people out there that believe in ghosts or claim to have seen a ghost. Some of these ghosts surely had witness' at their funeral/cremation. So coming back as a ghost must have something to do with souls

[claireyfairy]

There are some that believe that weight proves that we have a soul. Apparently if the human body is weighed after death it wil weight exactly 21 grammes less than when weighed before. (hence the name of the film 21 grammes).

[claireyfairy]

*will weigh

[LazyGun]

There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever. The hypothesis that the soul weighs 21Grammes was based around the work of just one researcher, a Duncan MacDougall in 1911 or so. He only used 6 human patients, and of those, 4 were duds. No modern research has followed his work back then.

"MacDougall's results were flawed because the methodology used to harvest them was suspect, the sample size far too small, and the ability to measure changes in weight imprecise. For this reason, credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams. His postulations on this topic are a curiousity, but nothing more.

[Rubyrose]

I can feel mine! When I am with people I love, when people make me cry, when my best mates kids tell me they love me, when my heart was broken, when I laugh uncontrolably with my sister...... Sometimes you don't need to see the evidence to know something is there!

[jeanette1976]

I agree with Rubyrose... you don't need to see it to know its there... like a smell, we can't see it, but we know that something is there. With a spirit or soul, you sense it, its what makes us 'alive', not as a human form but within.

For example, if you've ever experienced something traumatic and suffered from manic depression or something similar, you feel empty, like your soul has been destroyed. But hopefully, that will never happen to you. XXX

[jake-the-peg]

A slight deviation is to ask if you met somebody who had no soul how would you know?

Now compare and contrast that answer to people suffering from severe mental illness

Do mental patients have no soul?

[Rubyrose]

Course they have a soul... they can feel can't they? God only know what they are feeling inside, regardless of how they seem to be! Their souls have just been misplaced inside and have become hidden with the troubles of life!... I'm guessing! Everyone has a soul.... but some choose not to let it get in the way of their thinking!

[4getmenot]

How would you know when someone is going to die to weigh them before??? And surely that is all the bits that you poop out when you die

[Backdrifter]

What some of the above posts are describing sounds to me like emotions, but with the word "soul" attached to them. I don't mean that as a criticism, if that's how those people wish to think of those emotions that's fine but it's a belief rather than a fact.

Ruby I didn't really understand your last post.

[Rubyrose]

I'm just saying that without a soul we wouldn't have emotions!

[jake-the-peg]

and here was I thinking that without the limbic system we wouldn't have emotions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system

[fuzzibear]

Rubyrose,

Human 'emotion' has neurological foundations in physical structures of the brain. this is believed to have been an adaptive trait (an evolutionary advantage). Being able to feel anger, sympathy, disgust, fear, are all evolutionary advantaged to survival, and they arent any evidence of something meta-physical such as the soul. Falling in love, whilst a nice experience, and also been reduced to an evolutionary purpose, in order to form bonds between individuals. A group of people are more likely to survive if they stick together rather than going at it alone.

[jake-the-peg]

This is my point about a soul.

If you believe the Christian concept of an immortal soul it must be something that cannot be damaged or broken.

That means you have to find some quality of a person that survives any mental illness or brain damage.

I'm not a brain expert but I've never heard of such an attribute.

[Backdrifter]

Ruby thank you for explaining. But I'm more with jake on this one. It's well-documented how chemical and electrical activity govern emotions.

[Rubyrose]

I'm not a Christian by any means but I believe I have a soul! I refuse to pin my emotions on science alone!

[jno]

how about PMT, Rubyrose? Serious question - a good example of how purely physical/chemical changes affect emotions.

[Rubyrose]

Well I don't actually get PMT but thats definately a chemical thing... thats nothing to do with souls!

[The Sherman]

why do people beleive they have souls? what difference will it make if you wake up and see that you dont have one? you will not change in the slightest, you will be the same walking, talking emotinal being that you were before, what does this belief in a soul actually do for you? how does it add value as my manager would say

[Rubyrose]

I can't imagine how it would feel not to have one.... weird I guess.. I like to believe I have one and I find it easy to believe as I have had things like 'Past Life regression' done on me and it was amazing! I'd like to believe my soul is me.. thats actually who I am... I am just renting the body!