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Permalink Reply by Strega on May 8, 2013 at 9:40pm

What exactly do you think is your soul? 

It isn't your mind, because people who have suffered brain injuries find that their thought processes are altered - they can remember names of fruits, for example, but not people.  In more severe brain injuries, they can have complete personality changes.  In appalling brain injuries, they can be reduced to complete idiotic status.  So the mind is clearly a physical thing, affected by physical conditions.  Death represents the total destruction of the brain - it would be bizarre to think it would suddenly reassemble a 'mind' for onwards transmission into an 'afterlife'.

If such an abstract concept as a soul were to exist, by definition it could have no physical attributes.  It would be invisible, have no mass or matter, and just float around. How would it interact with your physical mind?  What would be its evolutionary purpose?

As far as science has been able to study the brain, it generates billions of electrical impulses and these combinations, when coupled with genetic code and physical experience and memory, give an illusion that we have a unified mind/spirit/essence. 

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on May 8, 2013 at 10:12pm

Consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain. It can't exist apart from the brain; the brain causes it. If you are referring to the conscience in the sense of guilt over doing supposedly bad things, that is instilled by our family and society, is it not? Feelings? They just are part of our natural responses to events in our life. No brain, no feelings. 

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Permalink Reply by Mercedes on May 8, 2013 at 10:22pm

I think our soul is that part of us we cannot touch. It exists. It's there, we all feel it. But we don't exactly know how to describe it. I always say the eyes are the window to the soul. It's true. You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their face.

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Permalink Reply by Ray R. on May 8, 2013 at 11:43pm

Evidence is required for such a claim. The reason we can recognize certain things about people when we look at their faces , is because evolution , through the process of natural selection , has selected for that trait . It helped our ancestors better identify friend from foe quickly , enabling the trait to be passed on . Do not mistake an evolutionary adaptation , with a naturalistic , rational expiation , for irrational evidence of the existence of a supernatural force .

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Permalink Reply by Stutz on May 9, 2013 at 1:46am

It's there, we all feel it.

My guess is that what you are calling the soul is just a person's personality, or even more simply, their mind. If you want to get poetic about it, you could call it someone's "essence" or their "soul" if you want to—but not in a literal sense. The difference is that you seem to think that this soul literally exists as a thing distinct from the brain and the rest of the physical body. Most of us atheists do not. The mind is a product of the human brain. All scientific evidence points to this conclusion, even though exactly how it does that is still something of a mystery.

My question to you would be: what is the difference between the mind and the soul? Earlier you suggested that our conscience and our feelings are evidence of the soul, but all of that is just our mind, isn't it? The mind isn't just the thinking/contemplating/calculating part of us, it's our feelings and intuitions, too—both conscious and subconscious—and the sum total of these things make up our unique personality. The entire field of psychology is founded upon this simple truth. I'm not sure what else you think there is to a person that could be called a literal soul.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Reardon on May 8, 2013 at 11:02pm

Do not fear death, when you are dead, you won't know it!

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Permalink Reply by _Robert_ on May 8, 2013 at 11:18pm

I'm building a giant concrete pyramid behind my house. Just can't find good mummification technicians here in the bible belt.

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Permalink Reply by Ray R. on May 8, 2013 at 11:46pm

Freeze drying is probably quicker , and less messy , plus you won't need all those canopic jars to store your organs ;)

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Permalink Reply by _Robert_ on May 9, 2013 at 5:58am

Thanks Roger. 20-30 years from now...this will be my family inside my pyramid. Not cheap, but eternity never is...

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Permalink Reply by Jimmy Russell on May 9, 2013 at 12:14am

bwa hah ahahahaha  windows to the soul.  Yes, you can tell a lot about someone by looking at their face and into their eyes, but not because it's magical.  Over the span of your life its just another form of language that you learn and record in your brain.  You can also tell a lot about a person by they shoes..where they goin..where they been..I bet if I think hard enough I can remember my first pair of shoes...Momma said they was my magic shoooess...Momma said they would take me anywhere!

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on May 9, 2013 at 12:48am

Uhm, we die - how old are you?

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Permalink Reply by Mercedes on May 9, 2013 at 1:04am

so you guys don't think we have any kind of espiritual side that passes one after we die? How do you explain ghosts or hauntings, or things like that?

I'm 25 Heather

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