Concept of a SOUL: is it proven or part of our imagination?

Question:So when we die, we truly return to the earth? What do you think?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: So when we die, we truly return to the earth? What do you think?

Soul = Life Energy

Energy cannot be destroyed only transferred. Therefore life never really ends, only transforms.

The concept of a soul is philosophical comfort food. Trying to hypothesize what happens after death is distressing to anybody. Any rational being will tell you that when death happens, the brain dies and therefore consciousness goes with it, it's the end if the narrative of your life and you have no further experiences. It's like it was before you were born. The concept that consciousness transcends life gives birth to the concept of the immortal soul, and of course various religions have latched on to this concept to barter for your soul by claiming it's in danger.

The Concept of a soul is a concept. It cannot be proven. I don't think this unique combination of matter and energy will ever be duplicated. Self identity is not even possible. I change every day, yet through process, I am coherent with the child that was born 56 years ago! It is a wonder beyond our common ideas of a simple soul.

I have found everything to be part of everything else,so it is not beyond me now to think that I will only be recycled in some way and not die.

Whether all this "everything" has spiritual content I don't know but I don;t feel that I am merely matter, chemistry, and electrical charges.Devoid of spiritual content.There is some design here.

You could say your "imagination" is your "spirit".

crookedstepvmx is right. We surely will not possess the memories that we possess now. At the time of death, we will be no more. Lights out. If death is as logical as this reality is, it can not be anything. It would have to be the lack of experience. It would take a miracle to save us from this fate. But as I see it, miracle's are illogical.

Proven? It's nothing more than a religious archetype, there has never been anything to suggest we have a soul.

The 'soul' is a concept of religion, as you know. Religion speaks of your soul going to heaven and then all your earthly troubles will be over. You will walk with God, so to speak.

There is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opoportunity.

Man, however, is a credulous animal, and must believe in something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones

whenever something can't be explained rationally a mystical explanation appears

a magician makes a coin disappear well since i can't explain how it disappears it has to be magic

of course when we die we return to the earth regardless we're biodegradable

a soul explains how our uniqueness is preserved after death nobody likes the unknown everyone wants an answer for everything

because deep down no one knows whats going to happen when we die
are we reincarnated? do we go to heaven? but if we are reincarnated or we go to heaven, what exactly is reincarnated or what part of us is going to heaven?

Using logic: it is impossible to state "There is no such thing as a 'soul.'"

Further, it is an illogical rationalization to claim as true "Man invents 'soul' for thus and such reasons/needs."

"Soul" is believed to be derived from a word also indicating "sea," as that was considered both e-motional and where the soul would rest; this is heuristic.

The process is this: God, individing Energy, creates lifestreams, a mandala of which in turn, at Earth, majorly elected a downward incarnational venture into this physical universe, this octave, this physis.

With each such earthly embodiment-initiative, the "new soul-initiative" encounters untransmuted past energy-tendencies, records, and sowings of its "predecessor soul-initiatives." To the degree that the soulfield, the compound Idea "Man" in Mater--Matter--takes on the Living Energy vibrancy, it persists, endures, as the arc of its returning ("passing on") energy returns to the native higher octave from which it came. Those portions of the said soulfield initiative which survive, per coherence in the vibrancy, increase the Holy Christ Self, I Am Presence, and "treasures in heaven" of that lifestream.

To prove a different energy level than that of the physical asks of the prover, the discerner, a commeasurate awareness. Hence, look to those who claim protocols for Soul-Realization, to consider and develop commeasurate awareness.

To decide, without such "good-faith" effort, that "soul" "does not exist," is to act circularly, self-fulfillingly, and ignorantly.

Hence, "the Kingdom is within," "the still, small voice," the childlike innocence ("inner sense") is the soul, which, if it becomes childish, spoiled, may be "lost."

Note well such examples as the little child at Garabandal, Spain, 1962, seeing and hearing an Angel, asking for a Miracle re her villagers and others' skepticism, was granted what she felt was a "little miracle"--the coalescence of a pure Light Host in thin air, predicted to occur, filmed by many sceptics, and which transects basic laws of material physics. Neither this nor Jesus walking on water would be accepted as "proof," as a) non-replicable, b) non-controllable, and c) non-explainable per molecular manipulation.

Thus, when "we" die, "we" do not necessarily all "return" to the "same place." It is clear that the physical or "clay" does not persist, and "returns to the earth." That Jesus and Sri Yukteswar are examples of witnessed Resurrected Saints, is rather evidential. (The world's leading authority on legal evidence, Dr. Simon Greenleaf, an atheist of Jewish heritage, and professor of Evidence at Harvard Law, was challenged by a student to investigate the claims for Jesus' resurrection, on a legal basis. Dr. Greenleaf converted to Christianity, because the evidence of proof at that level was so convicting.)

Hence, neither miracles nor legal proof suffice for the reductionist who does not invest personal soulfield/biofield energies in purification and meditation protocols.

One example of this type of reductionism which is of the error known as "category error:" Lower beta wave rhythms are the typical norm for scientistic reductionist mentation. Tibetan Buddhist monks using vipassana ("insight") meditation protocol typically (per measurements) reach high gamma wave states, soon after beginning their protocol. These states are otherwise associated with high degrees of insight, creativity, and profound mentation (as measured in Western thinkers). To remain in lower beta and attempt to judge and outline high gamma is a serious category error, much as a human attempting to describe what the color ultraviolet "looks like." The resonance and commeasurement is lacking.

Thus, one may gauge one's soulfield coherence in these ways: "Watch Your Dreams" (Ann Ree Colton) for insight as to how your soulfield awareness is maturing, for how you are in your dreams is an indication of soulfield coherency; meditate and pray; how you are during these times, indicates your progress of coherency and keeping the Word or Form of Life Energy; and how you treat your colleagues indicates how your soul is learning to love, be joyous, and the like.

"Autobiography of a Yogi," Yogananda, http://www.yogananda-srf.org
http://www.easwaran.org
"Meditation for Beginners," Dr. Jack Kornfield on vipassana meditation.
"The Path of the Higher Self," "The Path to Immortality," and "The Masters and Their Retreats," Mark Prophet;
"Men in White Apparel," Ann Ree Colton;
"Light Is a Living Spirit," O. M. Aivanhov;
"Babies Remember Birth," David Chamberlain, Ph.D.;
"Life before Life," Jim Tucker, M.D.;
"Reborn in the West: The Reincarnation Masters," Vicki MacKenzie;
"The Reincarnation of Edgar Cayce?", Free and Wilcock, http://www.divinecosmos.com

I think a man once he hears about it choose to believe it or not.

If this thought is from ordinary man it does not matter what is true or not. For no man can be proved whether he is right or not. And therefore "near death experiences" or NDEs can be rationalized away. Even though mechanically in many instance the man made machines men devised to measure man's existence here or not say "he is dead". Those experiences say otherwise.

But that is not proof either to the objective nonbeliever.

I know my soul exists. Not because I have proof. But I have thoughts in my mind that my mouth cannot express but my brain or mind can. It is a part of me that no one can see and is invisible. No one can see me talking to myself mentally even as I am typing to you. This is a real thing. And I know that everyone does it. Everyone at some time scans and reads things to themselves mentally.

When I think logically long before Freud existed ancient man called that his soul. I am inclined to agree with the side of history on this.

The soul is simply the formal cause of your being which is
a composite of matter and form like many other things,
cars ,apples, etc. You are asking whether your soul is
a substantial form, that it possesses an existence not dependent on your body, and more to the point, whether
your soul is material or a composite or a non composite
which cannot be taken apart (decay). Using a turbo charged
version of Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas answered these questions in
"Treatise on Man". If you like reasoning with concepts, i
highly recommend it.

Is it proven or imagined? I should think that souls form are a of delusion, that death is not reincarnated. There is no thing more soulful that can be imagined than reincarnation, the thought of someone's rebirth into the world and that soul of the person living again. It is so beautiful, but it is childlike and unreal, though it is a great comforting.

Science has never detected a soul. Religions of all kinds claim they have the proof. Most of them use the bible as their proof. That's kinda like sayin' the earth has four corners. When asked how you came up with that you say, "Revelations."