Have you ever asked yourself what is the soul really? Ever stopped to ponder what actually is it and where does it reside in your body? Most people have an answer they just spit out without thinking and never go any deeper than that. I did.
No surprises here, I’m giving you my answer straight away, I don’t believe the soul is a real thing that exists. That is, I do not believe in the amorphous object that is somehow supposed to be the most sacred and eternal part of us.
I do believe in a part of us that is the composite of all our memories, thoughts, emotions, beliefs and experiences that helps shape the individual personality we come to know as ‘I’. We aren’t born with it though, it develops from lived experiences over our life time and dissolves when we die. The blending of all of that I call soul and it lives in our brain.
To the ancients, the soul was what animated us, what we’ve come to call our spirit. There was no separation between soul and person as we understand it today. Most ancient people’s understood the soul going ‘down’ to a place of trials, judgement or rest. When you lower a body into the ground it makes sense that you would understand the soul going ‘down’ as well. While the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were the first we know of to develop a concept of immortal soul, they still saw it as going ‘down’ to an underworld place. It wasn’t until around the 8th century BCE that Ancient Egyptians began to believe in the soul existing with the gods in heaven after judgement. From Ancient Egypt this understanding of the soul travelled to Ancient Greece, then to Israel where it was absorbed into the Hebrew culture and as we know, it then became part of christianity after a lengthy pause.
The concept of a fiery hell and eternal damnation entered Israel’s culture somewhere between the Old Testament and the New Testament with the concept being preached by Jesus. It was not a founding belief of Israel or Israelites before that time. This idea of eternal damnation in the pits of a frozen hell or lake of fire (depending on the preacher’s mood that day) gave rise to corruption and abuse much later on when the church chose to threaten people’s eternal rest if they didn’t leave their worldly possessions to the church. It was a time of struggles between the church and state over the loyalty and finances of the populous. In many cases the church won because what is a threat of prison or death compared to eternal suffering and damnation?
What about reincarnation? I don’t believe in that either – unless you are referring to the atoms and particles that make up our physical cells. They do get released back into the cosmos and recombine elsewhere to create some new physical matter. That reincarnation I do believe in.
At this point, I want to remind you that I’ve only discussed western beliefs here because that is what I know about. I don’t claim to know about or understand beliefs of other cultures or peoples. I also don’t claim to be an expert on this stuff, I’m just sharing my own thoughts on the matter from my personal life experience. Your miles may vary.
By now, it might not surprise you to know I don’t believe in heaven or hell either. Or deity of any number or description. I have found nothing that gives evidence to the existence of any of it. Again, my personal understanding yours may be different.
What is the purpose of a soul? To animate, to give us life? But isn’t that what the spirit does? From my experience of different religions, the soul exists for one purpose, to be judged by a god and dealt with according to that judgement. It’s nothing more than a gambling chip used to bet your way into paradise. And if there is no paradise to get into? If there is no deity to judge, what of the soul then? If deity does not exist then not only does the reason for a soul not exist, but also there was no being to make that soul to begin with.
No painter, no painting. No sculptor, no statue. No deity, no soul.
One reason people give for reincarnation is number of souls. Apparently in an unlimited cosmos there is a limited number of souls that can exist. This is supposed to explain the ongoing of our species, since we are all suppose to require a soul and only a limited number can exist then we must all take a used, hand-me-down soul. Well, what if there is no soul at all and what we call soul is nothing more than the combination of what I mentioned earlier? A soul that is created after our birth and dies when we do. If we each create our own soul through living, then there will always be one for each person no matter how many, because each is making their own. Conveniently, it also solves the overcrowding of heaven dilemma which is one of the reasons for reincarnation to begin with.
I’m not the only one who sees no reason for a soul to exist. I don’t know why so many do belief apart from the concept taught to them when very young and the fear of what might happen if they aren’t deemed acceptable enough by a deity. Maybe the Pascal’s Wager of the soul still exists because people are too afraid to give it up ‘just in case’. At the end of the day, I don’t think believing in a soul hurts anyone unless it terrorises them and prevents them from being able to live and enjoy their own life. I just hate deception and I see believing in something that does no exist as a form of personal deception.