The soul vs. The self

[MrBishop]

Some people believe in the soul. The soul being some being which encompases what it is to be you. Your emotions, loves, hates, fears etc etc. It's what drives you to do good or evil. It has no ties to the physical body other than it resides in pretty much the same place.

This seems to be the thinking of many conservatives who refuse to believe that anything happening to the body should have any effect on the soul...and its choices of good vs. evil actions or inaction. (Thus the main thrust of the Con argument when a scientist , psychologist or psychiatrist states that a physical condition can affect the chances that someone could become alcoholic, a rapist etc...)

Basically...any attempt to explain a human action is deemed as seeking an excuse for such an action. (*The same can be said about topics such as homosexuality and choice over nature*).

Some say that there is no such thing as the soul..that the personality lives as part of the brain as a series of synapses, memories, experiences etc... and as such, is affected as easily by whatever illnesses the body has, whatever birthdefects, whatever chemicals exist or are added to the body etc.

The latter position looks for physical stimuli and how it might affect the personality. The former feels that these stimuli do not affect the soul.

If the soul does not exist, then the person dies when his or her body dies or when the brain is damaged in certain parts. A stroke or heart-attack might kill the part of the brain where the emotions, language, memory reside (thus killing the 'self', but leave the body intact, pumping blood and breathing.

Those who esppose the soul theory would say that since the body lives, the soul remains...thus the person is there.
Those who espouse the 'self' theory would say that since the brain is dead, the self is dead... thus all you have is a breathing body with no trace of the 'person' intact inside it.

To make this more difficult...this touches along religious beliefs that once the body dies, the soul (container for all that the person was) either moves onto to an afterlife, gets reborn, stays as a ghost, comes back in dreams, or any combination thereof. If there is no soul...the person dies when the brain dies..period!

Anyone care to tackle this one?

[Rían]

I suppose you could categorize me as "conservative Christian", altho I definitely don't fit neatly into that category in all of its ways. I'm a mix between your two descriptions. I believe in a soul, and that people have choice, but I also believe that the body affects the choice (IOW, people can have physical tendencies towards things like alcoholism, etc. - it's NOT just a simple matter of, "well, just don't drink, then!") But I also believe that God knows that our bodies affect us, and takes that into account.

[Nurvingiel]

Another "Best of Mr Bishop" thread?

I'm not even sure what a soul is though...

Maybe it's a similar concept to the "self", but it lives on after we die. The self refers only to this lifetime.

[Lief Erikson]

I agree with RÃ*an, the body is bound to the physical body in important ways. They aren't completely different or separate from one another. The soul uses the body and lives in the body. The body is the soul's home and the soul's primary means for interacting with the physical realm around it. It isn't simply "in the same place," or "entirely separate from the body." Temptations of the body tempt the soul. Things that wouldn't be tempting if not for the body are tempting because of the body.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

I agree that your body effects the soul. People might think something different to you if you physical appearence (eg. eye clour, skin colour) was different, but IMO the general feeling of the sould are uneffected by the body and would be almost the same if the soul was housed in a different body.

[inked]

The soul is the body-spirit unity. We are not complete without a body. That's why the doctrine of the resurrection is so critical in Christianity. Any attempt to reduce the soul to the spirit degrades the true nature of man. Any doctrine to limit man to the consequence of materialistic assumptions degrades man. WE ARE amphibians, to recall CS Lewis' great analogy. Both/and NOT either/or. Similarly, one cannot reduce soul to personality, tho'
it certainly includes that. Check out THE GREAT DIVORCE by CS Lewis for an imaginative construction of this reality.

[MrBishop]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Another "Best of Mr Bishop" thread?

I try