Question for Theists

[vacantcardboardbox]

Since all thoughts, emotions and feelings can be ascribed to the brain, what exactly is the soul?

How do we sense it? Or see it functioning through our everyday lives?

[QED]

This is a perfectly reasonable question. Soul to me is not restricted to humans. I can see soul in manmade artifacts like Jaguar motorcars. In this sense soul is more of an emotional reaction to something rather than a thing in itself.

[Curious]

This is a perfectly reasonable question. Soul to me is not restricted to humans. I can see soul in manmade artifacts like Jaguar motorcars. In this sense soul is more of an emotional reaction to something rather than a thing in itself.

Well, if you read scripture, you will see that soul is not restricted to humans but to things that live. Some people have tried to make it appear to be a purely human characteristic but this is not the case. To the atheist, soul is best described as the part which denies spirit(in the most part). It is not the intellectual faculties that deny the existence of spirit, the denial is made before even these faculties are allowed access to the information to formulate an opinion. To the theist, it is the part which accepts spirit, also(for the most part) before any discernment.

Since all thoughts, emotions and feelings can be ascribed to the brain, what exactly is the soul?

This is not really the case. Thoughts and emotions are really ascribed to the brain's interpretation of experience. Emotions especially rely on experience, as evidenced by the increased emotional response of individuals to circumstances they themselves have experienced. Feelings differ from emotions in that they are more intuitive and there has never been, to my knowledge, any proof that this is purely brain functional (unless you mean the feeling of pain when stubbing your toe, for example).

How do we sense it? Or see it functioning through our everyday lives?

How do you sense your self?

[Bro Dave]

Since all thoughts, emotions and feelings can be ascribed to the brain, what exactly is the soul?

How do we sense it? Or see it functioning through our everyday lives?

That analogy is like saying, all the power for your house comes in through the transformer in the yard, so what is all this nonsense about a huge power plant somewhere.

If you start with a faulty premise...

Bro Dave

[ShieldAxe]

Since all thoughts, emotions and feelings can be ascribed to the brain, what exactly is the soul?

How do we sense it? Or see it functioning through our everyday lives?

That analogy is like saying, all the power for your house comes in through the transformer in the yard, so what is all this nonsense about a huge power plant somewhere.

If you start with a faulty premise...

Bro Dave

The original post was not an analogy, it was simple proven biology.

[QED]

Since all thoughts, emotions and feelings can be ascribed to the brain, what exactly is the soul?

How do we sense it? Or see it functioning through our everyday lives?

That analogy is like saying, all the power for your house comes in through the transformer in the yard, so what is all this nonsense about a huge power plant somewhere.

If you start with a faulty premise...

Bro Dave

As ShieldAxe has pointed out the OP was not an analogy. But you have drawn what you think is a good analogy to something. It is obviously how you see things: you think there is more to living creatures (or is it just humans?) than the sum of their parts. In a very particular way, this is a reasonable thing to say. For example, I would say the same of a well-crafted musical instrument, or the taste of a fine wine when compared to a bottle of cheap plonk. But there has to be a limit. The power station could represent one limit to the supply chain, but it might be argued that the coal it burns is what really counts. Of course the Sun beating down on prehistoric vegetation preceded this and so on.

It's folly to keep scanning further and further back down the trail looking for some ultimate cause or reason. If you go down this path, unless you are being highly (and arbitrarily) selective, then you must also look at everything else in this way. What apart from a laughable excess of pride gives us the right to consider ourselves apart from the rest of the cosmos?

A classic problem is not being able to see the forrest for the trees. I think this applies to some of us when contemplating the very nature of being alive. We arrive at who we are through a fantastically complex web of events. Even starting with a newly born child, a lifetime of events and experiences will result in a personality that might seem so deep and complex that the individual cannot help but see themselves as something that transcends their own body.

However, before anyone gets too carried away, consider unfortunates (myself included) who suffer from stroke or other brain-damaging condition like Alzheimer's . This provides what is know in the trade as a 'reality check'. One can soon realise how dependant all this fine transcendency is on the workaday mechanics of nerve, tissue and blood supply.

[McCulloch]

For those who believe that a Soul exists, does someone's soul change? How do you know? What separates the soul from other intangibles like thought, emotion and memory? (I'm not really being accurate here. We have empirical evidence of thought, emotion and memory.) What happens to the soul when, due to a brain injury or brain malfunction such as that brought on by fetal alcohol syndrome, a subject is incapable or has reduced capability for moral decisions? Would it be different if the subject had been "saved" prior to losing that ability?

[Curious]

For those who believe that a Soul exists, does someone's soul change? How do you know? What separates the soul from other intangibles like thought, emotion and memory? (I'm not really being accurate here. We have empirical evidence of thought, emotion and memory.) What happens to the soul when, due to a brain injury or brain malfunction such as that brought on by fetal alcohol syndrome, a subject is incapable or has reduced capability for moral decisions? Would it be different if the subject had been "saved" prior to losing that ability?

If the body, along with it's incumbent faculties is thought of as the lens, then the soul could be thought of as the focal point. If spirit is thought of as a cloud, then the soul might be compared with a droplet of water.
I hardly think it would be worth coming here if salvation was the only goal.