An examination of politics, economics, religion, science, ethics and culture.
Monday, November 21, 2005
The soul and the spirit.
My definition of spirit and soul in people is as follows: the spirit is the inspiring principle or dominant influence, always natural in my view. The soul as I see it is roughly defined as the “inner self”, the “private I”; the soul is the emotional part of an individual or the essential part and is really an extension of ones conscious awareness and personality. I find inconclusive evidence of a “spiritual” part of a person in the sense that the soul or spirit is a phantom like specter that inhabits the human body and upon physical deterioration and death is then released into the spiritual world of either heaven or hell. Understanding these two words as I have laid out there is no need for a supernatural existence to justify them, you can understand them in very natural and humanistic terms; or if you wish you may also define them as very miraculous, unearthly, and supernatural, but taken as they are defined in the English language one is not forced to do so, one may even be led to the more naturalistic definition; for influence is found in the “real” world, example: when one is hungry one is then influenced by physiological urges to eat and nourish themselves, when one is poor one is then influenced by society and a demand of decent living standards to acquire a general education equipping one with the knowledge and capability to produce an increase in revenue. The soul and the spirit are items found exclusively within nature and can be seen as material, there is no necessity to ascribe supernatural attributes to these two items.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
JDhurf,
I enjoyed your comments on Jewish Atheist's website. Have you ever read Pascal Boyer's "religion explained"?
I have not, but now that you have mentioned it I will not be able to stop myself from doing so. I just looked it up on Amazon and it sounds fascinating, I will order a copy! Thank you for the recommendation, it sounds very good.
Post a Comment