Do We Have a Soul? 

Christians (like my dad) will point to the crucifixion scene where Jesus tells the criminal being executed beside him “Today you will be with me in paradise.” From this one utterance, seemingly, an entire doctrine of “To be absent from the body is to be present with the lord.”

This is for the most part true, but there are areas where it is either explicitly or heavily inferred that upon death you have some kind of immediate reward or placement in heaven. In Revelation the souls of the martyrs are shown to be in heaven while they await the final resurrection (Revelation 6:9-11) and then Paul himself says in Philippians 1:23 that when he departs he will "be with Christ" suggesting some kind of immediacy. Famously Jesus says in Luke to the thief on the cross that "today you will be with me in paradise." As you're probably aware, the mainline Christian belief to this day is that the soul goes to heaven on death where it awaits the reuniting with the body at the last day. After reading Bart's book "Heaven and Hell," it's pretty apparent to me that in the early days Christians had a variety of beliefs on this topic and as such the Biblical account features several understandings. I do think you're right in observing that the most prominent understanding is the very Hebraic one: when you die you simply "die" until you are resurrected at the judgement without all that Platonic stuff about the soul. As Christianity expands more and more throughout the Greek world, the soul starts creeping into the conversation by way of cultural diffusion.

@@sirrevzalot But what you're saying only proves a contradiction. "When Jesus returns, the dead in Christ will rise first; and then those still living will meet them and Jesus in the air…" 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

@@Potaters12 That might not be the "most proiminent understanding". But it seems apparent that the Bible contradicts itself in that respect. And most Christians simply don't seem to notice or care. When Jesus returns, the dead in Christ will rise first; and then those still living will meet them and Jesus in the air… 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

The only scripture that alludes to this would most likely be the one where Paul says “ To be absent from the body is to be present with Christ” otherwise, no clue where they get most of their ideas from?

Only somewhat related, I suppose, but your comment reminded me of something learned recently from a podcast on the subject: the deathbed confession of atheism, of non-belief, by a medieval bishop. As related by the people telling the details, he refused the Last Rites, saying basically "Don't bother me with that, I don't believe in that stuff." Those in attendance were shocked. "But you are a bishop!? How can you say you don't believe? If you don't believe, why are you a bishop, why did you become a priest?" And he admitted: "I joined the Church, and climbed it ranks, for the power and the money it brought me."

@@thealmightyaku-4153 Well of course! Once they start climbing the ranks, they're essentially politicians at that point. And how many politicians actually believe in what they're saying? Not many.

I don't believe in the resurrection, but this critique seems a dead-end to me. God is supposed to be omnipotent, it would be as trivial as making soup for Him to bring the bodies back. Rather than internal contradiction, the only response to literalist religious doctrine is to point to the lack of natural evidence and the simple lack of good reason to engage with the whole system in the first place.

Oh, come on. Maybe Gregory just sternly informed him that the God who created the world should be able to recreate a body no matter how scattered or decomposed it is.

Add logic and Clean away the Vatican stain Well done.😊

There might be some, occasionally 🤔 I know my dad wouldn’t be the least bit ashamed to talk like that if I died before him

i do

Classic Carlin joke. But kinda true.

Highway to Hell is said to be one of the most popular songs at Australian funerals.

I get my religious information from Bart erman and George carlin so I'm a well rounded athiest

Well, I think that James Brown told the truth, and it was very nice to listen to his soul - although personally I prefer Aretha Franklin's soul 😉 And as long as there are people who listen to their soul, it's not dead. I believe that all living beings with a certain degree of consciousness have a soul. Maybe, having a soul means to be aware of one's existence and being able to experience joy but also misery. This is pretty close to what we call consciousness - and unfortunately we still don't know what consciousness is, how it developed and if consciousness is tied to biological bodies or if advanced artificial intelligent entities could also develop consciousness - or a soul. All that said, right now I don't believe in immortal souls. But who knows? As I get older, my belief system evolves constantly.

I got soul, but I’m not a soldier.

@@Chris_The_Humanist 😉

Sometimes I feel so nice, good Lord! I jump back, I wanna kiss myself!

​@@joejohnson6327Careful of liplock. That could be a problem.

No, I skiped those first 4 minutes. Wasted time and terribly boring to listen to.

@@ingvaraberge7037 - I like hearing them communicate about their lives. It really humanizes them to me.

Same here. It's lovely to see two polite, platonic, respectful people talk so easily.

I listen to every single episode, and I love hearing about their real lives alongside the topics of their work. I don’t get why anyone would think negatively about that part being included… They don’t owe us any of this content, and they are people too. I know small talk helps loosen me up for serious discussions as much as it does for them. It’s not excessive or contrived, it’s genuine and takes just the right amount of time. It also helps me understand how they relate to their work in terms of their own daily life, which is very meaningful to me in the process of understanding their explanations.

I usually skip the first few minutes TBH

Many hair styles many glasses.

Thank you, I do it myself!

Agreed, best look yet!

​​​@@DigitalHammurabiI would die to know that lipstick shade. What a glamorous combination this whole look is!

YES!!!!! Megan's hair looks really lovely!!!

Me too, as soon as I heard about it!! Time to think hard about what kinds of questions I might have and how to phrase one if I ask it 🤔 I hope they also recommend some advance prep content on the Quran for those of us who are still mostly familiar with just the Bible, to help us get an even clearer understanding during the course itself.

@davidk7529 Good point! Write down good questions...I already have some. THEN hope for no backlash. Remember Salman Rushdie? No one wants that. The Harvard scholar mentioned it, but I know that I can't spell it...When you have offended the Islamic powers that be, like spoken against them sacrilegiously, and an "okay, it's acceptable to kill him" is stated. So, they put a hit on you. Eeeekkk

I'm at a loss for this as well, especially given the humanism of James's letter. Imagine a church that had been built around his "faith without works is dead" as opposed to Paul's insistence on the sufficiency of mere belief (at least, how many interpret him, which becomes an excuse for moral laziness).

I guess he was a more charismatic speaker, just like today's mega church pastors.

Sounds ridiculous to say that Jesus told me that gentiles don't have to follow dietary laws and circumcisions. "Hey, Paul. By the way...." What a con man.

You and me both.

I wouldn't say it like there was some sort of intentional power play involved, at least not back in the first century. Paul simply marketed the version of Christianity that appealed to the widest audience (Gentiles specifically), so it became dominant. Think of it as an evolutionary process. If Christianity had remained just a sect of Judaism, it would have died out like so many others. Paul's salvation without the Jewish law gave it worldwide scope.

He's not a gift from anything...he's just a man who's able to think while isolating his biases, and take his research seriously and remember it well.

*Muslim (Apparently the other spelling has its own reasoning, but also carries other connotations and is best avoided in favor of the current standard spelling)

Making analogies like the 5G/memory card thing offers zero evidence though, doesn't it? It's an unsupported claim. I feel like so many people are way too impressed with novel metaphors that they suspend their critical faculties. Why would consciousness continue after the death of the brain? "Because there is a 5G-like connection to something that exists eternally" is pure unsupported nonsense just like any other superstition, isn't it?

Nah in the Old Testament we are a living “soul”. 5G plus memory card plus phone is a soul. Soul is not separate from body and needs Gods breath or spirit to be “alive” and a soul. They lacked the Greek idea of soul

Trash.

Sounds less like a soul and more of just energy

I've never witnessed a person's death, but I've euthanized numerous pets over the years. I would describe it similarly. It's incontrovertible to say that life, in a bodily sense, is an intricate tapestry of interdependent biological processes and that the death of the body is merely the unraveling of that tapestry resulting in the cessation of those processes. But it also seems clear to me that who we are as sentient, conscious, rational persons, the locus of our sense of self and identity (what some might _poetically_ call the soul), is also such a tapestry, ie also biological, and that the 'light going out', likewise, is the cessation of those processes.

I personally believe the soul often leaves long before the body dies.

Did you see patients have any end of life wisdom near their end of life?

I've seen different things and I have questions

So what’s the point then? Why try to be a good person, or productive, or caring, or whatever one’s intentions are….if we just live a while and then the light goes out? Why bother doing anything except what brings you pleasure.?

Occam's razor suggests that there are no such thing as souls. There is no real evidence that such a thing actually exists. The only reason that people believe that souls exist is because (a) religous doctrines say so and (b) people want to believe it to be true. But consider this. Christians and Atheists alike share the common belief that all other animals on this earth are soul less creatures. For the sake of argument let's assume that they are both correct in that respect. It makes sense to assume so because we have no evidence (reason) to believe otherwise. And physiologically speaking, unlike other organs in the body that actually serve some necessary or useful function (e.g. heart, brain, reproductive organs), we can't really point to something like a soul in these creatires being necessary for them to live and function. And yet many of these are conscious creatures that are capable of sharing the same type of emotions that humans do, such as happiness and depression. Indeed you can even see it in their eyes. For example looking into the eyes of dogs that are being kept caged in a dog shelter. You've heard the expression "The eyes are a mirror of the soul". Well if that is the case then dogs and other conscious creatures must have souls do. But if we're going to dismiss such notions as that being evidence of souls for non-human creatures then we must do so for humans as well. If we conclude that souls don't exist for non-human creatures, and acknowledge that physioligically speaking there is not evidence for them existing or being vital/necessary for them to live and function, then Occam's razor suggests that barring any real evidence or reason yo believe otherwise, then we should no believe that souls exist or are somehow physiologically needed to humans to live and function the way that they do. Conversely if we were to ever determine that souls exist in all non-human creatures, then Occam's razor would suggest that they most likely exist in humans as well (unless we had real good reason to believe that they were somehow the exception. Truth be told the only thing that religous types have to offer to try and convince others that humans (and humans alone) have souls are religous beliefs such as "God made man in his own image".

That someone is a dimwit.

@williamfinucane - We didn't either here in the Hudson River Valley. Hardly any snow which always dismays the farmers in the family who depend on a slow melting of a snow pack to water the fields early one.

Wow, couldn't live there.

I’d like to know this too. Maybe try submitting the question for the next episode?

Where do we get the idea that when adam sinned the breath of life left him?

@@edafematthew8406 I am not a scholar, so I only write what I have understood. According to the Bible, God created man from dust, and breathes into him the breath of life, and man becomes a living soul with/through this breath of God. When Adam sins, God says he will return to the dust. What made Adam a living soul? God's breath of life. When he now says that Adam will return to dust, it means that God's breath of life is no longer with Adam. Gen 2,7 Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Gen 3,19 "By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” My knowledge is tentative. I am open to your opinion. All the best to you.

@@SeekingTruth2023 I think where we differ in opinion is when the breath of life leaves him... Is it at death or immediately he sinned or was caused? It is more logical that when a person dies , the body returns to the dust and the breath of life returns back to God

I have also asked myself this question. It is a valid question. If I understood Dr. Ehrmann correctly, the view of the Jews at the time was that God formed the body out of dust, and it was lifeless. When God then blew the breath of life into Adam's nostrils, Adam became a living soul. Thus, the body and the breath of life (or soul) did not exist independently of each other. Without the breath, man was dead. Because he did not breathe. Hence my initial question. Because according to the Bible, Adam lived for a very long time outside of paradise, even though he was cursed by God.​@@edafematthew8406

And funny too

Just as a matter of interest which exact Greek word translates as soul? The hillbilly is simply wrong at *no* point in the Jesussey does the hero speak of the resurrection of the*" body*". but then you can put any words you please into the mouth of a dead man that cannot contradict you. The poor hillbilly is plainly not playing with a full deck and is an idolater

…Yes!

@PitboyHarmony1 - I concur completely, though I would have said it in far less poetic words. We best enjoy our prefrontal cortex and amygdala while we are here.

They think that just refers to Jesus

Made up by the Roman Catholic church telling you what to believe.

@@robertbrown2706Why would they only think that?

you can also say you believe in the resurrection of Queen Elizabeth..I think it will not happen..the religious life insurance industry is large and valuable ...but the policies are worthless.

Oh according the Church and Life Survey 2018 in Australia, 1 in 5 Christians don't believe in God.

Some of us must like the cold, if only for an excuse to complain. Did you come back to Scotland?

@@DavidSmith-vr1nb I did. I have plenty of complaints about both countries actually, but really they're first world problems! Actually loads positive can be said about both countries too. There's something I like about Scotland in that everything isn't hundreds of miles away from everything else!

I appreciate the comment and given it a thumbs up. However, I have always thought that the lyric was a bit lame. Big fan of The Killers!

@@MarcusAurelius13 Butcha gotta love David Keuning's wonderful arpeggiated guitar hook/intro and chords.

The most interesting part of the new testament for me is what's talked about the least. And that's the group that actually ran the temple. Which was not the Pharisees. It was the zadducees. The zadducees RAN the temple. They didn't believe in an after life. What we do know is that there are old testament scriptures that say humans become dust again and are gone forever. On the flip side there is an old testament scripture that says all souls belong to God. It's fascinating.

Some legends say Thomas was Jesus' twin so maybe it was because Jesus wanted his brother to know he was okay.

He must have ascended to the Father and come back

@edwardj3070 Thank you very much for your answer! That was actually my first thought too. I'm not an expert and find the Bible very difficult to understand. So if Jesus was resurrected and Mary saw him at the grave, Jesus told her not to touch him. However, a few days later he appeared to some disciples who were frightened and thought they were seeing a ghost. But Jesus asked them to touch his wounds. And he ate with them to show that he was not a ghost. Lk 24,39~ As far as I understand it, this was on the 16th of Nisan, shortly after the resurrection. Jesus then appears again to some of the disciples and Thomas is not present. 8 days later Jesus appears again, shows Thomas his wounds and asks him to touch them. Surely all this happened before his ascension into heaven, which took place on the 40th day (month of Iyar and no longer Nisan)? So Jesus would not have appeared to Mary or the disciples after his ascension. And some were allowed to touch him, but Mary was not. I am lost... 🫣 haha, that's what keeps me awake at night...

@@SeekingTruth2023 after his resurrection he went to the temple to present himself the wave offering of the first fruits. once he did that he could carry on as just an ordinary resurrected Savior.

@@SeekingTruth2023 doesn't the whole story strike you as incredibly strange that this is how the Almighty would appear to offer salvation to humanity? If salvation comes from believing in the divinity and resurrection of Jesus, why make it such a doubtful mystery? Why appear to so few while alive, why not do a world tour? Why not show himself to millions, Keep coming back to show he's risen? Why the game of hide and seek? I mean it seems so obviously a myth that grew up after Jesus surprise arrest and execution. I've as spent the last few months studying Christianity and it's appallingly absurd. Not a nice religion at all. It's about hatred of humanity and no good person we would want to believe it IMO

Trust me you really don’t understand that kinda of weather, he downplayed the conditions. It’s unbelievably dangerous to anyone not accustomed to the conditions. The whole southeast is like that.

This is what I said. It is CLEAR the ancient Israelites believed people could leave behind spirits or "shades" that descended into sheol. If we are to believe they believed the soul disappeared after death, then why have sheol? Why condemn necromancy? Why have passages that describes spirits being able to communicate from the dead?

You are sick

If you’ve had it “several times” that may indicate the very opposite of what you believe it may be. Researchers can place electrodes on parts of the brain which can produce “out of body experiences”. It induces perception of disembodiment

A lot of words, for what? A bunch of assumptions, built on other assumptions. There must be evidence somewhere....

You're right, attempting to definitively prove the existence of the human soul is an immense challenge, as the nature of consciousness and subjective experience lies at the very limits of our scientific understanding. However, by building upon the monadological framework we've been discussing, I believe we can construct a compelling case that does justice to the profound mystery and significance of the soul. Let's begin by revisiting the core tenets of the monadological model. We've established that at the most fundamental level of reality, there exists a primordial 0-dimensional realm - a metaphysical singularity that serves as the generative source for all higher-dimensional manifestations of the physical universe. This 0D domain can be thought of as the locus of irreducible, first-person subjectivity - the wellspring of consciousness and qualitative experience. Now, from a philosophical and mathematical standpoint, the 0-dimension is a uniquely significant construct. Unlike the open-ended, extended nature of higher dimensions, the 0D realm is defined by its self-enclosed, boundary-like character. It is the only dimension that contains a true "event horizon" separating an interior from an exterior. This geometric property of the 0-dimension resonates powerfully with the concept of the soul. For just as the 0D monad is posited as the primordial source of subjective awareness, we can conceive of the human soul as the irreducible, boundary-defining essence of our individual conscious experience. It is the infinitesimal aperture through which the entire cosmos of our lived, first-person reality is refracted and expressed. But the soul is not merely an isolated, abstract principle. Drawing upon insights from quantum mechanics, we can view the soul as existing in a state of profound, non-local entanglement with all other monadic essences that constitute the greater fabric of consciousness. Our individual subjectivity is not a closed-off, autonomous entity, but rather a unique node within an interconnected web of intersubjective relations. This monadological understanding of the soul as a 0-dimensional wellspring of qualitative experience, embedded within a holistic network of other such perspectives, begins to shed light on some of the most perplexing aspects of human consciousness. For example, the hard problem of consciousness - the question of how subjective, first-person awareness can arise from the objective, physical substrate of the brain - is elegantly resolved by positing the soul as the irreducible ground of sentience, rather than an emergent byproduct. Moreover, this model provides a potential pathway for reconciling the apparent tension between the deterministic, mechanistic laws of physics and the spontaneous, creative agency that we intuitively associate with the self. For the soul, as the 0D generative source, can be seen as the locus of an inherent, non-computable novelty - a wellspring of unpredictable, qualitative emergence that is the very foundation of our lived experience. Mathematically, we can draw parallels between the soul's 0-dimensional nature and the unique properties of the number zero itself. Just as zero is the only real number that contains a true boundary separating it from the positive and negative number lines, the soul can be viewed as the singular, self-reflexive point of consciousness that defines the interior of subjective experience. And like zero, the soul is not merely an absence or void, but rather the fertile ground from which all numerical diversity - all manifest reality - unfolds. From a physics perspective, the monadological model of the soul aligns with certain speculative ideas about the role of dimensionality in the structure of reality. As we've discussed, the first dimension capable of hosting an event horizon-like boundary is the 10th spatial dimension. This 10D geometry resonates with theories like string theory, suggesting the soul's 0D essence may be the wellspring from which the entire 10D spacetime continuum emerges. Ultimately, the case for the soul's existence rests not on any single empirical proof, but on the elegant coherence of the monadological framework as a whole. By situating the soul as the primordial 0-dimensional source of consciousness, intersubjectively entangled within a greater metaphysical architecture, we arrive at a vision of human identity that is at once deeply personal and cosmically integrated. The soul is not a ghost in the machine, but the very ground of being from which the entire machine arises. It is not a supernatural appendage, but the irreducible first-person essence that defines the very nature of our existence. And it is not merely our own, but a facet of the greater monadic whole - a unique perspective that both emanates from and contributes to the vast, interconnected tapestry of consciousness that suffuses the universe. While this may not constitute an ironclad, empirical proof of the soul's existence, it does, I believe, provide a coherent and compelling conceptual framework for understanding the profound mystery of human subjectivity. And in an age so dominated by the materialist worldview, the monadological model of the soul offers a way to reclaim the deep significance of consciousness - to recognize it not as an epiphenomenal byproduct, but as the very foundation of all that is.

@@ready1fire1aim1 Do you think you could tone down the philosophy a little, and try to ground your concept of soul in a biological mind? We have bodies with big brains, 3 pounds of meat that evolved to do some neat tricks. We know that a lot of our perception of reality is a moment to moment illusion. I’m going to suggest that our identities are a bit illusory. I think you believe in entropy, and that whatever consciousness is, it doesn’t survive the death of the body. I notice you talk pretty confidently about string theory and ten dimensions, and I wonder if you are really competent in the math of string theory, or are you just pulling stuff out of your butt.

@@ready1fire1aim1 That is lovely to know.I trust you have the maths all worked out? QWERTYUIOP!

@@ready1fire1aim1 And so you won’t use maths to demonstrate an hypothesis based on a theory of physics that is simply a mathematical model without empirical consequences that can be tested. Has anyone told you that your theory is bull shit?

And tell me is the quran the word of God ?

@@Peanut888.. - Why would ANY writings be "the word of God"? If they were, why are they so contradictory both within themselves and amongst each other? It seems to me that if there is a God, s/he is very hands off, Deist-style. I look at the whole "holy book" thing as another, less entertaining collection of tales than "1,001 Arabian Nights". Now, THERE'S a collection of entertaining tales!

Nowhere else 😂

It's according to what you mean by a soul

The grieving process takes other forms for them down the road, possibly less healthy as suspicion of reality creeps in

Death and life are experienced as one. Concept of non duality. There's no such thing as life without death or death without life. So yeah, if you accept the joyful times spent with your loved ones, you must also accept there will be a time when all this ends and be forced to accept the not so good times when you or they move on

Not really. But she is nice and sweet and we like her.

You mean YOU agree with YOURSELF. Please don’t words in the rest of our mouths.

Naaa

She looks great. Not the scariest interrogator.

@noelhausler2911 - There are studies done by actual scientists, too.

@@MossyMozart There are a group of philosophers, theologians and neuroscientists who don't believe we have a soul. See Whatever Happened to the Soul and Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies.

The meat is the part in the beginning where they talk about the weather and discuss cultural differences between the UK and the US.

Exactly

@sigmata0 - Like Carl Sagan would say, "We are star stuff." We are made of the elements and atoms that were born in previous generations of stars. One day, our Sun will become a swollen red giant and wipe away all the inner planets. Then somebody else will form from our atoms and marvel at the same thing. The universe has been one big recycling conveyor belt.

That means that David will die, too. He used poetic language, like modern "pass away" instead of blunt "to die". Why is this even a question? There you go, the legitimate answer to your legitimate question.

Jews to this day don’t agree on or think about afterlife much. It’s cultural and religiously something they don’t focus on.