The Concept of Souls.

The trouble here is that ‘the soul’ has so many diverse definitions that it can mean just about anything you want it to mean. Probably no two people would describe the concept in the exact same way. However, I think we can agree that an egg cell has no soul – however you define it. A sperm cell has no soul – however you define it. Therefore, at conception, you have no soul. No cell has a soul, therefore no tissue (a group of common cells) has a soul, therefore no body organ has a soul (an organ being composed of various tissues), therefore you, as a collection of various organs and organ systems must have no soul!

So when did you get a soul (assuming there is such a thing and that it has some degree of tangibility)? Did you get your soul at birth? Perhaps it was on your first birthday? Perhaps you received you soul when you became of age, say 21. Perhaps it’s just as likely that you don’t receive a soul at all – there is no such separate and apart physical thing you get from any higher authority. Perhaps your soul just develops or evolves naturally as part and parcel of your growing maturity over the years, in which case it can’t be totally separate and apart from the body. In other words, if you develop a soul akin to your developing a sense of morality or spirituality, then it can not ‘leave’ the body after death. Translated, your soul (however you define it) isn’t your ticket to an afterlife. It resides somewhere in that brain-thingy of yours, locked somewhere within that maze of biochemistry that collectively makes up your grey matter. As an aside, if you were to clone yourself, would your clone have a soul?

So, do you have a soul? Nope! The burden of proof is on those who advocate that humans possess an indestructible, immaterial ‘soul’ that exists separate and apart from the body and which survives the body’s demise. If such proof (or even evidence) were set in stone the is-there-or-isn’t-there debate would have ended long ago. No one can demonstrate where the soul comes from, how it becomes a part of you, or where it goes to after you’re gone. No one can explain how an immaterial concept can contain hardcore data – your essence in other words. Does a person with a multiple personality disorder and sense of selves have more than one soul? I think not. There’s also the double standard of humans anointing themselves with a soul but not animals. This is another example of humans patting themselves on the back without justification.