I will start off by saying it is futile to attempt to define soul because it is an ineffable concept and therefore undefinable. I am sure we all get a general "feeling" about the concept we are talking about which is enough for now...
Exactly. The subjective cannot be dismissed. This is the problem of science. As long as these debates go on people are missing the point. We will NEVER understand the intangible. And the intangible will always exist. If it did not, we would not have the tangible. Just like we would not have science and reason without spiritualism and imagination. Reason has its uses and its limitations. If you subscribe solely to reason, and proudly claim your atheism, you are no better than the religious fundamentalists. You accept one side wholly and I daresay irrationally. What!?! an irrational atheist??! Sure, your reasons for being an athiest are quite rational....but you are rejecting the subjective completely (now that's irrational!), refusing to accept it has any validity. In doing so you cannot derive meaning from nothing and as Peguy said that is like saying "I am dead." And effectively you are...that is, if you are a true adherent to this. However, if you get out of bed every morning, and trust yourself to drive to work not thinking about the possibility that, or reality that, the floor might not be there when you get out of bed, or the odds of your death on the drive to work, you are placing faith in something (Those who do not are mad, they have faith in nothing,thus, no faith in life. Their reasoning is infinitely rational, but leaves no meaning). If you are alive you must have some microcosm of faith in something. If you have faith solely in reason, you will have nothing. An intelligent theory is not anything outside of itself. It has no meaning. G.K. Chesterton said:
A few more thoughts from G.K. Chesterton who understood this well. ( I am going to quote Chesterton extensively because he puts into words, beautifully, the exact thoughts I have had on this subject because of my own revelations)
About materialism … leading to nihilism.
About belief in self leading to solipsism
And now the really important part!
Which brings us to the point of this post…to defended the ineffable, infinite concept of the soul… or some sense of the immortal being (call it what you will but an infinite concept cannot be describe well enough in finite terms).
So this brings us to the Latin phrase : Credo ut intelligam… meaning “I believe so that I may understand.”
Again, this final quote from Chesterton sums this up well:
In order to live properly, you must accept this duality in life. It will never go away. In terms of Myers Briggs, T must develop its F and F must develop its T.
If you cannot understand mysticism, and the spiritual nature of man, you are doing something wrong. You are sorely missing something massively important and inexplicablly magnificent. Just because you cannot see it in front of you, or feel consumingly, it does not mean it is not there (However, sometimes it is there...you know, those unexplainble occurances like visions, true seers, NDEs...etc. Things that are universally accounted for and still unexplained.). It exists in everyone who lives. Faith, that is. Spiritualism will never be explained by science, but spiritualism does not try to explain science. They complement each other. You will never believe in soul if you do not allow yourself the possibility of its existence. To develop spiritually you need to be open to it and embrace it fully. It starts off subtle and the first step is awareness. No scientific data will convince you it exists, or make you feel this. It exists in the realm of the infinite. Science is and always will be finite. This is why I believe in the soul. Everything else becomes lucid when you place faith in the infinite. I have gone down the path of extreme solipsism and it does lead to madness. However, I realized things exist outside of me as much as things exist only inside of me. This is ok. It must be this way. Without both light and dark, we would see nothing.
) because the absense of life is marked. Soul must go somewhere. --> Lifeforce of the Universe. Pure Light. Antimatter. Somewhere we cannot fully consciously understand, grasp, nor measure yet.
