Asklemmy

If we mean "consciousness that can exist separate from the body", then no.

I think I'll remain agnostic on that one. Ask me again in 50 years and I'll probably know the answer by then. Unless I happen to somehow reach the age of 106 without dying, in which case I'll take a raincheck.

It seems like a way to take all the things I don't understand particularly well, and put them in a category that I fail to define precisely.

My preference is not to do that, because I have a hard time believing in something that I can't characterize reasonably well.

As an atheist, I would love to be proven wrong - that there's a benevolent all-knowing entity who guarantees eternal life in meadows lush with rivers of milk and honey (throw in the 72 virgins while we're at it). If there's any one thing that even remotely has a chance of changing my mind to accept this fantasy, it is the thought of being reunited with my pets when I die.

Word games. "God" and "Soul" are so ill-defined you can get literally anyone to agree that those "things" (thinks?) exist. If I define "soul" as "repeating emergent pattern of genetically and environmentally internal state and observable behaviour in a sentient species" I maybe could even get some people in this community to agree that such a concept exists. If I use a more religious definition like "magic non physical entity bestowed by an eternal god" all I would get is a resounding "NOO!". It is the memetics strength of those concepts by being incredibly flexible and vague that will ensure their ongoing use and existence - and questions like this one.

I don't believe in a soul that's separate from the body, or that lives on afterward. But the way that "inanimate" matter can spin up thoughts and feelings and a consistent personal experience that can last for decades... It's almost fair to call that thing a soul. It's fair to talk about nurturing your soul and growing a soul.

I haven't see any measurable proof of one, or any experiment proposed that would render the idea of a soul falsifiable or not. Honestly, the current debate in philosophy/neuroscience on the existence (or non-existence) of free-will seems like a more important question, that if answered in the negative would have major implications on even the definition of the word 'soul'.

Fun question though, I've enjoyed reading the diversity of thought on the matter in this thread. :)

Agnostic here brought up with Buddhist grandparents. I like the idea of reincarnation - (I don't deny not truly believe it) you need a "soul" to leave you physical body and to repeat in an endless cycle. Nirvana is when you break free of this cycle and gain enlightenment.

The idea that a part of us may live on has helped cope with mourning a lost one. But that's really it - in the face of mortality, sometimes you find mechanisms to cope. Don't think I answered your question...

I would call myself an agnostic, and I suppose I believe in a soul... In that they are a (potentially inaccurate) way of describing the singularity of oneself.

We contain something which has conscious thoughts, and awareness of "itself" while existing. I suppose that would be a soul, no? We can remember and have individual lives with isolated moments no one else will ever know. Are those memories really only random creases in our brain? Do the feelings and deeper experiences for you wash away as nothing alongside the mechanics of those memories? What makes us... well, us?

I like to think the soul is just that, the part of ourselves that is truly unique, and can only fully be witnessed internally. The part of you that is only ever going to fully exist in the here and now, while still recalling the there and then. That which gives us the full breadth of emotion tied to deeper thought, and hopefully some understanding. That, at least, is a miraculous thing to get to experience... spiritually or not.

The immutability of a soul is a different question, one which we'll get an answer to after the physical living stops.

i don't believe in god but i think life is infinitely profound; as profound as an idea like the soul. so i guess it depends on your definition of soul and how creative or spiritual you are

I'm agnostic. I do believe we have a soul, I just think we haven't discovered what it actually is yet. Like, scientifically we're not quite able to explain yet what makes a soul a soul. I'm not sure if a soul disconnects and "moves on" somewhere/somehow after a body death, or if it also dies out with the body, but I like to think there is a disconnection there. I agree that it makes me feel better about death in general, so yeah, maybe that's why I so easily accept such an idea?

But, it feels like more than that to me. It's fundamentally what makes each of us individualistic in terms of the choices we make. It's what makes me, "me."

I'm going to tie this in with abortion, so I apologize in advance, Lol, but I'm 100% convinced that the abortion debate will never come to a conclusion unless we discover what a soul is scientifically. Right now the picking at random physical stages, like a heartbeat or lung formation/ability only goes so far, because it doesn't explain what makes each individual so individualistic. No one will ever convince someone who believes a soul starts at conception that abortion from the start is anything but murder. (To be clear, I'm pro-life, though 100% believe there's a cut-off point).

So, to sum it all up: yes, there's a soul, though i dont tie it to any god or religion. yes, I believe one day we'll prove there's a soul scientifically, we just aren't there yet.

I believe that what defines a person is a pattern of neurons firing in the brain. I also believe that if said pattern could be perfectly replicated on some other medium (along with all the associated physiological inputs that keep it humming and changing), that new pattern would be indistinguishable from the original.

There are infinite possible outcomes to every action, branching off from each moment. And there are also infinite parallel realities that branched off of previous moments. The pattern that is your consciousness will also branch off infinitely. But imagine a fork in the road where one direction is death. Your consciousness cannot take that route, because it no longer exists on that branch. But it DOES still exist in the other, and it has no choice but to continue onward.

Thus, you will never experience death.

Your consciousness may change along its beaching paths, perhaps contorting into something completely new, but it will never truly end.

Im Egoist, so technically atheist, there are none until proven otherwise.

Nope.

Well, I use the word "soul" to sum up what makes a person a person, their base values, moral standpoint, what they love and hate etc. The warmth of a person. In the same way I would say that somebody forfeits their soul because of their acts. And I'd argue that our soul "lives on" after we die in the people we've made an impression on or in general through the effects of our actions. But some magic person-container? No. We die and then we're dead.

all these "deleted by creator" posts in a thread about atheism sound a bit ominous. @Jongaros@lemmy.ml are you ok?

It's a useful term in sentences like "This hurts my soul", but I don't need the metaphysical claims around it.