Don’t mind me Tony.
I’m just a fuckwit who likes writing (deep thinking = serious questioning) stuff,

Although I’ve left gods behind, except as characters in some fantastic stories, I still feel it’s a moral obligation to take care of this rock we live on so that future generations aren’t scrabbling for survival.

Amen to that, OB.

Higher spiritual beings? Consider me an agnostic on that one. I’m more of the mind that if biological beings can evolve souls as much as intelligence, maybe yes. But maybe souls are an absolute, in which case no. It’s not a simple question, though.

No it isn’t, Tony.  I believe that souls are not absolute, but evolved, and the higher spiritual beings they become are our sense of right and wrong, the only hope we have of passing on the living world to our children.  Whether that higher being is expressed as a belief in some religion, or a belief in humanistic principles, is secondary, as long as it works.

I believe that souls are not absolute, but evolved, and the higher spiritual beings they become are our sense of right and wrong, the only hope we have of passing on the living world to our children.

That’s a very useful approach, zilch, and one that, as you said, that can be “expressed as a belief in some religion, or a belief in humanistic principles”. And I agree that it’s very important to see that expression as secondary to the stewardship.

My pet theory that I was throwing out was whether souls are not the supernatural things believers consider them to be, but a natural, biological, evolution-produced “organ” - just as a heart, lung or cerebral cortex, even. I can’t think of a specific genetic advantage, but maybe it was the first memetic advantage we developed?

I don’t think souls really exist. A body is a body, and thats it. Your mind is a physical organ (brain) that processes information and all that jazz.

Theres no ‘soul’ that passes on anywhere else, or that even exists, for that matter.
Of course, theres always the idea of a ‘soul’ being a metaphor for something like personality, or the panorama of a person.
Like, for example, if I were to say “Oh, hes gonna eat my soul! Noooo!” I’d be wrongfully seperating body and mind. But if I were to say “I think that music is in my soul, because I can’t go a day without it” I might be referring to a soul as my nature, my deepest and most inner personality, metaphorically.

But yeah, definitely crossing off the idea of some kind of ethereal/metaphysical soul or being.

To be paranoid, I’m fairly sure souls are utilized by Christians and other monotheisms to further seperate the body and the brain (an impossible task to complete) to make the idea of pleasure=sin more acceptable. By associating the physical body as something that is pointless, its teaching you that the physical pleasures you obtain are pointless.

What you said, DrM.  The soul exists only in the same sense that, say, “good taste” exists: as a part of one’s mind, which is something the brain does.  A useful concept if not abused.

Thanks, DrM. A not-unexpected response, given the audience and one that I can’t offer evidence for or against of course (proving a negative rule, and all that). I agree with you that the idea of a soul has been abused. I also agree that the “idea of some kind of ethereal/metaphysical soul or being” doesn’t exist. I’m not ready to cross off the idea of a completely natural yet undiscovered form just yet though.

Good conversation, all! Thank you.