RE: Could you still be an Atheist and believe in a "Soul"?
September 29, 2015 at 5:43 pm
(This post was last modified: September 29, 2015 at 5:48 pm by mackpeterson.
Edit Reason: grammar
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(September 10, 2015 at 11:32 pm)CristW Wrote: I really had to ask. This is truly a Litmus Test of whether someone is an Atheist. Let you all know there is a so-called "atheist" who truly believes that there is a "soul". I agree that if there is a "soul" then there is a Divine source (Plato/Socrates). However, as it has been proven...virtues do not derive from a "soul" so this destroys the Nihilist claim (The Plato argument concerning Gorgas' philosophical nihilism which has been converted into a modern social/political construct).
That's an interesting question. There is no belief system to which all atheists subscribe. I always understood atheism to be an acceptance of reality that does not include a god or gods. Those who do not believe in god(s) generally do not believe in other speculative supernatural phenomenon, and the existence of a "soul" would certainly fit into the realm of unfounded supernatural wishful thinking. But...
It is important to understand what you mean by soul. If you define it as the source of a human's virtue, then a soul could be correctly defined as the physical neurons where memory is stored working in conjunction with the uniquely evolved physical characteristics of our own brains and the way in which electro-chemical signals interact with these two variables. I suppose an atheist could believe in the remarkable nature of this phenomenon and call that "soul?"
I think what is being hinted at is concept of an "immortal soul" or a supernatural entity that somehow exists independent of the physical body. That's just silly. But I'm sure there are those who are of the opinion that there is no god but that there is something called a soul that they define personally. There may be people who accept the reality of there being no god but believe in the tooth fairy. Those are silly atheists.
I haven't read the whole thread, but I hope someone has pointed out that the original texts of both the Old and New Testament do not refer to an eternal soul. The word used in those books is soul meaning a unique individual, nothing mystical. As in "how many souls can you fit in this station wagon?" The word took on the more supernatural interpretation in Judeo-Christian thought only after being translated into Greek in the 3rd Century.
