If the existence of an enduring soul was proven...

[The Grand Nudger]

@OP Q, I can't imagine why it would.  There isn't anything I do on the basis of the premise that I don't have a soul.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

@OP Q, I can't imagine why it would.  There isn't anything I do on the basis of the premise that I don't have a soul.

I don't live under the threat of being punished or rewarded after death either. But I was curious about other people's ideas on the subject.

[purplepurpose]

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Must admit that's always kind of nagged at me a bit.

The religious types, as Gawdzilla posits, say there are all these 'Souls' as well as "Other places" said souls go too.... eventually.

Now, if one of said places is bad (Like worse than the love child of Manson hybridized with Nazis on a bad acid trip bad) why, why, WHY aren't those same people really getting into the physics of interacting with said alternate realities and the denizens thereof so that we can introduce them to such modern wonders as M1 Abrams? Or A-10's?

We simple humans know instinctively what is right and wrong (Another assertion from said religious types) so why is it they aren't getting stuck into the research that would allow us to bring all that is 'Right' about modern combined armes tactics to said "Bad place"?

[Gwaithmir]

I'll let you know when and if the existence of an enduring soul IS ever proven. Until then, I'm too old to give a hoot.

[Angrboda]

A perennial problem with visions of an afterlife is that reflection upon them reveals that they aren't ultimately an improvement on the present, or if they are, they are incoherent or otherwise impossible. Many suggest that heaven would inevitably consist in ultimate boredom. If heaven were perpetual bliss, without an setbacks or obstacles to overcome, it would seem to succumb to a tendency to view it as pointless, which it very well could be. If heaven were simply a continual pumping of endorphins into my brain like some good version of crack cocaine, besides the loss of meaning and pointlessness, any actual biological brain would adapt to this as brains do now to powerful drugs, and would eventually reach a point at which they no longer had the ability to respond positively to the stimulus. We currently have a pretty good solution. We live on a hedonistic treadmill which more or less guarantees that we are always happier than we have a right to be, and yet freedom and the experience of failure and struggle provide meaning. It would seem the only way we could improve this in order to realize heaven would be to ensoul things that are fundamentally different than humans now. Trying to imagine what that would be like seems rather difficult if not outright impossible. The only thing we can build on is the present, by taking pieces of what we are now and placing them in a different context. That results in quite a challenge, basically asking what would be beter than being human. A question I don't have an answer to.

[GUBU]

...would it change the way you live?

(In Atheism because the existence of a enduring soul doesn't automatically prove a god or gods exist.)

The Christians I've known were very consistent in being afraid of death, because, I suspect, they didn't know if they were in the correct camp regarding whatever god was "on the other side of death". This has since made me wonder how they would act if they knew they'd "make it safely out of this world". More reckless? More smug? More placid?

Additionally and not necessarily part of the above, what if we create our "next life"? Would we create a Heaven or Hell? Or both?

I'd have to be given lots of time for thinking before I died. Picking the right hauntee is serious business.

[Rahn127]

If I knew that after I died I would be conscious of some other place, I would find that very interesting.

My knowledge of this other place of existence would mean that information from there to here is being communicated by some method.

It would be the same scenario if one night many people broke into your home, drugged you and you woke up on an abandoned island.

The concept of a soul in which you can't control where you will arrive, nor know how you got there is fuckin scary.

But on the plus side, if I'm no longer limited by my physical body, I should be able to go and do anything I want without restriction.

Nothing should be able to stop me.

[onlinebiker]

Funny thing about " souls"...

Nobody can quite define it, can't tell you what it' s made out of - where it came from, where it resides - or even what it' s function is.

But -- they' re positive everyone has one.

My guess - it' s your appendix.



It' s as good as any other stupid theory floating about.

[ignoramus]

I will answer that on the assumption that it's true.

Nothing will be different for anybody because we're already on our umpteenth soul already (by your criteria) and we still do the same dumb shit