The Search for the Soul
February 6th, 2006 8
Lets forget religion for a moment. Forget what the world tells you about faith or science and ask yourself the question: Do you honestly believe that we are no more than a bag of bones and other assorted stuff that all fits together to make us human? Can you conceive that there is absolutely no more beyond what we can smell, touch, taste, see and hear? If the answer is an absolute genuine ‘yes’ to this, then stop reading. You’re excused. Go off and play somewhere.
For the rest of us, I want to explore why we think this. Is it inbuilt by a creator to lead us on a life long search for him? Or is it a result of evolution, that this longing to believe in something bigger than us, something after death is somehow an essential survival tool that gave out ancient ancestors the edge of the people who didn’t believe.
It’s arguable that the worlds oldest “religion” was Animism. This is a general term to describe the belief in spirits, ghosts, gods call them what you will. Essentially other beings that have a hand in the affairs of man, and by extension a belief in the human soul which survives the body after death. It’s everywhere throughout history, I can’t think of any historical cultures where faith or a belief in something, anything, wasn’t a central feature. It seams to me that throughout the whole of human history we have been seeking “god” in some form or another.
So on the one hand we have a creator. The maker of heaven and earth, that gave us life, free will and an inbuilt desire to find him. If indeed god is the God of the Bible, then an overwhelming theme of life is love. Free will gives rise to the potential for evil. So God takes a risk, he creates these beings that He can love and then sets them free. If they come back to Him then He’ll have love in return, not obedience out of fear. But He also gives them a fighting chance, He plants the seeds of faith, the inbuilt idea that there is indeed “something more”.
On the other hand we have evolution. Darwin tells us that all life on Earth evolved from some simpler form of life over a period of millions of years, certain traits dying out and others surviving based on how well those things equipped a creature to not to get killed. (I know this is a massively simplified version, but for the purposes of this post please bear with me.) So what of things like faith? Could we have evolved a need to believe in things because it gives us an edge over the other guys? I suppose it gives us hope, and hope is a powerful thing.
It’s a bit of a weird one this. I’m now not 100% sure of the point I was trying to make, if indeed I had one in the first place. All I know is that the search for the human soul is not an easy thing, and I don’t think I’ll ever have any kind of an answer until I die.
8 Comments (+0 in the moderation queue).
#1 On February 6th, 2006 at 7:03 pm Starberri said...
Do clones have souls?
#2 On February 6th, 2006 at 10:10 pm Rachel said...
I went off to play… so have nothing to say… but before i go and carry on playing I just wnat to say… good post
#3 On February 8th, 2006 at 4:25 am Paul said...
There’s a church down my road called “The Church of Jesus Christ Scientist” or similiar - I will post a photo on flickr. Just thought you’d like that!
#4 On February 9th, 2006 at 9:01 pm Dominique said...
Paul, I don’t have theChurch of Jesus Christ scientist on my list of religious bunches I trust… Just so you know…
The reason i’m posting a comment here is this: I found an article I read which contains a little aside comparing our human genome to others… For some reason the massive nature of our universe, the complexity of most things that are and the fact we as humans are such dorks the majority of the time are all proof to me that God must exist and there has to be a spiritual dimension to not only us but the whole world.
Did you know that the DNA of Lily of the Valley contains 91 BILLION nucleotides???
If you know how many is in ours, do tell, I’m not sure but I think it’s about half that if i understand the article right!! How humbling if nothing else… a flower twice as complicated as me! COOOOL!!
#5 On February 11th, 2006 at 10:55 pm Dominique said...
This is what the guy replied whom I emailed about the number of nucleotides in the human genome. Feel free to make more sense of it than me. All in all we don’t even push a tenth of what that pretty little flower pulls off!!! Oh, and Boys! we got more than you!!
#6 On February 25th, 2006 at 7:35 pm Michael Levy said...
There is much controversy today over the cloning of human beings. Scientists have successfully cloned sheep and other animals and it can only be a matter of time before we have walking, talking replicas of ourselves. I am not getting into the discussion of whether it is wrong or right, for that will be a debate that will rage for a long time to come. Science and religion have always been at loggerheads with each other. There is no wrong or right and many wars are caused by strong beliefs that rely on the ego’s view of the world. The only truth is spirit’s truth, not just the stand-alone human ego.
The Question here is will a clone have a soul?
I asked this question recently on a spiritual forum and the views of some very well respected spiritual folks were quite mixed. I concluded that it all depends on how we define a soul and who we think we are. These are deep probing questions and many philosophers of the past have come up with a variety of answers, but humanity as a whole has not settled on any one answer to date.
So what is the answer. Lets look into the future and take one scenario:
A person by the name of Will is fifty years old and lives as an atheist. Will has undergone many cosmetic surgeries for vanity. Does Will have a soul? Of course he does; right? He may not recognize God, but that does not mean God does not exist. Atheists may not know if they have a soul, that does not mean they do not have one.
Now Will is very wealthy and decides he would like a clone of himself so his image is left behind after he dies. The clone is made and is physically identical to how Will looked when he was young -all natural with no cosmetic surgery. The clone studies hard, grows up very religious and becomes a priest. Does the minister not have a soul? Will God disown the minister? Who is to cast the first stone? Is the “Will” of God the same as the “Will” of the clone?
What about the advancement with microchips? Very soon we will have robots that can think for themselves. Maybe solar powered, or they may even be powered by inhaling oxygen. Science fiction is fast becoming science reality. Androids may well look just like humans, but that is artificial life and a machine will not have a soul – or will it? It may well be the machines become more intelligent than humans and we are ruled by them. Extreme thoughts though possible sometime in the future.
Now more than ever folks need to understand who they are and the reason they exist. If we go through life with no idea of who we truly are, we will get more and more lost in the high-tech revolution. We need a sound foundation to build our lives upon.
Every life-form contains a soul, and even a clone will have a soul once the breath of life is infused into the body. We will never be able to know who was born and who is a clone. Spirit is in all life and those that want to think humans have an exclusive contract with spirit will feel anger and hatred towards a cloned human, if they can distinguish one from a naturally created human. Many folks will say a clone has no soul therefore is not really human.
Many folks think they are superior to a dog or cat. Many folks believe animals don’t possess a soul. All this blind “dogma” has been programmed in humans for thousands of years. That is why most folks can’t be happy. They have to guard their possessions and many humans believe that they possess God exclusively of all other species of life. Some even go so far as to think some other humans are not in God’s camp at all. Many different tribes of thought, lined up in divisions of ego’s blind thinking and so much time wasted worrying and hating others.
Oh! by the way, did I mention genetic engineering? I heard today they can put genes in our foods to make us fit and well. Maybe also to control our minds in case we feel like rioting against the clones..?
Athletes are experimenting with all kinds of stuff to make them compete faster. One-hundredth of a second can mean the difference of big money sponsorship, and athletes will try anything to make themselves winners. The latest thing I read was wasp juice from the larvae of killer hornets gives a big boost. Some seek a menu of caterpillar fungus, seal penis and extract of sea horse. How lip-smackingly scrumptious!
With such competition in sports, it will not be long before gene therapy is introduced and injected into sports folk. We will be able to tailor-make our bodies. No need of the surgeon’s scalpel. So we will re-manufacture a human being to suit a trend. We will become designer beings. Stem cells are cloned cells so many humans will be injected with cloned cells. Does this mean they will lose their soul? The possibilities of modern science boggles the mind. The cures for many diseases maybe just a few years away. No illness means longer lives. Can the planet cope with a population explosion?
This is just a brief glimpse into the future. What would folks say who lived two hundred years ago and could comment on today’s lifestyles? Whatever will be will be. Science will advance and humans will survive in spite of their ego selves.
The moments of life are precious and few. We are put on earth to enjoy our lives and what wonderment there is to see a sunrise, to hear the birds sing, to gaze at a sunset. The free things in life are enough. Simplicity in all things is the answer in any era. Everything else is just the icing on the cake. How big a slice do we need?
Remember: Enjoy life and don’t fret about so-called advancements. All is perfection in the soul’s world and that is the real eternal world. We are all souls together and NOTHING CAN ALTER SPIRIT.
We all need to recognize we are the energy that drives the motor, we are not the motor. We are the energy that feeds the mind, we are not the mind. We are the energy that feeds the thoughts, we are not the thoughts. We take a ride on the carousel of life, but we must remember not to go round so fast or it will make us sick and dizzy. The seesaw makes for one down and one up and we don’t want others down at our expense. Best we all ascend in spirits’ elevator together.
[slightly edited for content]
#7 On February 27th, 2006 at 9:45 am Jon said...
Thanks for the long and interesting post Micheal (although I get the feeling yours is more of a stock answer to promote your book).
I was having this discussion with someone a few days ago, at what point to we declare life? If we could make a computer that would essentially ‘think’ for itself, would we say that was alive?
Well one of the fundamental ideas of Christianity is that God created all the Earth and everything on it with a word. He spoke and it came in to being. But when it comes to man, we’re told he shaped man with His ‘hands’ and breathed in life. Thus separating man as special in the mind of God. His pinnacle of creation. So no surprises, this is the way I’m looking at the whole clone thing…
I don’t see why a clone human couldn’t have a soul, in-fact I can’t see how they wouldn’t. If we’re saying that man is alive only as a result of life from God, then any clone that lives MUST have a soul, or the breath of life.
#8 On October 25th, 2007 at 10:57 pm paul said...
Hi jon .
Interesting article , You said
Do you honestly believe that we are no more than a bag of bones and other assorted stuff that all fits together to make us human?
Were actually not even that the matter that we comprise of now was not the matter we were comprised of ten years ago and similarly we will not be same person in 10 years time
Can you conceive that there is absolutely no more beyond what we can smell, touch, taste, see and hear?
Mathematics . Mathematics exists independently of our existence and of any God like entity . If life never existed there would still be infinite number of primes,pythagoras theorem , fundamental theorem of calculus ,..+
I am struggling with the God hypothesis i think there may be a timeless world like the platonic world of our mathematics where we get can get our morals from but i certainly don’t belive in the sky god of the old testament