The Human Soul

There is an enmity between science and religion. This rift is brought about by the way religious people react to scientific positions that is contrary to the accepted religious stance. One of such views is on the question of a soul.

You see, whilst many cultures agreed on the existence of a metaphysical part of human beings, an essence that was the basis of life itself and that which lived beyond the body; they held contrary beliefs as to where this soul was situated in the body. For the Egyptians, it was the heart, for some, it was the liver and some even went as far as suggesting that the soul is housed in the blood. They made passionate arguments as to why each of these organs held the soul including the fact that the heart could still work, albeit for a short while, after it’s owner is dead.

It was only a few decades ago that a new philosophy came into view, that the brain holds the soul. This belief is so novel that it still hasn’t been embraced by a large group of people, many of us still entranced by the public notion that the heart is the seat of the soul (leading phrases like, ‘I cross my heart and hope to die’ and ‘I love you with all my heart’.)

But I do not agree with even that belief.

You see, I find the idea that humans are made up of three principal things (body, mind and soul) .

No, I won’t argue that the soul does not exist. But I am arguing that the soul does not exist in the way that contemporary humans (insert religious people) believe that it does - a metaphysical essence (in the form of a smoke?) that embodies your conscience and lives well beyond your body to spend all eternity in heaven enjoying, or in hell getting roasted. Even though it isn’t physical, it keeps your bodily features - holding important features like your face, sex organs and even your gait such that you remain recognizable to God when you eventually meet him and the humans you might be able to torment from the after life.

1. The existence of the soul or the capacities it is shrouded with hasn’t been proven - by scientific method. There have been attempts, such as the experiment by Dr. Duncan Macdougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1907 where he ‘recorded a drop in a scale to the quantity of three fourth of an ounce upon the death of human subjects’ which espoused to be the soul leaving the deceased’s body; but the inductive reasoning used in that experiment makes the doctor’s finding a rather hard pill to swallow.

2. The soul cannot be said to live in the heart or the liver of the blood, because of how ridiculous that is when you really think about it. I can only wonder what happens to people who for ‘medical reasons’, acquired the body organ of another human being and discard their own. If I get a heart transplant, do I lose my own soul and gain that of the person who’s heart I have taken on? Does donating blood reduce the age or strength of my soul such that I may eventually gain another person’s soul if I consume enough of his blood? What exactly is it about the liver (other than it’s fascinating shape) that makes it the soul’s abode? Whilst you may argue that these philosophical question with metaphysical answers that I will never find out in this life, I will be inclined to say that such beliefs are not worth holding if they have no standing in this world.

3. What we call the soul is actually our mind. Consciousness, conscience and control are all mental capabilities, a manifestation of our brain function. Whilst this might be somewhat hard to prove, it is possible. If we moved my brain to that of another person’s body, I would come to sit atop that body (albeit without parts of my body and very limited control over the new one giving current medical knowledge).

4. Your moral compass develops to an extent and in response to your environment. It isn’t instilled in us at some point during or after conception, contrary to religious beliefs, It grows with the body, learning from the experiences you garner from stimuli received from the body. This is why moral standards differ based on locality and beliefs in the metaphysical and multicultural.

5. Ultimately, other animals could be said to have souls based on the interpretation of its metaphysical characteristics. If we could train dogs and cats to see certain actions as wrong, if wild animals have things such as pact law (however they are rooted in biology), shouldn’t that be seen as what it is, too?

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