In response to a question posed at Me and My Skirt

So do I have a soul? Wow what a question. Is there some sort of medical test for this? A cat scan, blood test, one of those TB tests where your skin changes color? Or are we really just a sack of water and other chemicals living our lives with this finite future? Soulless guy you pose so many different thoughts that are very intriguing. I want to let you know that you have challenged me with a tough and imposing theory which I very much enjoyed pondering.

The following is a response but may diverge from your original thesis but oh well I’m just thinking here. I find it interesting that we as humans (and by we I mean whoever expresses these thoughts) split so definitely about being alone in the world (soulless) or part of a bigger picture (soulfull – but not in a blues song way). One side says that we are a cosmic goof up, a blip that happen to create this sentient being. And then that sentient being looked up and reasoned (not taking into account that somehow he gained this ability) that he was just a blip. We come from chemicals and are chemicals and will just become a different form of chemicals in the future. With that line of thinking are we really anything at all but a combination of various parts. Are a sperm and an egg each individual beings who form another being. What do we use as a basis of definition?

Part of being a human is that we want to know why. Why are we here, where did we come from, what are we, who are we? Questions, questions, questions. Each of them leads to another question. The idea we like though is that we can explain everything, which really means we can control everything. That is man’s eternal (which seems to be a word you disagree with) quest: To control. We want to control our destiny (we can make anything happen), control our body (define and determine every part of ourselves), control our history (know how we came to be and know how “we” (man) did it). We like and want control. And by knowing the hows, whys, whats, whos, whens, etc. we can control.

I am, by nature, a very inquisitive person. I like questions and I like answers. I like answers I can understand also. And if I can’t understand it I often don’t like it. But does that mean that I don’t accept what I can’t understand. Nope. I don’t fully understand how a plane actually stays up in the air, I’ve heard about lift and wind and jet propulsion and all, but I don’t fully understand it. I don’t understand why if a plane can fly, I can’t? It obviously isn’t a super power but I’m pretty sure if I ran off a cliff I just go splat. All this to say, I still get on airplanes. So I don’t understand flying but I do accept it as something that happens. Now I realize this is a fairly sad excuse for an example but it’s hard to make a point without stretching a little bit. So back to my original question, do I have a soul? How do I tell? You obviously can’t see a soul and you can’t touch a soul so what do you have left to tell if it’s there? Feeling? That is a tough one because I feel happy and sad but are those true things or something I have myself created? Besides the fact that feeling is such a personal preference and hard to define with clarity. My sad could be your depression, my happy could be you elated, my excitement could be your fear.

So if you can’t see, touch, or feel it does that mean it isn’t there? How do you even prove that a soul doesn’t exist? How do you prove that a giant pink invisible elephant isn’t standing right beside you? Reach out and touch it? What if it’s not only invisible but also formless? Listen for it? What if it doesn’t make a sound? The questions go on and on. The fact is you believe it is there or not. I may believe that a giant pink invisible elephant follows me everywhere I go and you have no way to absolutely disprove that this is true.

So now we are stuck at a big division in the road. See I believe I have a soul. In fact, I know I do. How you might ask. Or better yet you may challenge me to prove it. And I wish that I could pull my soul out and show it to you, but I can’t. See my soul is who I am. It is the intrinsic part of what makes Katie, Katie. I refuse to believe that I am a cosmic hiccup. I’ve thought long and hard about my origins, human life’s origins. If we in fact came from chemical soup then where did that soup originate? If the big bang is true, where did the materials for this explosion come from? Show me the starting point.

The entire thesis of evolution rests on the idea that material moves from one form to another over time adapting to its situation. So tell me the original form and where it came from. If we all come from Oxygen and Hydrogen then where did they come from? Please remember that I’m not being argumentative (well maybe just a little but hey we are disagreeing so it is an argument, but a nice kind intellectual one). I’m just trying to function within the confines of the idea.

See I’m supposing that if you believe in the soul you believe that there is something bigger than yourself out there and if you don’t you think we are alone (chemical compounds). That also places you on opposite sides of where we come from. Either we evolved (which lends itself to no soul) or we were created (which lends itself to a soul). So I’m trying to draw a line of thought incorporating these items. Now if you believe we were created and have no soul or we evolved and have a soul then that is a whole other conversation but I’m guessing I’m supposing correctly.

So prove to me I have no soul and I’ll prove to you I do. The thing is we both know we are right in our own conclusion because we each believe in our own conclusion. So to change each others conclusions we have to change each others beliefs. That is a whole other conversation for a whole other day.

I’ve typed way too long to be doing this at work. I’m not sure I even answered your question or replied to your statements in a way that you expected but those are my two (or two hundred) cents on the matter.

By the way, my younger sisters are identical twins and while I do like to refer to them as freaks of nature (hello the embryo split people and that is not predictable, therefore a freak of nature –again man wanting to define and control, and if we can’t we use the work freak – i.e. uncontrollable and unexplainable). So your question about the souls is interesting to me. I do believe that my sisters each have their individual souls and I do think that they have had them since conception. This comes from a belief that if they were each created by God then he obviously knew that there would be two lives instead of one and though I can’t understand but I do accept He created two people with two souls from one embryo. Pretty fantastic if you ask me.