I was talking to a friend about this the other night, and he said that he couldn't believe that, since life without a soul would have no meaning.
And I started thinking... if you feel that it's real, and you're experiencing it as if it's real, why would it have no meaning?
A forgery of the Mona Lisa is wouldn't be any less beautiful. If you can't tell one from the other, why should the origin matter?
Even if it's not produced the way you thought (ie - chemical vs. perpetuated by the "soul"), why would it be any less real?

I feel love; happiness; anger; compassion... they're just as real to me without the belief in a soul. It doesn't make it any less real or relevant to how I live and what I choose to make of life, just because I don't think it's the work of a soul.

What do you think?
If you were confronted with irrefutable evidence that the soul does not exist, would it change your perception of the worth of life?

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I found religion once.
I just found it to be completely worthless.

Post edited at 5:41 pm on Sep. 17, 2008 by HeartofJuyoMk2

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Diana is my hunny bear, my precious angel friend,
and my love forever. Forever and ever my baby doll =D

What are you doing with your life, people?

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"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

You don't need a soul for life to have meaning. As for the 'what is that meaning? What is it all for? It's for this, now. The little pleasures, like dancing in the rain and growing flowers. Making art, and savoring food. Getting to know people, and in many cases, losing them.

This is what it's all about, because this is all there is. It's not depressing, because it makes the here and now that much more enjoyable, because it's all we've got.

FP

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I think we are in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

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Life without free will is not life. Free will is a function of our cosciousness, and I believe you are right, though you couldn't use a more subjective term than "soul".

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Life is what we make it. I believe that our souls exist as a part of us. They're not something we need to go into the "afterlife", or anything. It's a part of us that feels the emotions and dangers of life.

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oh, baby it's a wild word, and it's hard to get by just upon a smile
be the change you wish to see in the world

Everything has its own role to play and whether if that role is predestined or not, whether if it has an intrinsic meaning or not, is not relevant to the experience itself.  What I see as the beauty of life is all of the things that I think and feel, even if I am simply a machine, because that is as rich and as rewarding an experience I can ever get.

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Read what's up there ^, not here!

Just because there isn't some great pre-ordained purpose to which everything has been leading doesn't mean you can't make a purpose for your own life, though. We may be in a meaningless world but we have the intellectual capacity to endow it with meaning ourselves.

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drinking till the daylight hurts
you seem friendly who are you
that's a lot of wine that we got through