Dec 09 2008
Where Does the Soul Go?
Where does the soul go? An answer to this question relies on two things: 1) how you define soul, and 2) what information you use to make your decision.
I consider soul to be a mere word, a concept, referring to an imaginary entity. The soul-concept can “go” from person to person. But the question is really about what happens after we die. My answer to that question, based upon what I know of neurology and biology, etc., is “it goes the way of all ideas — with the plug pulled on the electrochemical energy supporting it, the idea blinks out of existence.”
My guess is that the soul-concept originated as a means of referring to something difficult to put a tag on. Namely, what is it that informs our personality and animates us. “What goes away when the person dies that is not the body, for we can still plainly see the body?”
Even today, soul is a vague concept, often referring to the self, the deepest self, the unchanging/persisting self, etc.
Last month I was drawn by this title to a ScienceDaily post: Funerary Monument Reveals Iron Age Belief That The Soul Lived In The Stone
Not only did the “Iron Age-ers” residing in Turkey two millennia-plus ago believe in a soul distinct from the body, but they further believed that upon death it entered into a funerary monument called a stele: something of a headstone without a corporal body at its feet.
The inscription reads in part: “I, Kuttamuwa, servant of Panamuwa, am the one who oversaw the production of this stele for myself while still living. I placed it in an eternal chamber(?) and established a feast at this chamber(?): a bull for [the storm-god] Hadad, … a ram for [the sun-god] Shamash, … and a ram for my soul that is in this stele. …” It was written in a script derived from the Phoenician alphabet and in a local West Semitic dialect similar to Aramaic and Hebrew. It is of keen interest to linguists as well as biblical scholars and religious historians because it comes from a kingdom contemporary with ancient Israel that shared a similar language and cultural features.
Not many people today believe that “the soul” resides in a stone funeral-marker after death. But many do believe that it “goes” to heaven.
The notions of a soul penetrating stone and or ascending to a transcendent realm seem equally antiquated to me. What will humans believe tomorrow?
that our soul lives on in cyberspace…