• Question: What is a Soul?

    Asked by issi2001 to Blanka, Emma, Mike on 5 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 5 Jul 2012:

      I don’t think I have a very good answer for this I’m afraid. Some religious people think that the soul is the part of us that will go to heaven. I don’t think anyone has fully characterised what a soul is…

      Perhaps Mike or Blanka can help?

    • Photo: Michael Cook

      Michael Cook answered on 5 Jul 2012:

      People have always been very interested in the question of what happens to us when we die. If people go to an afterlife, but their bodies stay in the physical world, then what part of them has left?

      This is where the idea of a soul came from. There were lots of ideas for what a soul might be, or how it might relate to our body (some people thought there was a special part of your brain where the soul was contained).

      Modern science doesn’t consider a soul to be a real thing, I don’t think, although lots of ideas about the soul have now become what we call ‘consciousness’ (the ability to think and be aware of where and who you are). Lots of religious people believe we have a soul though, like Emma says. Some religions view it as a part of god!

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