Belief_in_a_Soul_Is_Just_Wishful_Thinking

‘Belief in A Soul is Just Wishful Thinking’. Discuss Different philosophers have many different ideas whether our soul exists or not. Some may argue that belief in a soul is just wishful thinking, while others believe that our soul does exist. Some philosophers are materialist they do not accept that there is an immortal part of thee human body called the “soul”. Materialist believes an action is the result of a chain of events, and eventually science will be able to explain everything. Whereas dualisms hold that our soul determines our personality and the body is an outer shell for the real self. Plato is a dualist and he believes that the soul is eternal and uncreated, both pre-existing and outliving the body. He believes that the body is part of the material world, but the soul belongs to the world of the forms, or world of ideas, and as such is non-physical. Plato believes that after our death, our soul will be reborn into a new body. Plato believes that the soul does exist and it is not just a wishful thinking. He said that the mortal and finite physical body is nothing more than an endless source of suffering and frustration, distracting the soul from the eternal truth contained in the world of the forms. The soul and body are therefore antagonistic, and the soul is immeasurably superior. But it is difficult to arrive at an exact explanation of Plato’s beliefs about the soul because they changed over time. Plato believed that the soul is pure and simple and does exist. But the existence of soul had an important implication for Plato’s beliefs in the afterlife, and of the rewards for a virtuous life. Plato appears to have believed that the soul will be reborn in a new body (i.e. belief in reincarnation), and that those who have virtuous lives will somehow be rewarded, but his opinion varied across his various works. Therefore it has implications and some opponents may argue that because his work varies, the soul is nothing but a wishful thinking. But John Hick has argued that there are flaws in dualism and accepted the logical materialist conclusion that the physical body is the only component of personhood. In other words, the soul is not a separate entity from the body. Survival without the physical body is impossible, Hick still wanted to believe in the idea that death is not the end of the person, and set out to show that life after death. But it cannot be proven, is a possibility that a rational person could accept. As the survival of the body is essential to the survival of the mind, Hick said that the only such way an afterlife was possible was if our physical bodies were recreated in a different world. It is these other worlds that we call heaven and hell. The recreated body will have the exact same appearance, awareness and memories as the individual. Modern Christianity may find this view weird, but Hick said that this is perfectly possible, because the destruction of our physical bodies sets no logical barrier to them being created by an omnipotent God, and also pointed out that his theory was closer to the Biblical accounts of the “resurrection of the body” than current Christian beliefs. Without evidence we have no reason to believe what Hicks says about the recreation of the body, so he pointed to Para psychological examples such as telepathy and séances as evidence that the dead continue to exist in another world. Hick had to admit that these examples could by no means prove his theory, but he thought the evidence was sufficient to at least make belief in it reasonable. An obvious flaw of Hick’s argument is that the resurrected person is not the same person as the one who died. But Hick said that this it not true and gave the example of a man called John Smith who disappears and at the same time someone exactly the same as John Smith appears in Calcutta. We would have to conclude that the person who appeared was the person as John Smith. If it is possible for someone to reappear on Earth and still be the same person, it must therefore also be possible for someone to reappear on another world and be the same person. Being recreated is therefore jus like awakening from sleep. John Hick’s argument is supported by Peter Vardy in the Puzzle of God: Vardy types some comments on a student’s essay, saves the file on his computer, and prints a copy for the student. He can print a second copy, in every way identical to the original, though printed on a different piece of paper. In the same way, God could produce an exact ‘reprint’ using every piece of information about us. This new ‘us’ would be an exact copy, using new materials. Only one copy is made in order to preserve the identity of the individual. Vardy claims that this is in line with traditional Christian teaching, in which St.Paul writes about a transformed body. However critics are concerned about the transfer of identity from the original body to the ‘transformed’ body. Aristotle on the other hand believed that the soul was more than just a function of the body, but it was a distinct entity which animated the body and directed it. Aristotle believed that there was a hierarchy of souls according to the type of the organism, and that the nature of the organism’s soul depended on its place in the hierarchy. The plant soul is bottom of the hierarchy, possessing only the processes of growth, nutrition and reproduction. The animal soul is far higher in the hierarchy-animals have the ability to move, and have desires and feelings, which are more or less complex depending on the type of animal. The animal with the most complex desires and feelings is the human being. The human soul is therefore top of the hierarchy. Aristotle’s theory is that life and the functions of a living organism depend on a “vital principle” that is non material and separate from ordinary physical and chemical processes. And he didn’t rule out the possibility of a God. For Aristotle the soul does exist and it is part of the body that gave it life. But he did not fully considered where the soul comes from and if the soul does go together with the body where does it go' Furthermore even though he did not ruled out the possibility of God, nothing in his theory explains where we get our souls from. If not from God, it could be due to evolution. The traditional Christian view certainly believes in a soul, the soul is immortal, non-material and not subject to disease or injury. When the soul is separated from the body, the body dies. It is the presence of the soul which animates the body, and allows humans to think, communicated with other humans, and feels emotion. After death, the soul continues to perform these functions without the presence of the body. What existence, if any, the soul had before its incarnation is almost never regarded. Most Christians presumably believed that the soul pre-exists the body, but this leaves unanswered questions to its origin. Christians hold that only human has souls, and that no other animals do. Christians believes greatly in after life and that the soul was given by a man called God. Some say that the soul goes in non-physical place called heaven will it will live with God in eternal place and happiness. Roman Catholics and Orthodox accept purgatory. Christians believes that the soul do exists. In my opinion the Christian point of you is the most convincible as there’s no complication on the existence of the soul. But if you do take away the idea of God, then the argument does fall into pieces. Overall a soul is not just a wishful thinking for some people. Some people actually believe that the soul exists inside us or separate from our body. For Gilbert Ryle he believes that the soul is a category mistake not the same categorical level as the mind and body because it is different. But the soul is not separate and it’s the way we act in the world. Christian believes that the soul does exist and not God has given it to us. While Aristotle believes that there are different levels of soul. As for Charles Harthshorne, he believes that what survives death is simply the memory of the individual, preserved in the mind of God. Nothing in regards of the soul is needed in order to survive the after life but only our memory.