December 14, 2005

• Does the Soul Exist?

  This is an entry for Socrates Cafe on“Topic #17: What is a ‘soul’ (eternal spirit)? Does one exist?”. It’s a difficult topic and one that cannot be proven, since each person’s position on it relies heavily on faith, or at least on his/her basic premise about life.

  I do believe that humans, and perhaps other creatures, have souls. My church teaches that the soul is what distinguishes humans from animals, but I am not sure that I accept that belief anymore. I am open to the idea that animals have souls also. I find that as I get older and think more deeply about certain topics, I do not blindly accept all teachings of my religion. I think that that is a good thing, a sign of maturity. A thinking person does not accept something without question just because an authority figure says that it is true.

  So how did I arrive at my belief about the existence of the soul? First, I think it is important to define what I mean by “soul.” My definition may or may not be the same as someone else’s.

  The soul is who a person is. It is not the brain, emotions, or “heart.” I do not believe that a person can experience his/her soul consciously, or at least most of us can’t, but I do believe that we experience it unconsciously and that it determines many things about our lives. The soul is not physical. It is the spark that gives the individual life. Some would argue that it is the biochemical processes of our bodies that give us life, and that when those end, life ends. I do not think it is that simple. As an RN, I have seen many people die. To me, the change that occurs at death is very profound and is much more than the simple stopping of chemical processes. I always feel that when someone dies, there is very clearly something that is not there that was there at the moment before death. I experience this change very clearly as something that leaves. That may be based on my religious education, but I don’t feel that it is. I think that it comes from empiric observation. Many years ago, I read a piece of research that attempted to prove that the soul actually leaves the body at death by placing dying people on bed scales so that they were weighed immediately before and immediately after death. They found a small but significant weight difference. After death, the body weighed slightly less. The difference could not be accounted for by simple loss of bodily fluids as sphincters relaxed, because all fluids lost were still on the scale. I am not sure that that research really proved anything, but it was interesting.

  Many researchers have studied near death experiences in an effort to prove or disprove survival of the soul. Elizabeth Kubler Ross is probably the best known. Raymond Moody is another well known near death researcher. One of the things that I find most interesting about near death experience research is that some researchers enter the field to prove that death is the permanent end of life and end up being convinced that it is not. Still, they cannot prove that it is not because it is not possible to interview a person who has experienced irreversible cessation of vital functions. So, it is still a matter of faith and subject to acceptance or rejection.

  Since science cannot prove or disprove the existence of the soul, why do I believe that it exists? My life experience tells me that it does. I can report several experiences that have helped me to reach that conclusion.

  When I was a child, our household consisted of my mother, her parents, and myself. My mother was 39 when I was born, and her parents were not young when she was born, so by the time I came along, my grandparents were very elderly. My grandfather died when I was 6 years old and he was 87. He died during the night in our home. I was asleep when he died, but my mother and her sisters were with him. Over the years following his death, I heard them tell this story many times.

  My grandfather was blind and had been blind for many years. His corneas were scarred and had become quite opaque, causing his eye color to be difficult to determine. As my mother and her sisters were sitting at his bedside, he began to be interested in something in the far end of the room. He wanted my mom and her sisters to look at it. My mom did not. She remained focused on his face. All of a sudden, my grandfather turned to her and said. “I told you to look there!” My grandfather was able to see that my mother was not doing as she was told. My mom always said that at that point, his eye color returned to the beautiful blue that it had been in his youth. Soon after that, he closed his eyes and died quietly.

  Many years later, after I was married, my mom sold our home and moved to New Jersey to keep house for her brother, who was also alone. She lived out there until 1983, when my uncle died. During his final illness, he had a cardiac arrest and was resuscitated. He was alert and oriented after the resuscitation. He told my mom that he had seen deceased family members and that he had been told that he was not going to survive the illness. He also told her that she was not going to live much longer. He died within 24 hours. My mom lived another 2 years.

  When I was born in 1948, my mom was a 39 year old unmarried mother. In 1948, that was quite scandalous. She decided to keep me and raise me, but she told everyone, including her family, that I was adopted, and, indeed, she did go through the process of legally adopting me. She never recanted that story to anyone. By the time she died, I had come to the conclusion that I had to be from my family because of a series of similarities that were too numerous to be coincidence. I spent a good amount of time speculating on exactly where in the family I originated, but I did not consider that I could be my mother’s biological child. Several years after her death, my husband and I made a trip to Jamaica with our family and some friends. During that trip, my passport disappeared. A few years after that, I needed a passport again, so I tried to apply for a new one. My application was rejected because my birth certificate was issued at the time my adoption became final when I was 4 years old. Now, I had been able to get my original passport with that birth certificate, but, this time, I was told that I would have to produce my adoption papers. I did not think that was a problem, because I had them at home. When I went to get them, though, they were nowhere to be found, in spite of the fact that we are very careful about keeping such documents filed. After searching with no success, we contacted the State of Nebraska, where my adoption took place, to get another copy.

  When I requested my adoption papers, I was told that adoption records are now open in Nebraska and that I could have my whole record if I wanted it, so I asked to have it sent. When it arrived, I received the document my mother signed to surrender her parental rights. With it was the final decree of adoption. They were dated on the same day. She went through a 4 year process of court appearances and social worker visits to finally sit there and sign away her rights to me so that she could go through the legal process of adoption, all so nobody would know that I was illegitimate. When I held those documents in my hands, I had an eerie sense of my mom saying, “Darn! I should have told Nancy the truth when I was alive! Now, I have to find a way to tell her!” After I received my records from the State of Nebraska, I found not one, but three copies of my adoption papers in my house, all in places that had been searched previously.

  My mother did not name my father on any of the documents that I have received, so I do not know who he was. I suspect that my birth certificate, which was issued at the time my adoption became final and says that I was born in Missouri, is not accurate, because my baptismal record, which was issued 1 month after I was born, says that I was born in New York State. My birth certificate has now disappeared and I need to try to get another copy. I am wondering what I will find out when I do.
  

  To me, these experiences mean that there is something that survives after what we call death.  I realize that not everyone would interpret them that way.  That is why this is a matter of faith.  It is something that cannot be proven.
  

  Do you believe that we have souls?  If you do, what is your evidence for that belief?

  Colin is continuing his Socrates Cafe discussion on the nature of torture and would appreciate it if members would stop by to comment and respond to each other. He isn’t able to check his site every day right now, so he would like us to continue the discussion on our own.

  
  

  • 4:38 pm
  • 32 Comments