Do all creatures have souls

[Fairyana]

"We might also avoid confusion, even while employing the word soul in the three senses
defined above, by adding to it some qualifying term that should specify the point of view
from which we consider it, or the mode in which we apply it. It would be, in that case, a
generic word, representing at once the principles of material life, of intelligence, and of the
moral faculty, each of which would be distinguished by an attribute, as is done, for example,
with the word gas, by adding the words hydrogen, oxygen, etc. Thus we might say-and it
would, perhaps, be the best plan to adopt-vital soul for the principle of material life,
intellectual soul for the principle of intelligence, and spiritual soul for the principle of our
individuality after death ; in which case the vital soul would be common to all organic beings,
plants, animals, and men ; the intellectual soul would be the peculiar property of animals and
men ; and the spiritual soul [capable of moral faculty] would belong to men only."

The Spirit's Book, page 24.

[Tabby94]

Reading ''Proof Of Heaven'' by Eben Alexander, he talks of butterflies, so perhaps all of God's creatures have souls ?

[the_crow]

All the small souls make up the big soul.
What is a soul, anyway? Do you know?

I know I have one. I am one. But I feel humans are not born with one.
Rather, like a seed, they contain everything necessary to grow one.
And that is the purpose of humans.

Have you ever considered that humans might be the lowest form of life, on the scale of divinity? Certainly, they mostly behave as if they are.

Grow a soul. Nurture it. Set it free.
Your purpose is fulfilled.

Originally Posted by the_crow

All the small souls make up the big soul.
What is a soul, anyway? Do you know?

I know I have one. I am one. But I feel humans are not born with one.
Rather, like a seed, they contain everything necessary to grow one.
And that is the purpose of humans.

Have you ever considered that humans might be the lowest form of life, on the scale of divinity? Certainly, they mostly behave as if they are.

Grow a soul. Nurture it. Set it free.
Your purpose is fulfilled.

That's a new one. How quaint. We grow souls? What makes you think that?
What do you think animates your body? Aren't we connected to our souls with what is called the silver cord? Once the silver cord is severed the body dies. The body is the vehicle of the soul.

What happens to the soul you have grown? Do you believe that all of you, including the soul you have grown, is obliterated upon death?

[the_crow]

The 'you' - the real you - that you never knew, becomes your soul.
The soul you grow is your vehicle into the beyond.
You are familiar with paradox? The whole grows by degrees. It is eternal, but its parts must start somewhere, in order to also become the eternal whole.
It is, of course, unexplainable, yet it can be experienced.

Of course souls are not obliterated upon death :)
That really is a quaint idea.

My two cents worth. There are invisible things in physics, like the wave-function, which probably exist but are undetectable. We can see the interference patterns caused by two interfering wave-functions in the Two Slit experiment. In my opinion, just as particles come together to created large objects like mountains, trees and people, I believe that wave-functions also aggregate together into things that might be described as spirits, spiritual entities, ghosts, disembodied spirits, etc.

As a result, all life has a soul or is part of a soul or spirit of some kind. When your body dies, your spirit is released back to the spirit phenomena that some might call God.

Originally Posted by the_crow

All the small souls make up the big soul.
What is a soul, anyway? Do you know?

I know I have one. I am one. But I feel humans are not born with one.
Rather, like a seed, they contain everything necessary to grow one.
And that is the purpose of humans.

Have you ever considered that humans might be the lowest form of life, on the scale of divinity? Certainly, they mostly behave as if they are.

Grow a soul. Nurture it. Set it free.
Your purpose is fulfilled.

Good one crow even though i like to feel i am born with a soul...i do like the bit about the seed containing every thing to "grow one"....or as i like to think "expose one"......have a great day

[emilyhoney]

yes, all "things" - inanimate objects, robots, air, grass, worms... they each have a consciousness. not all those who have a consciousness are physically able to express it :)

if you are interested in this, i would recommend the convoluted universe by dolores cannon (particularly book 3) - she does past life regression and even regresses people to lifetimes as stars, a worm, robots, rocks, etc.

i personally believe that we should try to acknowledge all things around us as having a consciousness, express love and thanks, and see ourselves as living alongside them in this experience :)

xx

Originally Posted by emilyhoney

yes, all "things" - inanimate objects, robots, air, grass, worms... they each have a consciousness. not all those who have a consciousness are physically able to express it :)

if you are interested in this, i would recommend the convoluted universe by dolores cannon (particularly book 3) - she does past life regression and even regresses people to lifetimes as stars, a worm, robots, rocks, etc.

i personally believe that we should try to acknowledge all things around us as having a consciousness, express love and thanks, and see ourselves as living alongside them in this experience :)

xx

Yes i agree with this post....thankyou emilyhoney for putting it so nicely.

I'm still trying to understand how the simple and common experience of suffering can be reduced to neurons and molecules. The science crowd is so sure that consciousness is a bunch of biological processes of the brain; yet there is nothing in physics or chemistry that has anything what so ever to do with suffering or consciousness. It's all just energy, entropy, potential energy, velocity, probabilities, etc...

Certainly we can feel the presense of chemicals introduced into our bloodstream such as adrenalin, dopamine, etc., but how can a structure of neurons and biological cells feel suffering or pleasure or anything at all?

To this end, I think that something fundamental is missing from science. Something akin to a spirit or soul. From a biological evolutionary point of view, why is the pursuit to understand conscousness or to find the soul so important? Human beings have won the evolutionary game. We can breed and survive easily. Why all this need for spirit? What is driving that need? Unless it's because we really do have a soul.