Those are metaphysical questions, with which many people have struggled who have neither soulbonds nor multiple selves.
I've had the same questions all my life and have tentatively concluded this: One can only proceed from one's own experience. Science grants us wonderful things, but many have used it to say that anything which cannot be explained is a delusion, a misperception of the mind, a misfiring of neurons. This line of thought liberates us from overly restrictive dogmas, but one quickly finds that the "purely rational" approach to life and reality is equally restrictive.
Occasionally, one comes across a fact which seems to embrace or at least not to negate the existence of an unseen, nonmaterial factor. For instance, it was discovered not too long ago that the part of the brain that processes religious experience is also that which handles the immune system. This could account for many instantaneous, spirituality-related healings such as at Lourdes (which are, often, of immune-system-related problems). This does not imply that spiritual experiences are illusions, only that they have discovered (or think they have discovered) the part of the brain which perceives and processes the event.
As a person in a multiple system, and an outworlder (walk-in) at that, I can tell you that I believe I have a soul. I was certainly raised to believe in the soul's existence as well as its care and feeding, if you will. ;) Faith is often a matter of going by the evidence of one's personal experience. And the spiritual experiences that are of the most value are often the most personal.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-12-12 07:29 pm (UTC)I've had the same questions all my life and have tentatively concluded this: One can only proceed from one's own experience. Science grants us wonderful things, but many have used it to say that anything which cannot be explained is a delusion, a misperception of the mind, a misfiring of neurons. This line of thought liberates us from overly restrictive dogmas, but one quickly finds that the "purely rational" approach to life and reality is equally restrictive.
Occasionally, one comes across a fact which seems to embrace or at least not to negate the existence of an unseen, nonmaterial factor. For instance, it was discovered not too long ago that the part of the brain that processes religious experience is also that which handles the immune system. This could account for many instantaneous, spirituality-related healings such as at Lourdes (which are, often, of immune-system-related problems). This does not imply that spiritual experiences are illusions, only that they have discovered (or think they have discovered) the part of the brain which perceives and processes the event.
As a person in a multiple system, and an outworlder (walk-in) at that, I can tell you that I believe I have a soul. I was certainly raised to believe in the soul's existence as well as its care and feeding, if you will. ;) Faith is often a matter of going by the evidence of one's personal experience. And the spiritual experiences that are of the most value are often the most personal.
Ah, I'm rambling.