It seems like a way to take all the things I don't understand particularly well, and put them in a category that I fail to define precisely.

My preference is not to do that, because I have a hard time believing in something that I can't characterize reasonably well.

Im Egoist, so technically atheist, there are none until proven otherwise.

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

As in dualism? Nope, I'm a fairly strict physicalist. Consciousness is the brain doing brain-things.

No. Smell the flowers while you can.

Word games. "God" and "Soul" are so ill-defined you can get literally anyone to agree that those "things" (thinks?) exist. If I define "soul" as "repeating emergent pattern of genetically and environmentally internal state and observable behaviour in a sentient species" I maybe could even get some people in this community to agree that such a concept exists. If I use a more religious definition like "magic non physical entity bestowed by an eternal god" all I would get is a resounding "NOO!". It is the memetics strength of those concepts by being incredibly flexible and vague that will ensure their ongoing use and existence - and questions like this one.

Well, I use the word "soul" to sum up what makes a person a person, their base values, moral standpoint, what they love and hate etc. The warmth of a person. In the same way I would say that somebody forfeits their soul because of their acts. And I'd argue that our soul "lives on" after we die in the people we've made an impression on or in general through the effects of our actions. But some magic person-container? No. We die and then we're dead.

I don't believe in a soul that's separate from the body, or that lives on afterward. But the way that "inanimate" matter can spin up thoughts and feelings and a consistent personal experience that can last for decades... It's almost fair to call that thing a soul. It's fair to talk about nurturing your soul and growing a soul.

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

Nope.

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

It's a useful term in sentences like "This hurts my soul", but I don't need the metaphysical claims around it.

Nope.

The mind is what the brain does; when the brain stops doing, the mind stops being.

Agnostic here.

I do not think what people refer to as 'souls' has to have a physical existence nor a spiritual existence (whatever that means). What I think is that the word 'soul' refers to the sum total of a person's feelings, thoughts, and actions. That entity, even though it doesn't have any physical existence, could have effects that can be argued to be immortal.

No, I wanted to explain why I don't believe in their existance, but I couldn't write something without comming off as an asshole, so sorry.

I believe that what defines a person is a pattern of neurons firing in the brain. I also believe that if said pattern could be perfectly replicated on some other medium (along with all the associated physiological inputs that keep it humming and changing), that new pattern would be indistinguishable from the original.

There are infinite possible outcomes to every action, branching off from each moment. And there are also infinite parallel realities that branched off of previous moments. The pattern that is your consciousness will also branch off infinitely. But imagine a fork in the road where one direction is death. Your consciousness cannot take that route, because it no longer exists on that branch. But it DOES still exist in the other, and it has no choice but to continue onward.

Thus, you will never experience death.

Your consciousness may change along its beaching paths, perhaps contorting into something completely new, but it will never truly end.

I think I'll remain agnostic on that one. Ask me again in 50 years and I'll probably know the answer by then. Unless I happen to somehow reach the age of 106 without dying, in which case I'll take a raincheck.