Who am I?

What is the soul like?

Rev's Dream Car

Today we explored the issue of our personal identity. Are we just a biological machine with a biological computer in our cranium, or is there more to us than meets the scapple? Do we have a soul and if so what does the soul do.

Cool Car

Aston Martin makes cool cars. Each student was asked to guess what kind of driver the person on their left would make. Most students it would seem will be responsible and careful drivers. Some might easily be distracted and other might have a tendency to be a bit of a hoon or have road rage.

The body is the souls Car

Our body is like a car for our soul. What we do with our body says something about who we are. We use our body to express what we feel, anger, friendship, humour.

Where does the soul come from?

Baby in mum's womb

Some students shared that they thought the soul was something that is earned and developed through suffering, thought and payer. One student asked me when I thought a person becomes a human. I believe that we receive our soul at conception, life starts at conception. Some students thought life started from when the baby is born.

The soul lasts forever

All students agreed that the soul is the part of us that lasts forever. At this point I challenged them to explore this idea for themselves. In what way will you last forever, like a ghost walking around the planet or does your soul go off to another realm altogether. If so what is this like.

The soul’s relationship to the body

The body and soul are connected like a driver is connected to the car. Without the driver the car does not go. A car does not care whether it is breaking the speed limit, it does not care if it runs over a dog or a child, and after all it’s only a machine.

I suggested to the students that our understanding of morality comes from the soul. We all intrinsically know right from wrong even without our parents conditioning. Children exhibit this when they fight over toys, I had it first they say, or he snatched it off me.

Can the body make you commit immorality?

Soul lasts forver

If you get pulled over for speeding you can’t blame the car. The driver is responsible, even if they are driving a sports car. If this is not the case and the body can make us do stuff against our will then we live in a scary world full of people who are basically out of control.

The bodies influence

The soul sometimes uses the body to feel good. People eat comfort food to make themselves feel better. But this is not something that actually deals with the problem that is making us feel bad in the first place. Sometime the body craves something and we find it hard to say no because the body makes us feel bad if we don’t give into the craving. I would like to encourage everyone with the idea that no matter what the body does or wants the choice is still yours. I’m not saying it will be an easy choice or a painless one but without this hope we are reducing ourselves to animals that are driven by instinct rather than something higher.