Third || [Voice]

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

I do not use this thing often; I see little point in it. Many people use this Network to ask questions, I’m not sure if I see much point in that either. It’s not like we will remember the answers we are given here. We will return home and things will cycle on. People will die and destruction will continue. People know this, yet they still ask questions. Maybe it’s good enough to get an answer here, even if you will not remember when you leave. Or maybe people ask because they are simply curious. That is part of why I wish to ask a question: simple curiosity.

What does it mean to have a soul? Some say the soul decides if you are good or evil, without one you’re simply a monster. What is a soul? What does it mean to you?

Comments

[video]

[whitewolfland.livejournal.com]

What's a "soul"?

[video]

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

You are not familiar with the term?

Voice;

[ahhmahgawd]

Not havin' a soul don't make you a monster.

Voice;

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

So you say. Others say different.

[ajrimmer-ssc.livejournal.com]

Good bloody question. I'm fairly sure I've not got one, so if anybody has a bit of soul to spare, I'd not turn it down.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

You do not have one? How did that happen?

voice;

[prettymorlock]

I don't think not having a soul makes anyone a monster.

voice;

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

Why is that?

[lyingbrat.livejournal.com]

My soul is Pantalaimon.

Without him, I'd just be a ghost and a body- just an empty shell.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

What is a Pantalaimon?

[unnamed-nothing.livejournal.com]

It doesn't mean anything. Souls are just an excuse not to be responsible for your own decisions.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

How does that work?

voice

[godspowerranger.livejournal.com]

I think you're right when you say—it's enough to have an answer here. Even if you don't remember.

But souls… Souls are important. Without one you're not a monster… but you are a shell.

voice

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

It seems rather pathetic to be content with that.

What makes you think that one is simply a shell without a soul?

[spiritgun]

Souls don't decide whether or not you're good. You decide that.

I don't know. I guess I've still got my soul, but I never thought to check.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

That is what a friend told me once. I am not so sure.

Why would you not have a soul?

[punmanarmy.livejournal.com]

I dunno if my soul decided I was good or evil, but it sure decided I'd have a lotta people after it.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

People are after your soul?

[loltraitorlol.livejournal.com]

Good, evil, that doesn't mean scrap. A soul is merely what differentiates something with conscious experience from something without it. A drone from a living, thinking being. That's all.

You know, you organic life wouldn't have such nasty theological conundrums if you just found an easy way to detect the fragging things.

[lyingbrat.livejournal.com]

People see Pan easily enough.

[darkprophecies.livejournal.com]

There are certain types... races, if you will, that are without souls. But I do believe that the human race in general are given them, regardless of how they were created.

PRIVATE AS SMEG

[ajrimmer-ssc.livejournal.com]

...Races. Meaning demons, I'm guessing.

You do not get to lecture me about my soul or lack thereof and then turn around and say things like this, Raven.

[crackofthunder.livejournal.com]

I have no idea.

We never called them souls. We called them 'sparks.' The elusive chunk of unmodifiable, unreplicatable programming that made us sentient.

I don't know what it means to have one of those, either, beyond that.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

But the 'sparks' are the same as souls?

You do not have one then?

[make-contact.livejournal.com]

My powers allow me a sort of access to a person that most people never get. I don't think that I've ever been able to make contact with someone or something that doesn't have a soul.

I can't really describe what it IS, but there's just an emptiness to a soul-less body that I feel in my bones. I don't really ascribe to a specific belief system about souls and life and afterlife, but I do believe that souls exist, and that they are an integral and very important, tangible part of what a person is and can become.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

What do you mean by make contact?

Souls seem to be important to many.

[natureinblood]

Monsters are just as capable of having souls.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

You think so?

[wrongmagician.livejournal.com]

Um... I think the soul makes it easier for people to empathize with each other. It doesn't guarantee that it will, but the potential is there. What a soul is, well, uh, I don't really know. I don't think anyone really knows.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

How would it help people to empathize? Some know about it. Some know how to use it to do things.

Voice;

[in-likeflynn.livejournal.com]

It is certainly a difficult thing to define, something that could be easily argued until the last.

To me, it is almost... The ability to be self-aware, I suppose, to be accountable for one's own actions and to determine the way one's life should be lived. Even if it is difficult, at best, to describe in terms of tangibility, it is the part of an individual that is their own, no matter the circumstance. It is what goes on, the testament that you leave once your body ceases to function.

Voice;

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

Then what happens when you no longer have one?

[solvedchevron.livejournal.com]

I don't even know if I believe in souls.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

They are real. You should believe in them.

Voice;

[of-animalia.livejournal.com]

Soul's, like... Church-speak for actually realizing you're alive. You worry about more than eating, reproducing, and having somewhere to stay. You have emotions, you worry about dying... Stuff like that.

Voice;

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

Church-speak? I have not heard it put that way before.

[temporaltossed.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's the soul, it's what you do with your life that counts.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

That seems to be a common answer.

[voice]

[jewpryde.livejournal.com]

Souls are overrated.

[voice]

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

I do not think so.

[Voice]

[soultospare.livejournal.com]

[Big sigh from Pixie because OMG BAG O' WORMS.]

Why are you doing this?

Alright. When I was a kid I just thought the soul was just some abstract way of explaining why we are the way we are. It wasn't until the past few months or so that I learned it's made of real material that can be used by powerful people, as currency, or as a weapon. Although I'm fairly sure those aren't the purposes for which it was designed.

[Voice]

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

Why am I doing what?

I have not heard of it being used as currency.

[meaculpable.livejournal.com]

Without a Soul, you condemn yourself to Purgatory for all eternity. With one, you're forced to end up in either Heaven or, more likely, Hell, to be tortured and bled for all of time.

I gave a demon a soul, once upon a time. He did not enjoy the experience.

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

I have lived in a hell for a long time. It is not as bad as one might think.

Why?

[Video]

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

I guess, to me, having a soul marks you as someone or something worthwhile, whether good or evil.

For my part, I don't know if I have one myself, but I tend to lean towards no.

[Video]

[childoflimbo.livejournal.com]

Why no?