Welcome to Gaia! ::

I may be an anticreationist but I still believe in the human soul or spirit. Anticreationist doesn't automatically mean atheist you know. Just thought I should let you know.

Actually I believe that as well.

Really? I think my girlfriend feels the same way too.

I don't believe in the soul on the grounds that the word 'soul' is interpreted by different people in different ways. For example, I use the word soul to mean the perceived essence of someone. Because I perceive someone's essence, or spirit, and because this is not a material thing, yes, I believe in it. I know it exists because it is just an idea in my head.

On the other hand, to other people, a soul is some sort of intangible object which contains energy and cross into other planes of existence upon death. This is a palpably stupid idea. The fact that someone else has labelled it as a soul means nothing to me. I don't believe in it, because it is a realist's idea, and realism is proveably wrong.

saying a person has a soul is like saying they have love in their heart, everyone knows what your talking about, but, they also know its not exactly what it means.

you don't love with your heart, and your soul is just another word, in most cases, for your collected emotional and moral properties... at least thats what i've gathered.

Indeed. And atheist doesn't mean no belief in souls.

And no belief in free will doens't mean no belief in souls either: It all depends on what you define a soul as- I define it as a part of all living things with a brain, which is responsible for awareness, and reactions to things that are perceived- ie thought and emotion.

So a soul can and certainly does exist even if there is no free will, or if there is no god.

Athiests don't necessarily rely on evidence. What if God is an abstract concept, or group of abstract concepts, representing moral worth, perfection, and salvation? The ideas of these things may exist, in and if you are aware of the idea, then you can be sure that God exists. Most people don't agree with that definition, but there is no correct meaning to a word, nor correct word for a meaning. For example, Americans use the word 'jelly' for the English word 'jam'. Same concept, different name. And 's**t' can mean lots of things... faeces, dope, whatever. There is no correct definition of the word.

With God undefined, atheists and agnostics, too, are undefined, making it impossible to make definitive statements about them. This is why I don't use those words to describe myself.