Lifae after Death PART V (The Soul)

For those of us who want there to be an afterlife (there's something wrong with your thought process if you don't), we should take strong comfort in the fact that there actually is such strong and varied evidence for it (if needed, please refer to the "Life After Death Top 11" in this section for a quick summary). Although not one of these types of evidence by itself would constitute absolute proof, the sum total of all the evidence is so much more than what we should expect if there were no survival of consciousness. Maybe we would not have any of this evidence whatsoever if there were no survival of consciousness (ie. why is all this varied and diverse evidence present at all in the first place?).
It is quite possible the soul is 'judged' (or more likely evaluated I would tend to think) on how it makes use of its genetics and life's circumstances (upbringing, good/bad fortune, etc.) rather than just it's actions. It would be possible for a highly progressed soul to be given rather poor genetics and it would be judged (or evaluated) on it's improvement taking this into account. The converse could be equally likely. Therefore in the case of reincarnation, when a soul enters a body at birth, the genes of the parents need not match the individuals personality from before the birth - either the genetic match could be a partial one or even no match at all.
We do not truly have free will and are partially slaves to our human animal instincts and genes (as well as it could be easily argued, our environmental conditioning).
The soul using the brain's genetics just like it uses the physical body may possibly partially explain why most people will have imperfections which they don't like about there personalities but can't really change (ie. these imperfections or flaws are actually part of the genetic makeup we are temporarily using but are not from the soul itself).


What would be probable that the soul would 'bring with it' into this life on earth and leave with from this world (and in the duration hopefully improve upon)? A sense of self and empathy, definitely; consciousness, wisdom, and maybe character (or more likely, some of the components that make up character) probably also. Although, love for ones mate or blood relatives may be partially accounted for by a genetic component.
Persons with more advanced souls may show greater introspection (better able to evaluate oneself and 'filtered' to a lesser extent by the brain).
Other things like communications skills, temperament, creativity, optimism, impulsivity, etc. are not as likely and are probably accounted for by our genetics.
Maybe the spirit is incarnated into a body having a brain that has as similar as possible genetic personality traits to its own. This 'matching up' could work by some type of energy frequency synchronization of the soul and the recipient body (brain). This is one possibility (the only one if all our personality traits are part of the soul).

∙ It is quite possible that we had a choice as to whether or not we would temporarily live on earth without the full knowledge that we have everlasting life and God exists and there is a spiritual realm or stay in the spirit world (or some other plane of existence) where we have this comfort and peace of mind. We very likely chose this life in order to 'fast track' the progression of our soul. In the spirit world, where there is likely less or even no pain and suffering, our souls would advance more slowly spiritually. Here on earth we would improve ourselves faster while enduring greater suffering.
Maybe we play 'roles' in this life so that we can benefit from certain experiences and learn the lessons we need to. I think some people incorrectly interpret these "lessons" to be learned as educational in nature when in fact they would be expected to be (at least in my opinion) of a spiritual/empathy basis. For the anecdotal paranormal and religious evidence for an afterlife seems to indicate we would have vast knowledge and much more wisdom available to us upon entering the spiritual dimension and there really is no spiritual benefit to gaining it now. Instead we would here in this life be learning empathy for others (and all life) in different situations/conditions/circumstances. This would seem to be more of a fine tuning or secondary empathy improvements as opposed to core or fundamental empathy changes to the soul although this would be improved upon also with these "lessons".
Possibly, at least some of the time, animals (and even humans) could be occupied by 'partial souls' - souls in the spirit world who do not wish to come back to earth but may still send part of themselves and occupy bodies of life forms to improve empathy through suffering for soul progression. Also, it could be possible that souls may split and occupy more than one life form and all parts of the soul are eventually merged again in the spirit world after the physical deaths of all the life forms. This need not be limited to earth or this universe as this soul splitting could transcend across different universes and dimensions.

The soul may choose, while still in the spirit world, its predisposition to a belief in an afterlife while on earth in order to live ones existence on earth with a greater peace of mind. Then, the person does not suffer as much loss or pain while on earth because they know that everyone who dies or suffers will still end up in a better place and our separation from deceased loved ones is only temporary. The tradeoff is that these persons will not experience as much spiritual progression due to the lessened suffering. Some of these people may dedicate themselves to helping others and/or spreading the word of God (for example, many Christian missionaries may be in this situation).
It is interesting to observe that people who are atheists and are normal intelligent people seem to have no more fear than people with spiritual beliefs that they will cease to exist when they die. And often do care about what are really insignificant things in life which have no bearing on them or their survival and also they may have no impact over. It is quite possible that the soul which might fear that while on earth it may not have peace of mind without the knowledge of an afterlife, chooses prior to birth to have belief in life after death while a mortal being. The soul which is not amenable to these fears while on earth might choose to have no belief in an afterlife in order to make a greater improvement in empathy for other living things. So in other words, just maybe we are 'fixed up' to be comfortable with our knowledge of our mortality or immortality. And if our thoughts on this change during our life here on earth so that we are no longer comfortable, we can still be accommodated by, for example, by finding God through religion.
From what I have observed, almost everyone who is anxious for a time (say more than a few days) about whether there is life after death is somehow 'rescued' and finds comfort through religion or spiritual beliefs. The odd time someone doesn't, the anxiety is only in the short term and over the long term is bearable and either at a low level or only sporadic.

∙ I personally am leaning towards the belief that no single type of evidence for life after death by itself will convince everyone among us. If looked at objectively, every one of the evidence types is, to varying degrees, incomplete or inconclusive and some of it is even ambiguous - almost as if it is all supposed to be this way. Some will believe in life after death based on a single or few pieces of favourable evidence (as already mentioned, this may have been chosen in the spiritual realm prior to incarnation here). Some will not believe no matter how strong and varied the evidence for life after death if it is not 100% conclusive according to the scientific method. Instead, most of us will have to weigh the sum total of the different types of evidence as I have attempted to do on this site. This is because if there is life after death, why have we not been shown it to be the case without any doubt whatsoever to the satisfaction of all? It would probably have to be due to the reasoning previously discussed in this section.

∙ Certain events in our life may be predestined in order for us to get certain spiritual benefits out of this life's experiences. These may be what we perceive as minor as well as major events in our lives. This could still fit in with reincarnation; we may in fact be in the particular life just to experience these predestined events.

Maybe life is not as cruel as we often see it if we ourselves, prior to this incarnation, have chosen the unfortunate events to occur to us that will cause us our greatest suffering while on earth (and may have built up the negative karma prior in order for it to happen). Then we truly would be masters of our own destiny. We would then be in control of how much we suffer in this life in order to reap the benefits of spiritual progression of our souls.
Empathy for strangers can be explained as being able to see ourselves in the same circumstances or situation. But we sometimes have more sympathy for the plight of a complete stranger that for someone we know (but do not despise) which makes no sense from an evolutionary viewpoint. It does make sense though if we see it in the context of something bigger:
A soul (more so for more spiritually advanced ones) often does not distinguish greatly in caring between people we know and do not know unless they are somewhat close to us and instead sees all deserving of love independent of if they are known to us. This is the realization one would possess between lives if reincarnation is what governs life and death.
A very far-fetched, but nevertheless a possibility, is that aliens (if there is other intelligent life in the universe or elsewhere able to access our world say from another dimension) not God created life on earth. They brought life from elsewhere in the universe to earth and allowed evolution (or some other mechanism) to run its course or created it all right here including new species (including man) which replaced ones gone extinct (naturally or from the aliens doing). They then gave us evidence for life after death such as sending messages through Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, etc.; producing entities; having us experience NDEs; give some of us memories of past lives which we never lived; communications with the so called dead (so we were led to believe), etc.. Though it is possible that some but not all of the religious and/or paranormal evidence is due to alien manipulations (some of the religious evidence may even be man having incorrectly interpreted alien visitations as 'gods' and may not even be some grandiose manipulation on the part of alien beings). The reason they would do this would be hard to fathom. However, this would still not explain out of body experiences (OBEs) during the NDE for which such a mechanism of fraud would seem to be so improbable (though still a possibility that cannot be ruled out). Aliens would have to be simulating demonic possession (if there is such a thing as possession) and upon exorcism putting an end to it (usually). It would be very difficult to account for some of the miracles performed by Jesus Christ such as raising a man from the dead or giving the blind sight (but again still a possibility). But you would think that whichever (or all of) the various types of evidence for life after death they are manipulating would come across more 'clear cut'. And ultimately what answer would there be for the question, who created the aliens? Although aliens could have come about through random chance in their world and either created us or stepped in to the picture to do their manipulations on us after we became a species. Nor would it explain the origins of matter and energy or the reason for the Big Bang and what was before it. Regardless, even with such a grandiose manipulation, there could still be life after death.
If we are the subject of experiments by alien beings (possibly including our creation), then the aliens would have to be inherently evil. For I would not expect (but could not rule out) mankind doing such a thing. So a creature more intelligent and advanced should be expected to be less so inclined based on intelligence but this says nothing about the evilness they could possess.
Whoever or whatever created us cannot let our souls disappear into nothingness as previously discussed (in the Philosophical section). But if aliens from another solar system were our creators (much the same way we do genetic engineering though obviously not at this level), then life on earth came about due to their manipulation. Then their Creator (or the Ultimate Creator if they are not one and the same and does exist) would be responsible for our souls (including giving us souls). He would only allow life to occur on earth through the aliens creation because he gave us souls. Therefore, we need not worry that we would not have life after death because we were the creation of aliens - the Ultimate Creator (who we can probably safely assume is more caring and loving than man) would not allow us to cease to exist upon physical death. In fact, aliens creating and/or guiding life's and/or man's evolution on earth, could be part of the spiritual order and it may indeed be intended to happen this way. Of course the possibility still exists that aliens created us and they did not have a Creator and somehow evolved from lower life forms going back to a spontaneous life from non-life.
Thus, even with alien intervention it is still very conceivable that we possess souls and there is life after death and religions were originated by aliens possibly because they were fulfilling their role (unknowingly or knowingly) to bring about certain conditions on earth so future major events would play out a certain way. This could also apply to one or more of the paranormal evidence types for an afterlife also. In addition, it may have been to give a certain level of comfort to many of us while on earth regarding us having a soul that survives beyond our physical bodies.
Our gut instincts may be coming directly from our souls.
Maybe it is no coincidence that the common occurrence of NDEs in the past couple of decades and mediums like John Edward on television are giving us evidence for life after death. It could be because the pendulum had swung too much to that of less belief in much of the world in an afterlife or God because mainly due to advancements in science (and thus materialism being more plausible to many). Possibly this new evidence for mass consumption is presented to return man to a more balanced view (or the pendulum is always being kept in balance).

∙ If all play and no work in ones life, then a feeling of emptiness and unfulfillment is prevalent; one is not as happy as when one engages in both work and play. This might indirectly have something to do with us having to accomplish things here in this life to progress spiritually. However, evolution could just as easily make the same argument in its favour.

∙ There is too much similarity between the four major races of humans (and no personality differences). This is also the case in terms of values, fundamentals of language, etc. between the various cultures of the world. Evolution would predict that there should be more variation. Thus, this would give more support to the Biblical version of man's divine origins.
Just to let the reader know, when I am away from this subject for an extended time period, I get some doubt (more so when I hear or read arguments against life after death), but when I examine the collective evidence again, it always sways me back to where I was when I am immersed in the subject.
I don't have the answers but my best guess is that all living things are part of the universal consciousness and only through its components (like us) suffering can it 'grow' while experiencing life and its joys and pleasures at the same time.