Soul

C. 40,000 BCE

Soul

Unknown

The belief in a non-physical entity with certain essential characteristics

“The belief in the existence of souls has been prevalent in humankind of millennia. The concept of a soul is through to have appeared around the same time as the emergence of shamanism in c. 40,000 BCE, which can be seen as the first example of religion. The discovery of ritual items at shamanistic burial sites suggests that those carrying out the burial believed in the afterlife, which in turn implies that they believed individuals to have a non-physical component that survives after death. This non-physical component — or soul — can be defined as the immaterial essence or animating principle of an individual life. It is generally viewed as separate to the body and is often created with the faculties of through, action, and emotion.

The oldest religious traditions — shamanistic, polytheistic, and monotheistic — generally agree that the soul grounds the identity of a given thing, and contains in it an organizing life-principle for that entity.

Thus, for example, the vegetative life and identity of a rose is grounded in its soul, in the same way that the sentient life and identity of zebra is grounded in its soul. For some religious traditions — shamanism, for example — the type of soul in a rose, zebra, or human is not clearly distinguished, which often leads to the nation that everything with a soul is of equal value. However, other traditions argue that the soul of a human is immortal and rational, and so is more valuable than the soul of a rose or a zebra, both of which are mortal and non-rational.

The near-universal belief that the soul of a human is immoral has led to the near-universal belief in both an underworld that houses the unworthy souls of the dead and a heavenlike place that welcomes the worthy souls. In the underworld the souls are seen in misery, partly because they are without bodies, whereas in the heavenlike place the souls are often depicted enjoying the fruits of the body. “(AB)

⬆️A dead person’s soul travels through the underworld in this ancient Egyptian papyrus (c. 1600-1100 BCE)

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