The word "soul" can also refer to a type of modern music (see Soul Music).
The Bhagavad Gita, one of the most significant Hindu scriptures, refers to the spiritual body or soul as Purusha (see also Sankhya philosophy).
The soul's evolution is always towards God and away from the material world.
Maimonides, in his The Guide to the Perplexed, viewed the soul through the lens of neo-Aristotelian philosophy, as a person's developed intellect.
Some believe there are at least three souls for every person: one soul coming from one's father, one from one's mother, and one primordial soul.
The modern English word soul derives from the Old English sбwol, sбwel, which itself comes from the Old High German sкula, sкla.
The soul is described as being without taste, color and cannot be perceived by the five senses.
To know the soul is to be free of any gender and not bound by any dimensions of shape and size.
One of the main issues is whether the body and soul are separate or there is unity, and whether they remain so after death.
According to the Hong Kong Basic Law, the present third term of the Legislative Council has 25 seats directly elected from geographical constituencies and 30 seats elected from functional constituencies.
An important part of spiritual practice for some Taoist schools is to harmonize/integrate those three souls.
Psalm 63:1 "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water."
According to traducianism, the soul comes from the parents by natural generation.
According to the Roman Catholic Church, every human being receives a soul at the moment of conception, and has rights and dignity equal to persons of further development, including the right to life.
The Qur'an does not use the word jihad to refer to warfare or fighting; such acts are referred to as qital.
Among Western philosophers, the ancient Greeks provided much insight into the nature of the soul.
Over time, philosophical reflection on the nature of the soul/spirit, and their relationship to the material world became more refined and sophisticated.
The non-physical aspect, namely the soul, includes his/her feelings and emotions, thoughts, conscious and sub-conscious desires and objectives.
The apostle Paul said that the "body wars against" the soul, and that "I buffet my body," to keep it under control.
Nevertheless, in recent decades, much research has been done in near-death experiences, which are held by many as evidence for the existence of a soul and afterlife.
Greek philosophers used many words for soul such as thymos, ker/kardie, phren/phrenes, menos, noos, and psyche.
When modern scientists speak of the soul outside of this cultural and psychological context, it is generally as a poetic synonym for mind.
The soul is the center of the human will, intellect (or mind), and imagination (or memory), and the source of all free human acts, although good acts are aided by God's grace.
Aristotle describes this concept of the soul in many of his works such as the De Anima.
The liberated soul, which is formless and incorporeal in nature, is said to experience infinite knowledge, omniscience, infinite power and infinite bliss after liberation.
The next two parts of the soul are not implanted at birth, but are slowly created over time; their development depends on the actions and beliefs of the individual.
Classical rabbinic literature provided various commentaries on the Torah, which elucidated the nature of the soul.
The metaphysical concept of a soul is often linked with ideas such as reincarnation, heaven, and hell.
Pre-Pythagorean belief was that the soul had no life when it departed from the body, and retired into Hades with no hope of returning to a body.
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
Most Daoist schools believe that every individual has more than one soul (or the soul can be separated into different parts) and these souls are constantly transforming themselves.
Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) saw the soul as having three elements: the nephesh, ru'ah, and neshamah.
According to the pre-existence theory the soul exists before the moment of conception.
According to him, the soul is an actuality of a living body, and thus it cannot be immortal.
Francis Crick's book The Astonishing Hypothesis, for example, has the subtitle, "The scientific search for the soul.
MacDougall weighed dying patients in an attempt to prove that the soul was material and measurable.
Plato, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, considered the soul as the essence of a person, which is an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being.
Modern skeptics often cite phenomena such as brain lesions and Alzheimer's disease as supposed evidence that one's personality is material and contrary to the philosophy of an immortal, unified soul.
Eastern Orthodox views are very similar to Catholic views while Protestants generally believe both in the soul's existence but do not generally believe in Purgatory.
Chinese tradition suggests that every individual has two types of soul called hun and po.
Any evidence that these experiences were in fact real would require a change in scientific understanding of the mind or would support some notions of the soul.
The ancient Chinese believed that every person's soul consisted of at least two distinct parts: p'o and hun.
Hinduism contains many variant beliefs on the origin, purpose, and fate of the soul.
The full description of a salmonella isolate is given as (O antigens, Vi : H antigen phase 1: H antigen phase 2).
Every being – be it a human or a plant or a bacterium – has a soul and has a capacity to experience pain and pleasure.
The soul (Jiva) is differentiated from non-soul or non-living reality (ajiva) that includes matter, time, space, principle of motion and principle of rest.
Some other schools believe there are ten souls for each person: three from heaven, seven from earth.
According to Jainism, Soul (jiva) exists as a reality, having a separate existence from the body that houses it.
According to the history of metallurgy, the first description of the procedure to isolate antimony is in the Italian book De la pirotechnia by Vannoccio Biringuccio, published in 1540.
The origin of the soul has provided a sometimes vexing question in Christianity; the major theories put forward include creationism, traducianism and pre-existence.
From this perspective, for the soul to exist it would have to manifest as a form of energy mediated by a force.
Dvaita (dualism) rejects this position, instead identifying the soul as a different and incompatible substance.
Daoism considers there are ten elements to the soul: three hun and seven po.
Augustine, one of the most influential early Christian thinkers, described the soul as "a special substance, endowed with reason, adapted to rule the body."
Hence the soul, according to Jainism, is indestructible and permanent from the point of view of substance.
Saint Thomas Aquinas understood the soul as the first principle, or act, of the body.
At death the person's soul transitions to an eternal afterlife of bliss, peace and unending spiritual growth (Qur’an 66:8, 39:20).
Sikhism considers the atma (soul) to be part of Universal Soul, which is God (Parmatma).
Plato, drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates, considered the soul as the essence of a person, which is an incorporeal, eternal occupant of our being.