Your Soul, Its Origin and Its Destiny

Judaism and its sister Western religions such as Christianity and Islam all teach that we have a soul.  There is an immortal part of us that existed before we were born and will continue to exist after we die.  But where did this idea come from?  Surprisedly, it is never explicitly stated in the Bible.  The idea of an immortal soul was an idea which Judaism borrowed from Plato and Greek philosophy.  One might say that Western thought is a mixture of Athens and Jerusalem, Biblical religion and Greek philosophy.  But what does the Bible say about the soul?  What about modern philosophy?  Descartes taught that "I think, therefore I am," we are thinking beings.   We have a mind.  But is the mind the same as the soul?  Many materialists would claim that the mind only exists when the body exists, and disappears when we die.  But the soul exists after we die.  So is the mind different from the soul?   Or is it possible that mind permeates everything; that the universe itself has a soul?  Join us for this exploration of the meaning of the soul in Western thought.  We will explore religion, philosophy, science, and mysticism to better understand the Jewish idea of a soul.