Defining the Soul

So, what does it mean to use religious rhetoric to a non-religious person? Here are a couple of responses:

Sven Birkets: "To speak of soul is not, for me, to speak about religion; it is not to announce one-self as a church-goer, a born-again Christian, or anything of the kind. Soul, for me, is prior to religion. Religion recognized the idea and posited it as something that it could help save, but not as something that faith brought into being. Soul comes before. I think of it as the active inner part of the self, the part that is not shaped by contingencies, that stands free; the part of the "I" that recognizes the absurd fact of its being; that is not in any sense immortal, but that recognizes the concept of immortality and understands the desire it expresses; that is that desire."

Joni Mitchell: "We are stardust, billion year old carbon; we are golden and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

J. Michael Straczynski:  "Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain, perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station, and the nebula outside-- that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out."

-Delenn, Babylon 5

Annie Dillard: "We are here to abet creation and to witness to it, to notice each other's beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house."

Victor Frankl: "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." Man's Search for Meaning