Atheist Analogies #1: The Soul and the Afterlife

As I mentioned in the previous post BD has already done a wonderful post on What the Soul Means, but I wanted to add something to that.

When I speak of a soul I'm not talking about something supernatural. It's not an entity to itself that magically combines with our body after birth. To me the soul is a byproduct of society, consciousness, and beliefs. It influences our lives, and part of it even continues on after our demise. The soul influences the thoughts, actions, and behavior that makes us who we are. The things and people we love and hate, what we're willing to stand up for or against, who we enjoy spending time with, and even the books and music that we prefer are all influenced by it. The term "soulmate" can even be taken to mean someone who shares beliefs and/or interests.

The "good" soul is one that tries to help make the world a better place than when they came into it. They support the rights of everyone, make an effort to improve the life of the current and future generations, and understand that their actions now will influence the future. Thanks to the information age, they even have a way of sending their message to a large audience without having to spend finances on travel and publication.

Then there's the "bad" or tarnished soul. They spend their days hating those different than (or in some cases the same as) themselves and/or work to make future generations retain the same bigotry, live for themselves and not for the rest of the world or future generations, and in general try to set the world back by endorsing ideals that are detrimental to society.

Both of those lead to the afterlife. Of course, I'm not refering to a Heaven, Valhalla, or Hell (or Hel) of religous nature, but to what happens after our demise. Our actions and beliefs have an effect on those around us. Our offspring in particular are affected by our beliefs and how we've lived our lives, but also anyone who's observed us. Anyone who's had any authority over another influences how those people think and act. Someone respecting you even gives you an amount of authority over them. Particularly, it influences how they remember you and "honor your memory".

After you die they'll follow your example. The influence your actions and beliefs had on them will affect their interactions with the world around them. Perhaps they will start a charity in your honor, make donations to an existing charity, start a scholarship for students who show promise in a field that you were passionate about. Conversely, they may spend the time after you die furthering all of the things that you got wrong but now have no way of correcting since you're pushing up daisies.

Some of you reading may recognize my concept of an afterlife as a legacy. How we influence future generations is at least as important as how we influence the world around us while we're still walking on it. Once we're dead there's no way to change what we've said and done while we were alive, so don't waste the time you have.