Alright ladies and gentlemen, time to sit down, shut up and learn the very truths of the universe around you. That's right boys, girls, and sentient bell peppers that have learned to access the glorious and expansive internet such as this, I Andrew Pettiglio, will now tell you that which you have desired from your meaty, juicy, and likely sweaty conception: The soul. You read that right my sweet children, the soul.
So I hope your body is as ready as it can get, because the soul is the thing that so many of those glorious (and sometimes confusing) religious texts are ultimately all about. The soul is what is widely believed to be at the very core of the human experience. It's the source of all our existential dilemmas and the moments of crisis that punctuate our relatively brief lifetimes. So why am I touching upon this subject here in The Odyssey of all places? I feel the title is fitting. Odyssey. One of the great epics of history and an adequate description of the journey that is life. So my dear, sweet, impressional younglings in the way of the force, I shall continue in my expose of the human soul (and those of sentient bell peppers by extension).
Some believe the soul to be a tangible thing that we can measure with science and bring a quantifiable value to. Studies in the past have shown that the human body loses roughly 3.4 lbs upon death; there have been claims that is merely oxygen and/or excess gasses leaving the newly-minted corpse while a fair few make the counterargument that this is the soul escaping the body for ascension to whatever plane of reality it's bound for upon the death of the physical shell. Is this wrong? Was the study done under less than scientifically sterile or objective conditions? After all, we as humans and sentient bell peppers suffer almost universally from confirmation bias. Isn't it easier to find proof that you already believe to be there than have it denied, even when you have to grasp at straws to do so? On either side of the argument, we can't know yet whether the soul is a physical entity with current scientific methods.
Onward and upwards as the youth say.
Next is the question of whether or not the soul has some otherwordly value, the question that has driven essentially every religion in the history of man. The Vikings called it Valhalla or Hel, the Greeks dubbed it the Elysian Fields and Hades. Christianity (and the other Abrahamic religions) call it Heaven and Hell. The ultimate fate that awaits us upon our death is the driving force behind so much of human history. So does it exist? Do our actions somehow change the intrinsic value that it holds? Does stealing from a baby condemn us to an eternity of suffering and discontent or is it meaningless and empty in the grand scheme of the universe? Who knows. Ultimately we can only make the decision on our own whether or not to undertake an action. Some would argue that regardless of the act's effect on our immortal soul we should be righteous (Do good for good's own sake as it were). Others will rant until their throats run dry of breath that the soul is the entire reason an act should be attempted or condemned. Take gay marriage for example. For centures it was (and in some places still is) argued that committing to a government regulated partnership would be a direct ticket to Hell and immediately devalued the soul (as well as the human containing it).
The final point is on the nature of psychopomps and how our culture regards them in relation to the end of our physical body and the theoretical ascension of the soul. The most univerally understood and acknowledged in some form or another is the Grim Reaper. A personification of all that we fear in death, this skeletal, black robed figure is the subject of much fiction and characterization by the masses. Some depict him as a malevolent figure delighted to be assigned the task of tearing you away from your mortal coil and escorting you to your otherwordly reward (though some might not designate what awaits them as a reward). Other stories place the reaper as a beleagured existence merely doing the job they're assigned, an employee on the clock as it were. Further stories have even posited that the creature is not a unique existence as an explanation of how the sheer volume of deaths are managed. Regardless of the truth of the matter, the Grim Reaper has become something akin to a universal symbol for psychopomps in international culture.
God and The Devil.
In nearly all religions there is a divine figure that governs all the souls in our mortal domain and directly opposing them is a blasphemous, heretical diety dedicated to nothing so much as the seduction of mortals to sin and eternal damnation in their particular pit. Given the controversial nature of this discussion, I'll only be skimming the surface and allow you to come to your own conclusions. In most religious texts, the God figure is a patient and impartial bystander, only judging you once you have passed on and allowing the weight of your deeds on one side or the other of the scale to speak for themselves. Your ultimate fate is decided by your actions in life and there seems to be a general consensus that not all actions are weighed equally (a lifetime of kicking puppies isn't undone by donating a dollar to charity once a month). The Devil figure on the other hand gleefully interferes with the events of your life and leaves all manner of opportunities to stray from the path of righteousness and onto the slippery slope of sinful hedonism.
That's what the texts say anyway.
Ultimately it's up to you to determine whether or not the soul even exists, let alone what the value of it is.
Thank you for your time.
