Is belief in an afterlife or a soul built into the syntax of the English language, regardless of religion?

Question

...for example when we encounter a body, whether it be in the movies, in pictures, or in real life, we may refer that as "his/her body", "____'s body", etc. Why is it that when one is still alive, we'll refer to that individual by their name, but when they pass we separate it into the possessor (him or her) and the possessed (the body)? If they are in fact separate, who (or what) is he/she?

Answer 1

No.  Syntax is the rules used to construct sentences.  What you are thinking of is more like idiom or definition.  In this case, the definition of a 'body' tends to exclude the mind and personality of the body.

If you are looking for a word that doesn't make that distinction, how about 'person' or 'being'.  It is just as valid to say that a person has a hurt elbow or hurt feelings even though it's not valid to say a body has hurt feelings.

I would think that there's not necessarily any theological reason for distinguishing the physical material of an entity from the characteristics that material doesn't display when it is no longer alive or animated.  Death happens.  It's handy to be able to describe the difference at times.

Answer 2

Considering that the English language developed 500 years ago in predominately Christian Europe, yes, the belief in an afterlife has been built into our syntax.

Answer 3

Ancient India had a concept of the soul and afterlife some 7000-10,000 years ago from there advanced spiritual knowledge.  The Atma or soul is the unborn, immeasurable fragmental energy of the Paramatma or 'Supersoul'.  It cannot be created nor destroyed.  The soul is like a particle light whose source is great beyond even infinity.

The soul's consciousness becomes contaminated by material nature with its interaction with matter and physical form, thus it is unaware of its origins and neglecting the formless (the fall of man from grace, the allegorial story of Adam and Eve).  The conditioning of material nature is so ingrained that is extermely difficult to undo, let alone comprehend.  

The body is just a vessel to interact with the physical, tangible world.  When physical death is attained the body decays but soul continues on in the spiritual non-physical world (Jesus taught that all life is eternal).  Thus, it is traditionally taught in the East to transcend the mind/ego/body/physical sense/material world in order to aliviate 'suffering' in earthly life and attain Self/God realization/Nirvana/Enlightenment.

Answer 4

Every language has a word for 'soul.' It refers to what we feel inside when we relate our lives to our pain, our loves, our guilt, our pride, our delight in having life, etc.

We can physically feel our souls, just as we feel the emotions that fill the soul.

I'm atheists, by the way, and I know the soul dies when the central nervous system dies. The soul is not a special kind of energy; it's just energy that we gain because of our consciousness. No newborn has a soul. It must be built on a foundation of metaphysical values.

Answer 5

No!