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The other night I was having a discussion with my boyfriend in which we were discussing drugs. The happy pills they give for depression. He said he didn't like the idea of a pill that makes you happy, because it basically means that our emotions are nothing but chemicals, and it does away with the theory that human beings have souls.

What do you think? Are we just muscles and bones and chemicals? Or do we have souls that are entirely seperate from this?

I disagree completely with anti-depressants.

Only the person with it's own will can get out of depression.

I believe the pills are just there to make you believe you are happy.

I don't know about the souls neither teh chemicla things,since am not an expert in both topics but I beleive in strong will.

I agree with you on that. The pills are designed to control the chemicals in our brain, because there is a chemical imbalance--(depending on which kind of depression you have...) There is clinical and there is manic. clincal, is a chemical imbalance in the brain, where as manic is more of a mental problem.

Now depending on the medication, it does effect your body. Our soul has nothing to do with the chemicals. I'm not trying to contridict myself here, but from what I have learned...it goes both ways. Yes, our body is connected with our soul, but our body is part of our soul....it has different functions. We are flesh and blood...and those chemicals effect what and how we act. Our soul is the very essence of who we are....if someone were to have a mental problem....would that be an act of the soul? If we were to have something like MPD or Schzophenia(sp?) do we blame that on our soul? Depression is just another mental disfunction that some people go through. I have had it and so many others have as well. When it comes to using medication for controlling it, thats when the soul has no part in it I believe. So, it's a yes and no for me.

Do we have souls?
Nice, drugs immitating who we are?
I suppose unless you want to get really technical about it all, I will give a philisophical view.
While yes our bodies may be complex, made from muscle etc, I think that our soul says how we value ourselves.
To me, it is our personal price tag that says because of all the other qualities I have in my personality etc, this is the end score.
You can go and take drugs etc to make you feel happy and depressed, they are immitations that you buy, they are unnatural, and while drugs can be great in so many ways, they can take away from your soul, they make the emotions which should come naturally from you cheapened, ultimately cheapening you.
Now I don't want to sound like I am getting all goody two shoes, or religious, just answering the question.
But if a soul exists, it is not a physical thing, more a mind-set that without saying a word tells people that you are proud and value who you are, and the the person you want to be.
If you have lost your soul, and need to buy an emotion, then go for it, it maybe its the only way to get it back.
Everyday people sell there soul to feel good, nothing wrong with feeling good, just got to work out the cost before you cheapen a part of yourself in the process.
What would you sell your soul for?

Well said, the last two posters. I agree - that the medication is to help balance chemical imbalances and nothing to do with one's soul.

well scientists have found out that what we concider "love" is nothin but a chemical produced by our brain

our emotions are nothin more then chemicals and impulses that our brain produces

the feeling we feel are meer chemical reactions but our souls are what make us who we are

Zuber...

Love and the way it affects our physical bodies is indeed a chemical, as well as many other things that affect us physically, but love goes deeper than that. It stems from beyond the physical body as well.

And to actually respond to the thread, medications can treat the symptoms of a disease, but not the cause. (In most cases). The soul is your body in the astral realm. It is connected to your physical body, and together they make up what is YOU.

I do not like happy pills, not even when I was taking them. I was being fooled into thinking I was Happy. It only lasted as long as I had them.

I agree with emotions just being chemical reactions within our brains. But, these chemical reactions are very complex, and two different people will not react the same way to the same stimulii. Music for instance, I may find a well-written orchestral piece to induce feelings of calmness and serenity, while another person may find feelings of being energized from the same piece.

So, what causes two people, of the same species, whose emotions are caused by the same chemical reactions, to have completey different emotional responses to the same stimuli?

One argument could be genetics. We each have slightly different DNA. Perhaps that causes differences in what we feel about things? But what about someone that changes their emotional response to something? Does our DNA change that much? I don't think so. I think DNA may have some effect on our individual reactions to stimuli, but it doesn't explain everything.

So what then?

I believe it is what most would call a soul. The soul, I think, is an energy force that gives us life, that is part of a cycle. When we are born, or concieved, depending on how you want to look at it, we draw our life force from a stream that is endlessly flowing. It's made up of two parts, equal but opposite. We each draw different amounts of each type, which gives us different inclinations in our feelings and actions. I don't think this is an absolute, that we can change the balance within ourselves through willpower, and the effects of our environment.

So yes, I think we have a soul, and yes, I think emotions are chemical reactions that can be altered by drugs.

i do agree to a certian point LaM. but heres something to think about:
our mind is a vast array of chemicals and impulses..it makes us see things taht are not there..smell and feel things that are not there..
how can we be sure that what we "feel" is truly there and not a figment of our imagination?
why does "love" only last a short time? why do so many people mis-associate it with lust or affection?
we cant be sure now can we? all we have is our faith

I believe that dr's just give the meds to people to twist their minds into thinking they are happy so they really don't have to deal with them. But for what others have said here only that one person can truely get themselves out of depression and as for the pill they are seperate from our souls!

I think chemicals are part of what makes us human but i do believe we also have a soul.. I think we are deeper then that... I like to think there are some things left unexplained..

well I believe we have souls but so much of us is physical that the chemicals play an important role in our lives as regulators when the physical side of us goes wrong...

i dont beleive in drugs to solve any problems like depression....this is just my thoughts but. if you have depression and you take drugs fro it...aka anti depressions or the happy pill its like covering up your self with something. an anti depressent makes you feel numb in a sense...because being on them at one point in my life i know how they made me feel. they make you feel like you want to feel somethign but you cant. your body is just numb to the point where you cant cry anymore you cant watch a sappy movie and cry because the happy pill doesnt want me to .....its like you put something in control of your life. and you cant stop it.

our souls just get clouded with the drugs we take. it doesnt understand what is going on to actually realize our body is doing something it shouldnt.
I just think we need to come to the understand of what is making us all depressed and start at the sorce not cover it up with somethign else...that way we will always hide from what we are scared we will always run from ourself.....and never be ourselves.....

I hate doctors. When they give you depression pills, they are just saying somthing is rong wid you and that are trying to "fix" you. And we do have souls but people like doctors wont to take that away from us. Do not let them take your soul!


Ps. I am not crazy.

DNA is the blueprint of the colective mass of matta you are made up of

a SOUL is the blueprint of the colective energy that is of this matta.

each unique ever chang'n as we alter our physical and personal growth.

When i was with My Ex i used to take Anti Depressents all the Time and oh so many of them! I was in a complete world of My own a Zombie ... But.. Ya know it was then i could tolerate the Abuse from Him..Finally i got assistance from a Good friend and Got Him out of My life and i have not had to take One Pill! Its amazing! I took those drugs so i could deal with the Abuse and basically allow it to occur ...stupidity i guess!

I agree with la muarte on this on. the soul and the body are two diffrent things and love does go way beyond the brain and the physical.

a SOUL is the blueprint of the colective energy that is of this matta.

i have a soul and if i Get depressed i have several things to channel my depression out and dont let anything depress me basically

I agree with deathcnight in that "the pills are just there to make you believe you are happy". I absolutely say NO to medications unless be stricted needed.

I don't have any proof to believe in the soul... and to be honest I couldn't care less about it since this human body is the only existence I recognize. If I have a immortal soul, that would be great but it doesn't affect my life in any aspect for now...we'll see what happen after my death... I'm excited.

I do believe that we have souls. With out a soul the body becomes a vegetable. Nothing but nerves and tissue. A soul is what makes us individuals.

I believe the human body is very complex and we do have souls and we do have chemicals in our bodies that makes us do things like love, feel depressed etc. I believe the best cure for depression is having a good support system, someone you could talk to abut things, I know this helpes me greatly when I have depression.

Drugs dont cure depression, they merely fix the chemical problem so the root cause of the depression can be addressed and fixed.

Some forms of depression are merely a symptom of a larger problem, and depression is RARELY the only mental problem a sufferer has, quite frequently is goes in tandem with varying problems on the autistic spectrum, MPD, DID, and Schitzophrenia.

In answer to the threads original subject. Emotions are chemical, we cant deny that fact, but emotions are little to do with our Soul. Emotions do not make us the person we are, they are merely something that happens to make it easier to interact with our physical body and the world around us.

The soul itself does not feel or produce emotion.

Why not have them all?
Do you not feel the pull of the body from the Soul? The Soul is neutral to your feelings. All it knows is the heavenly bliss that it had in spirit, and wants to return there. That's why we feel the frustration that we sometimes feel. The Soul remembers, but we do not. The ego, our body, wants to exisits. Which is why it likes the drugs, the pain and hurt, and the false love.
You do feel the pull - do you not?

Shadowofexistence: Without a soul the body doesn't become a vegetable!!!!.

Even if we accept the fact that we don't have a "soul", that does't mean that we are less worthy or complex. The human body itself is marvelous.

A body can live without a soul, a body can live without a mind, and a body can live without emotion. I do not believe that a soul contains your emotions, though it may determine how you react to them. The happy pills may help some people who cannot live with the way they are feeling, and for one reason or another do not attempt other ways of controlling depression. They alter the chemical makeup of the body, and convince the brain that the world is a better place.

I take anti-depressant, I'm not pround of it but I have to for now, I'm bipolar and its part of my path to a better health, it temporary so I just take it as it is for now.

We take drugs to counter act the imbalence thats going on inside our brain. But the soul withen us is seprate from us. Its not physical just emonatinal.

I was diagonosed with cornic depression a long time ago which i have since then gotten over... but anyways i have done alot of research on this..so

We do have souls but they deal with different things like morals and things not excatly our feelings. sure they have a part in it all but we do have many chemicals circulating within us. When those get out of balance we have a hard time pulling ourself out of a depressed period or atleast that is what we feel it as

Who started this thread? Tom Cruise?

When did Nicole Kidman join VR??????

:)

i believe that our bodies are flesh and chemicals but we do have an entirely seperate soul that most r not in touch with

From the scientific point of view everything around us is chemistry including us as well.

i'm not sure how to justify my belief but i do think we all have a soul

mind you i'm a scientist so it should be my job to remove such beliefs but sod it i aint goin to

Happiness is given by chemicals! There are hormones synthesised by our brains called beta-endorphines and one other type that I cannot remember now, that give the good state of mind and the happy thoughts. Those hormones are considered to be the strongest drugs ever known, along with the adrenaline... :)
The soul...well, it might be involved in our state of mind, but not in this way... But until there is an absolute proof about it, I vote for molecules, chemicals and hormones!

I believe that we do have souls and they are not just chemicals. Happy pills are just pills to sedate our emotions

Everything in a beings body is connected in one way or another. To say that chemicals hinder us in anyway is a little incorrect, as it has been mentioned that chemicals help to produce emotions. The pills are used to help balance out these chemicals, to get a persons state of mind back to a level that is tolerable for them. Will this affect your soul? I believe so, as everything is connected. But I think it'll affect it in a good way.

Our emotions and perceptions are controled, maintained, and created by chemicals in our bodies. Our emotions are chemicals. I do believe that everything is connected so I believe the soul is effected by those same chemicals. But why is that a bad thing? That doesn't make us any less "human" or mean that we have no free will. We can be controlled by chemicals and I believe we can change chemicals to some degree in return.

...oh, also as a future psychologist, I belive just treating depression with drugs is insufficient. (I was almost put on them too). The person should be tought to think differently because I believe that major depression is both biological and pushed to manifest by social situatons.

I believe we have souls, and our body is just a container for them. I think how we live this life is how our afterlife/eternity is determined, and where our souls end up forever. Basically, I believe our souls are our afterlife and eternity when we die.
I also think that our souls control love and evil (not hate - I believe that is a mental condition), as they are two almost magical forces. I don't think simple flesh and bones could create love and evil.

I agree with the person before me.
Taking the pills, I dont think, have any effect or anything to do with your's soul.
Yeah, we do work off of chemicals.. but the chimicals are more so "are we happy?" "are we mad?" "are we depressed?" and our souls controll what we actually DO when we are in those moods.

--Chemicals = mood
--Souls = What we do about it

Hope that makes clearer sense.

i think its up to us if we want to be happy or not, ven tho its nice to think all u do is have to take sum (legal) pill and it goes away, its up to the person, altho ive heard ppl say that running or excerising makes u happy bc it creates sum chemical inside u, running makes sum ppl just tired which makes me mad so i dunno....

First of all, I believe that everyone has a soul. It's something your born with whether you like it or not. Let's not forget that there is a difference between your Mind and your Brain. The mind is who we are and how we act. Our brain ( a.k.a. 3lbs. of grey, gelatinous matter ) is an organ. It can malfuntion the same way your liver, heart, ect. can. It might produce more chemicals that can cause overactivity in different parts of the brain. There is a lot more to deal with it. It includes perception, environment, and more. I recommend reading The Mind & the Brain by Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. and Sharon Begley. It will explain it better than I can.

Deep argument. I've always believed to have a soul with only the aid of chemicals. If chemicals ruled us solely... how then would we be able to get intuiton or that feeling in your gut. And again, how is fear ruled? By emotions powered by the soul.

well personaly i think we are just muscels and bones and chemicals and we dont have a seol it is just made up so we can feel better about our selves

I commonly think that way too... Like religion just exists to make us feel better.. but then I get constantly reminded "no, thats not how it works." by spiritual crap.

I believe we do have a soul something that makes us unique and completely human. wether dogs or cats have souls too is likely. if you believe in the afterlife then it is our souls that pass on and regenerate into another form. this could be a plant or an animal. I think that drugs to make people more happy is dependent on the person. for instance if someone has severe depression which makes them unable to function normally then antidepressants are required along with therapy of some sort. i am taking antidepressants and they help me a lot. I have a severe form of manic depression which can be anything from sudden mood swings to completley trashing my house.. its quite debilitating and i havent been able to work for some time. if i didnt have the antidepressants to control my moods then i dont know where i would be today. probably dead or in a mental asylum.

I personally believe that there is such thing as a soul BUT the soul is not what controls emotions.... The soul is just what gives a being there life and individual thought but what controls everything else would be the mind and all the chemicals and stuff that go throught that.....

emotions are cause by the souls acting on the body but if you act on the body you can change the soul cause and effect.

i agree with the person above me...however, i'm not too big on a believer of souls...

So you think that the body can also affect the soul? I am sorry if that sounded rude but anyways can you give an example of that?

Hmmm a thoery I have actualy posted by another member....

Once being on An Anti Depressant myself I realized it only clouded my mind. It essentially forced my worries out of my mind. I focused on school sure but at the cost of my mental will and thoughts of morality and originality. I soon got sick of it. Weened myself off of the drugs so I wouldn't have a sick come down from them. I believe we all have souls, spirits whatever you care to call them. The upbringing we have helps us distinguish the moral from the perverse but in the end its our souls that weigh heavy when we do what is wrong.

Anti-Depressants do not and I will repeat this and stand behinde it 100% does not get rid of creativity, or take away freedom of your mind.... It is there to control an emotion, Which everyone should know is caused by a chemicals that is why when you take the x you are happy for a short period of time then depressed the rest of the time.... The rest of your mind is FULLY funcional..... There are some things like you are more able to get a sunburn and you shouldn't drink but it does not supress the mind from thoughts (unless on an anti-psychotic)

Toilet Duc I still love you - just so you know!! And Billy, me thinks that I love you too! :)

Yes I believe in souls, and yes to the science of the body's chemistry.

I think the "happy pills" are often misused in medicine. They are a TOOL to assist someone in their process of working out of depression. They should be monitored by proper medical staff, not primary care physicians... but that is just my .02

Just saying this before anything . Sorry if I seemed rude and I do truely mean it.

I honestly believe that the chemicals effect the funtion of the brain not the mind. The mind is a part of the soul. The brain does not take the credit for creating the beauty that human nature claims to come from the soul. Things like music, art, dance....they can't come from just a mass of tissue and blood. They have to come from somewhere. And that has to be the human soul.

Yea. Depression is only a state of mind that can be altered through the will of a person. Like the high a person might get off of weed. They need people their to coax them into thinking they are high, til they actually start to believe it themselves. As for the pills...its a way for the government to make money.

i believe that humans are only bones, muscles, and flesh that are vassels for someone elses soul to inhabit with a clear memory.

The pills only make you think you're happy. True happiness comes from the soul. The pills just provide a chemical balance that makes you happy then after a while either you get hooked on them or you make yourself happy and the doctor takes you off them (or gives you more for something different).

Yes pills are just something made that are able to make us think we are happy. It is all chemicals and as amny of you said love is just something your brain makes up..........

everyone has souls, the pills that they give to people just messes up their heads,
take form a person on them

i don't think that just because our emotions are chemically produced, that it meens that we don't have souls. i don't think it has anything to do with our emotions at all

Souls are as thoughts eternal and do not especially belong to a body of flesh n blood. if i die my soul will wisdomly become omniypotent - i hope

You can control some feelings with chemicals because they block the chemicals that caused the feelings in the first place, but I believe that the fact that we can feel these things at all proves we have a soul.

I think the fact that we can even express emotions proves that we have a soul

Exactly. We indeed have souls, the 'happy pill' is only there to alter our feelings, not overshadow or destroy them. I don't even think our soul has anything to do with this.

I don't see why we can't comfortably be both, to be honest.

- D

as someone who suffers from post traumatic stress and someone who is on these "happy pills" most of our emotions are controlled by the chemicals in our brains. However, our souls can influence our emotions as well. when we are feeling down and depressed or even sad it is our souls that make us wish that we were happy. So in my opinion the chemicals and muscles are what we are our souls are who we are.

MRD I don't know what you mean by why we can't be both..... Could you explain?

I can tell you one thing: As i had some very strange ghost/spirit encounters( tha include talking with them...) i'm absolutly sure that we have a soul. The other think is tha althought i have only 19 years , i have already experience some off-body experience. I can tell you that it's very strange and frightening to fell you spirit rising and to see you body left behind. I think this is the final proof that we have a soul!

i have to take happy pill if not i will hurt somebody

how interesting

the old mind and matter paradox again

what if mind and matter are forms of each other , like energy and matter, interconvertible, what if there is no clear seperation or water tightness that distinguishes between the two

the example of mood altering substances clearly illustrates how matter can so easily become mind,

mind also becomes matter as in when one is tense , anxious etc, the blood vessels dilate, adrenaline and epinepherines are released into the blood stream, and the directly percievable phenomenon of raised blood pressure

both these examples indicate clearly that mind is constantly becoming matter and matter mind

the matter of soul now is seperate from these two as matter can only become mind, its reach is till there only

for instance if drugs could feed the soul, the phenomenon of addiction would never have existed, the fact that a sensation , whether physical , neuronal or chemically induced is just that, a sensation, a state, like a moment of sunshine, or rain, something ephemeral, and changing

the advantages of mood altering substances are all about making hay while the sun shines period

soul is about interiority and non dependance on the transient i should think, for it to be a word different from mind

something self reffering, and integral, something whose existence cannot be dependant on external transient things

soul is still slightly dependant and limited, as it refers with the body
the astral perhaps is the way the soul establishes itself

the soul it still clothed, perhaps in finer stuff , but still clothed

the thing that is truly free is the self

the one that is beyond all refferal and polarities

a closer inveastigation into mood altering substances( something by the way i dont reccomend at all), may reveal that it was all about mind and sensation
there was never joy really, never any sense of the experiences of soul

in the final analysis
it was the feeding of an empty fire

a hollowness and absence of soul awareness

this has been my experience on the matter

The body is the hard-drive, the soul is the software... In a very prosaic expression... But without the body and the brain to think about it, is there a soul? If we didn`t put ourself the question about the soul, it would exist? Can we measure the soul? Can it be expressed in a phisical and measurable element?

The only reason that anti-depressants work are because the person taking them "BELIEVES" they'll work therefore they do. We do have souls

the human does have a soul. Everything has a soul. With out the soul, the body can't live.

the human does have a soul. Everything has a soul. With out the soul, the body can't live.

I think we all have souls. I think that our souls are the most important part of us, as they connect us to the astral world. Personally, I believe that our souls are linked with one other person. And, If you're lucky enough to find that person, you'll know it. You'll feel it at first sight, and the passions you share will be unimaginable. You'll be willing to die for that person, even if you do happen to lose touch and part.
On the medication side of this topic, I feel like not only medications but illegal drugs make you a zombie, and you don't realize those you're hurting or have hurt until it's too late. And then you end up taking more pills to make you numb. They always made me numb, I didn't care who I hurt as long as I didn't have to feel the pain around me.

well i dont know if we have souls but i know anti depsants dont really help u in any way, the only way out of deprssion is yourself ,i found my way out of it thru my art,
xx

souls are energy you can alter them but they are always there

I believe we have souls,Well that is most of us that haven't sold ours yet.......

i believe every thing in this universe has a soul...even non living things have souls...for me...its the purest form of energy...all of us are made up of vibrations or should i say energy...

i believe the soul is the energy the we have or receive from the planet when we are created and when we die the energy is despersed back into the planet. the energy is all around us all the time and the spirits and ghosts we see are the past images of the people or animals the the energy used to inhabit like a photo or film negative.
i dont think that our emotions are determined by our soul or anything else we do or decide.
i think every one and thing on this planet has a soul as long as they were created here. and the auras that we sometimes see around ourselves and others is this energy that resides in us. and i dont think that we can lose this energy until our body dies.

i dont care about i have a soul or not.. it is not inportant.. i am in satanizm and i belive that we may have it..