Does the soul have a gender?

[Diana]

Do you believe that our soul has a gender?
Do you think your gender carries on into the after life?

And this question is based on the premise that you already do believe in a soul or spirt or something like that. The essence of you that goes beyond your physical form.


What are your thoughts?

 

[uuu]

I think that, if we could "meet" someone in their pure soul form, we would still associate them with their gender, because we have known them as that all their life. However, I think that at that point, gender would be fairly meaningless - after all, everyone has their "feminine" and "masculine" traits - gender isn't really black and white.

 

[randomsomeone]

I suspect there are probably resonances or linkages between our souls and our true selves. There may be a bit of gender uniqueness mixed in with that, in that it is part of our giftedness.

Of course, in the end it is hard to say with certainty....things of the here-and-now are only a pale reflection of the afterlife. It's hard to know the answers when we don't even understand the question. Finiteness and infinity are always an awkward mix, especially if our egos are trying to grab hold of things. For all we know, gender may be one of the limitations that do not hold sway in the afterlife.

 

[bagelriffic]

some spiritual practices ive seen refer to the soul as feminine, whereas reality in its most basic and non conceptualized form is masculine. i've always thought of this as not so much a limited gender, but more a concept of the characteristics they seem to exhibit in relation to how we normally see male and female.

 

[Gaze]

Do you believe that our soul has a gender?
- no, i don't. I think gender is a "human" and biolife construction, not something which exists on a spiritual plane.

Do you think your gender carries on into the after life?
- no. I think it's meant to be a temporary form of identification unique to terrestrial life.

And this question is based on the premise that you already do believe in a soul or spirt or something like that. The essence of you that goes beyond your physical form.


What are your thoughts?
-I believe the soul is a moral/spiritual entity which exists as a state or form of consciousness separate from the human body. Although how we act or experience the world in physical form allows us to express our spiritual selves directly or indirectly, but it's a separate being from the physical or corporeal self.

 

[Flavus Aquila]

I think the soul is more feminine than masculine.

The soul doesn't guard, it is guarded;
The soul gives life to the body, but the body does the work to sustain it;
The soul is gentle, subtle, meek, beautiful.

Whether our particular souls bear our sex (gender is a social construct - sex is either male or female) I think it probably does - because our souls are particular to our particular bodies.

I think the soul continues to exist after physical death - however, it is difficult to conceptualise intellectual life, without the usual activities of the brain.

 

[kucala]

Do you believe that our soul has a gender?
No. I think gender is a 'human' trait. We all have aspects to us that are both masculine and feminine. I believe that our soul would be genderless.

Do you think your gender carries on into the after life?
No, I don't.

 

[Oranguh]

If the soul is a concept that transcends reality, why would it carry mortal characteristics? Or is the 'soul' more a part of reality than I think it is~?~

 

[Tamagochi]

Do you believe that our soul has a gender?
Do you think your gender carries on into the after life?

I do not believe that soul has gender. My arguments would be:

1. it's pointless from a logical perspective because gender is a human/animal trait. It's only reason of existing is procreation. Souls should have some other means of coming into existence than having sex (though one can never know).
2. I do not know of religious texts that claim soul to be linked with gender. Contrary some religions (Buddhism for example) claim that soul can inhabit different bodies while seeking enlightenment.
3. philosophically - if we were limited to just one gender both in flesh and spirit - it would significantly narrow the amount of experiences we can acquire in our existence. Why such a limitation? Suppose our souls can have multiple earthly incarnations: experiencing life from all possible viewpoints would make us more mature.

 

[slant]

Nope.

 

[magister343]

I prefer to think of the soul as the gestalt of our identity rather than an immaterial substance. Gender is part of our identity and thus part of the soul in this life; however, Christ said that in the resurrection there is no marriage and our bodies will be like the angels, implying a lack of gender in the next life.

 

[randomsomeone]

however, Christ said that in the resurrection there is no marriage and our bodies will be like the angels, implying a lack of gender in the next life.

Good point...in fact, in this story we see him deliberately correcting a faulty assumption in this regard.

 

[TomarctusHU]

It depends...
If we say that the holder of that soul identifies herself with a gender (male/female/3rd/-) then will their soul have the same gender? Physically of course this isn't true - in my limited informations souls don't have anything like physical form to begin with... -, but who said that someones gender identity comes from its physical form? I personally would strongly reject such a opinion.
Also if the gender doesn't depends on the physical aspects, then the only thing would matter is the personality traits of the soul, and the gender herself identifies with.
The personality is typically a combination of the traits associated with male/female personality. The personality has nothing to do actually with the gender identity. (There are really feminine boy, who define themselves as boys.) And gender identity is also quite a ambiguous thing, because it's also coming from the values/roles/traits associated with male/female gender.
Meh... this is just completely ambiguous... not to mention that we don't have a concrete definition on what soul is...? How much of the personality - especially after death - reflects on it? I would like to think, that it is complex enough to include all of our personality traits, and as such would be able to affect the gender identity in the next life too. (But again, what if where we are reborn the associated gender roles are reversed? How much would the most likely completely different experiences affect the inner growth?)
So, I would say that it has a gender, the gender someone identifies herself, but this doesn't defines the personality, and is quite a ambiguous thing.
*Have to much to say, especially in a foreign language..*

 

[Stella]

Soul... depends on your interpretation. I am going to use soul as the built in basis of personality and who you are.

I think the soul has no gender. As [MENTION=3671]ultrauber[/MENTION] said, we all have our feminine and masculine traits. It is which gender we associate with that we are internally. Externally is based on DNA. I think soul is created by how your brain happens to wire up.

I'm religious, but I'm not sure about the whole "soul" thing when it comes to the afterlife.

 

[Trifoilum]

Do you believe that our soul has a gender?
Do you think your gender carries on into the after life?

And this question is based on the premise that you already do believe in a soul or spirt or something like that. The essence of you that goes beyond your physical form.


What are your thoughts?

IMO the soul is....while not exactly neutral neutral, is not completely determinable by gender nor our expectations of gender, which is often socially constructed.

But each spirits or soul has their own.....hmm..attributes, that probably can falls inbetween each ends of the scale of masculinity or femininity.

And as per after life, I suppose it depends on which view of afterlife we're talking here, and how one defines a spirit / soul and afterlife itself. Does each of our spirit our 'own'? Or it's just a set of..energies in some cycles like reincarnation? Does it take after our physical body, or not? Will it get dissolved (and reconstructed), stayed somewhere, or just merely passed over the next step of the cycle?

I personally believe it will hold either one's physical body, or one's view of themselves.

 

[MrWindUpBird]

No. All spiritual things are without sex/gender. I think our personalities will shed all of the hormone-induced traits we consider "masculine" and "feminine" and we'll be closer to our true selves.

 

[Talisman]

Double nope.

 

[This]

I think it depends on you, I think my soul would be male because of sexual relativity, I can't be attracted to men in the same way a straight woman, a bisexual woman, a gay man, or a bisexual man could be therefore I think it has more to do with how you relate to yourself. Personally I like my gender.

 

[Diana]

I think it depends on you, I think my soul would be male because of sexual relativity, I can't be attracted to men in the same way a straight woman, a bisexual woman, a gay man, or a bisexual man could be therefore I think it has more to do with how you relate to yourself. Personally I like my gender.

But do such things as sexuality and attraction apply, if you are purely a soul with no human body? Is sexual attraction something that is limited to our human form?