The Body/Soul split is a myth created by philosophers such as Plato.

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The Body/Soul split is a myth created by philosophers such as Plato.

The belief in life after death or of an immortal soul is not a new occurrence. Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Hick have made attempts at explaining their views on the soul, as well as people like Dawkins, who argue that there is no such thing as the soul at all.

Plato was what is known as a dualist. He believed that the body and the soul were separate things, that the soul animates the body and that the body is mortal, whereas the soul is immortal, and so survives death. Upon the bodies death, Plato believe the soul would be released from it’s “prison” and allowed to look upon the forms. He believed that to see the forms the soul must be released from the body in which it is imprisoned as the body is only a distraction to the soul, merely by requiring food to survive, it also fills us with desires and wants and lusts and loves. All of these are a distract a soul from viewing the forms.

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In his works, Plato describes the soul as simple and without parts, meaning that it cannot be split or divided into different sections, however, when referring to the soul in a body, Plato goes onto say it is complex. By this he means that there are different aspects to a person’s soul, but it is still in one part. He used a diamond to illustrate his point, as there are many faces on a diamond, but it cannot be split. The different faces, or aspects of the soul are similar to Freud’s division of the mind. The aspects are Reason, ...

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