Soul has ceased to something that people think or talk about, as life becomes less spiritual and more materialistic. Soul should be thought of as a divine spark within each person. Dictionary.com says soul is “the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.” It also says it is simply “a human being; a person.”
Wikipedia says:
The soul, in many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal essence of a living being.[1] Soul or psyche (Ancient Greek: ψυχή psykhḗ, of ψύχειν psýkhein, "to breathe") comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc. Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal.[2]
Soul has been an important concept to almost all ancient religions, from the Greeks up until a generation ago. Today, as fewer people are religious, the religious concept of soul is seldom considered. If the word is used at all, it is in with the meaning of a human life. People say, “Five souls were lost in the accident.” If souls were immortal, they would not have been lost, but would have moved on. People today reject a divine connection to, or influence on, human beings.
Even if you don’t believe in an afterlife, there is still the idea of a special, moral quality within man that makes him special, more than an animal or a piece of protoplasm. This loss of a moral center may account for some of the problems we have today. We haven’t had any world wars, but perhaps because we can’t unite enough to have gigantic faceoffs. We have our smaller, fractious disagreements, which mean continual warfare on a personal scale.
I don’t think people today even think much about the concept of soul, of something more than you can see or feel, and society is the worse for it.
