EMOTIONS:
The first and biggest argument for the existence of a soul is the presence and
illogical aspect of emotions. They contest with logic and offer no significant
benefit from a biological perspective, often times even hampering our
ability for rational thinking. Emotions are usually counterproductive to
accomplishing any task which is related to the cause of the emotion to begin
with. For example, letting your emotions get away from you during a debate
will interfere with your ability to think clearly and win the argument.
Or, if an investigator is trying to solve a crime, then getting emotionally
involved will obstruct his capabilities for thinking clearly and objectively
about the case. In extreme instances, emotions can prevent the accomplishment of any tasks at
all, causing a person to lay around in a state of depression or have a nervous
breakdown and be unable to complete any of the tasks that had originally
accumulated to cause the stress.
Another good metaphor is a computer. Even if we could, we would never want to program emotions into a computer. It wouldn't get anything (or at best significantly less) done because it would be too sad, angry, frustrated, or even too happy to work at full capacity. You might as well throw it out if it were to ever fall in love with another computer, as all of its processing capacity would be spent on thinking about it and communicating with it over the network. Anger, fear, love, sadness, anxiety, etc all hinder our ability to think clearly and act rationally.
So then, why do they exist? If we are simply biological creatures in a game of survival of the fittest, then these "feelings" serve to hamper our progress and potentially prevent our very survival. If our emotions do not serve us physical or mentally, then it would make sense if they are part of what is called the human spirit and that their existence stems not from any evolutionary cause, but given to us for some other spiritual purpose. It is a common expression that "God is Love". Well if the human spirit, which was created by God, is the cause of emotions, then the concept of God giving or causing love, which is the most enjoyable in the range of emotions, makes perfect sense.
INTERNAL BATTLE for MORALITY:
In contrast to the animals, which react to their environment
and their natural instinctive appetites, we make every effort to
control our environment and are expected to suppress our instincts, as
many of
these natural appetites are considered to be immoral. Even if you
don't believe in the morality of The Bible, you can certainly
recognize and agree that we are expected to remain in control of and
deny many
of the desires that we encounter on a daily basis.
When you're really angry or jealous, for example, you may want to physically lash out at someone, sometimes even to seriously hurt or kill them. Even if laws didn't dictate it, you know inside that it would be wrong. Of course you want to eat when you're hungry, but the sheer appreciation and enjoyment of food tempts us to eat unhealthily and almost continuously. If we let ourselves be free to eat anything and everything we want to or can afford to though, then we'd all be severely overweight. When there's someone that you're attracted to, you want to have sex with them. Considering only biological restraint (the evolved instinct to not create more families than you can take care of), why not reassure your spouse that you'll use a condom, at which point he/she should have no problem with letting you sleep around? As long as the other person is primarily focusing their non-sex time on your family, adultery shouldn't matter. Or, for that matter, if a man can afford to take care of several families at once, what's wrong with a little polygamy? Somewhere, deep inside, for some reason (God), it feels wrong. Yet these are all examples of our naturally present instinct, or perhaps our sinful nature and/or influence of evil forces, which we must resist. And that is completely contrary to an animal's instinct, which guides their actions and promotes their very survival.
DEMONSTRATIONS of UNIQUE HUMANITY:
As humans, we perform actions that are expressions of our unique and individual
humanity. Some are related to emotions, some to our mental ability, but
others are simply an effort to express ourselves. We...
These indicate to me that we aren't simply another member of the Hominidae family, Primate order, Eutheria subclass, and Mammal species, but a creature with completely unique and unexplainable characteristics unlike any other on the planet. They are demonstrations of our souls.
TO SUMMARIZE:
While we cannot see a physical representation of our souls, our
emotions and actions of expression are directly indicative that one is
present. Unique to humans, these feelings and actions are otherwise
illogical and serve no purpose in promoting our individual survival and
existence as a species.
Continue to "Why Not Evolution?"