POLL: Why are some so passionate about belief in a soul mate?

[zeroturbulence]

Wouldn't it be better to believe that there's more than one compatible, loving person out there for you than to believe that there is only ONE who you can be happy with? I think that believing in a soul mate is setting yourself up for a lot of unnecessary pain and disappointment down the road.

What are your thoughts?

 

[lookwhatthelordhasdone]

No one wants to be alone.

There is a person out there who matches you perfectly, who understands you, loves you, and will stay with you for the rest of your life.

^ Who doesn't want to believe that?

 

[arwen7]

I'm not sure if we have soul mates, but I do believe that two people can be drawn together by a certain chemistry. I think that if I met someone who I felt that chemistry with, I wouldn't be concerned with the thought that maybe he isn't my soul mate.

"Some matches are made in Heaven, others are made in phosphorous factories. Either way, it all starts with a little chemistry"- VeggieTales

 

[limelime]

It doesn't matter. What matters is what's God's plan for me, and id rather believe in that. If there is a soulmate, or there isn't, its for a good reason, for God's larger purpose to do his work. I think we want to believe in what we want to, or feels good...

when i was younger and idealistic, i thought that one soul mate meant you focused on that one person, a level of commitment to accept, love both the strengths and weaknesses of the other.

believing there are more compatible people out there meant that there's always a way out of a bad relationship. there is always some one better out there. maybe like in secular relationships these days, we believe in getting into more relationships the better, like a test drive, and getting experience, which don't get me wrong, is a very practical advice for modern day reality, everyone is doing it.

what do you think?

 

[Nautilus]

I think its some people who have given up on love and instead of trying they can use the excuse of im waiting for my soulmate/god hasnt given me m ymate yet/the one is out there somewhere. It basically absolves them of all responsibility for the sad quality of their love life by putting the blame on fictional constructs like soulmates and the one.

 

[Ritter]

A soulmate carries with them the promise of a relationship free of failure. Even if it can't be found, it is something some people can't help but believe in.

 

[Faith00]

It's not that you can't be happy with anyone else, it's that you'll be the happiest with that person. There are things that move the soul in music, in books, in history, and especially in love! So it makes sense that while we all have our unique prefrences that suit are needs, our unending relationship should be the same! Many people say songs are made for them. A soul mate is like a song made for that person!

 

[Ugly]

'Soul mate' is a concept of pagan origins that has no biblical support. It is a form of secular romanticism that leads us to believe that God made a person to make us happy, and that we will just magically have this amazing relationship with, that will always be easy. When in reality Paul discouraged marriage at all unless you couldn't control your sexual urges. How can we have 'soul mates' and be discouraged from marriage? Its a contradiction.

 

[Powemm]

Jesus " is " my souls mate What a wonderful thing it would be to come along side someone who knows and shares the same one Gods timing , not ours

 

[arwen7]

'Soul mate' is a concept of pagan origins that has no biblical support. It is a form of secular romanticism that leads us to believe that God made a person to make us happy, and that we will just magically have this amazing relationship with, that will always be easy. When in reality Paul discouraged marriage at all unless you couldn't control your sexual urges. How can we have 'soul mates' and be discouraged from marriage? Its a contradiction.

Well I can't speak of soul mates, cus it really doesn't matter to me if we have or not. But with reference to Paul, I think context is important. Paul discouraged marriage at the time of when was writing the letter to Corinth, because he believed that Jesus' return would be in their lifetime. To remain as you are (wed or unwed; uncircumcised or circumcised; slave or free), for the present world is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:17; 21; 26-31).
If someone was thinking of getting married Paul was concerned that they 'their interests would be divided' (1 Corinthians 7:34) In his letter, he didn't want to restrain them from marrying, but to be secure in their devotion to the Lord. If a person could not control themselves, then it would be best that they marry. It appears to me, his stance of marriage is based on the belief that Jesus would return soon, and because there is no marriage in Heaven, why focus on that when the time is so short on earth.

 

[zeroturbulence]

I think its some people who have given up on love and instead of trying they can use the excuse of im waiting for my soulmate/god hasnt given me m ymate yet/the one is out there somewhere. It basically absolves them of all responsibility for the sad quality of their love life by putting the blame on fictional constructs like soulmates and the one.

That's exactly what I was thinking!!! Maybe we're soulmates! Nah.

Well I can't speak of soul mates, cus it really doesn't matter to me if we have or not. But with reference to Paul, I think context is important. Paul discouraged marriage at the time of when was writing the letter to Corinth, because he believed that Jesus' return would be in their lifetime. To remain as you are (wed or unwed; uncircumcised or circumcised; slave or free), for the present world is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:17; 21; 26-31).
If someone was thinking of getting married Paul was concerned that they 'their interests would be divided' (1 Corinthians 7:34) In his letter, he didn't want to restrain them from marrying, but to be secure in their devotion to the Lord. If a person could not control themselves, then it would be best that they marry. It appears to me, his stance of marriage is based on the belief that Jesus would return soon, and because there is no marriage in Heaven, why focus on that when the time is so short on earth.

I agree with what you wrote Arwen, but I think that Handsome (I'm gonna start referring to Ugly by that name ) was also right in pointing out the dichotomy between the concept of a soulmate (where God goes through the trouble and effort of creating a perfectly matching human for each one of us), and the concept of singleness actually being recommended in God's inspired word.

 

[ydc1210]

First off, I have no experience with relationships so this will just be my "inexperienced" opinion. I believe that wording "soul-mate" is very dangerous to me, as the meaning can be very relative and broad; it can be very confusing when a concept has no set definition.

I would rather worry about getting myself to get to the point where the only compatibility needed for it to work would be to have the Lord's work in both of our lives, than to expect a perfect person to walk in.

 

[kayem77]

My husband will be my soulmate. That's my simple opinion

 

[flight316]

Soul mate? Hmm, I guess the passion comes from knowing that is possible to have such a relationship. The alternative would be to to chose someone to be with so you don't have to be alone which is practical. What if you chose someone to be with, and during the course of being with them, you meet the " soul mate. " The fireworks go off, you think about that person all the time, etc. So the question is, in this one life that you have to live, do you follow your passion or do you go with what's practical.

 

[seoulsearch]

Kudos to you, Zero, for writing such interesting threads that really get us thinking!!!

I would first like to state that I have to disagree with Ugly's statement in an earlier post about marriage only being necessary if one cannot control sexual feelings. I know what Paul wrote, but I think that has to be balanced with God's original example of marriage in the first place (humanly speaking.)

I would guess that an idea of a "soul mate" would stem from Adam and Eve--here was Adam, all alone, and God "specially designed someone" "just for him", or so it appears. God didn't just say, "Ok Adam, I see you're having all these wild, out-of-control sexual urges that you just can't seem to tame, therefore, I am going to make a creature you can take them out on." (Now there's an interesting thought... did Adam even have any inkling of sexual feelings before Eve was created and presented to him?! Was sex and sexual feelings technically not created until Eve's appearance in the garden?) Likewise, God didn't create an entire harem of women and say, "All right, Adam!! Go for it!! Any one of these new-fangled critters could be the one. All you have to do is try them all out and choose one!"

No... that wasn't exactly God's attitude when He created the first marriage. It could just be my own observation, but I do think God intended much more for marriage than simply, "You can't control yourself so here's an outlet." After all, time and time again in the Old Testament, God refers to HIMSELFf as Israel's husband, saying things such as, "(when I took the people out of the land of Egypt (and they) broke My covenant, EVEN THOUGH I HAD MARRIED THEM." (Jeremiah 31:32) If God truly thought that singleness was the ultimate state of being, I personally don't feel that He would have referred to Himself as married. (This doesn't meant that singleness is the highest calling either, what I believe it means is that there are different callings for each of us.) I personally always believed that the main point of Paul's writings was, "If God calls you to be single, be single. If God calls you to marry, then marry. Whatever He calls you to do, do it all to His glory and to the best of your ability, in either situation."

Keep in mind as well that THE CHURCH is referred to as THE BRIDE OF CHRIST. Once again, I don't see God saying, "Son, I know you don't sin but I also know you're having some struggles holding back certain feelings, therefore, we are going to create a bride for you as an emergency outlet..." No, I think God had much bigger intentions for marriage than supposed primal and carnal urges. And I know that these are rough examples... it's not accurate to speak of the marriage of God vs. an earthly marriage, I know, but all things on earth are patterned after Godly things that God originally established.

I really respect the thoughts here that believing in "several" candidates might lead to a thought of, "Oh, well at least I have several backup plans out there if need be," but, living in a fallen world, if we believe in only one "soulmate", what happens if: that person dies in childhood or before we meet them? What if they decide to marry someone else? (A soulmate will have just as much free will as we do.) What happens if we do find and marry that person but they pass away or leave for someone else? Abraham is best known for his life with Sarah, but after Sarah died, few people ever seem to remember that Abraham took another wife (I believe her name was Keturah... sorry... don't have time to look it up right now) and had at least five other children that were named, if I remember correctly (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

Maybe it's different for each person, I don't know. In the Bible, when one person passed on, God was prepared to anoint someone else. I don't know if He does this with marriages as well.

I have heard it said that the reason many Christians are not married is most likely because 1. the person God is asking to marry us doesn't want to obey, and/or 2. we ourselves refuse to obey and marry the person God wants us to marry as well. If one person is willing to obey the Lord and the other is not, we have free will. I don't believe God forces people to marry each other. So maybe, God will say to the one who is willing to be obedient, "I've chosen someone else for you." I can't claim to know...

Maybe for some, God does create THE ONE and for others, it's like a "choose your own adventure" story, I don't know. I suppose it boils down to what we're always told to believe, that no matter what, we have to seek God out for His ultimate plans for our lives, step-by-step, whether that includes a significant other or not.

 

[zaoman32]

God created marriage and companionship. God looked at man, saw he was lonely and made him a wife. As far as Paul goes, Paul is Paul, not God, and if you read his letters he will be the first to point that out. Doing a study on the book of Acts it was learned that since Paul was a voting member of the Sanhedrin, he would have been married because that was a requirement. It is widely speculated and popularly believed that since Paul makes no mention of his wife, that they had disagreements and there was strong tension in their marriage. Why would someone in a bad marriage recommend marriage? Also keep in mind the context Arwen used of him believing Jesus would be back soon. Are Paul's letters part of the inspired word of God? Absolutely. But we also need to remember, Paul was man. God is God, and God invented marriage and companionship, if we keep that in mind and then state that he must be against marriage because of Paul's words, then we have to question the validity of every statement and every promise in the bible. God saw it was NOT good for man to be alone, exact words.

As far as soul mates go, I believe soul mates would be in contradiction to Gods gift of free will for us. If he makes one person in particular for us then he also must have some kind of plan that we would be required to follow in order to meet, date, and marry this person. If we follow a path set for us without choice we have no free will. It all boils down to choice, that's why some relationships work and some don't. A marriage only works if both parties involved choose to unite and work together to have a good marriage, if they were soul mates their would be no reason to work at it, and therefore they'd be together regardless of what happened. A marriage only fails when one or both parties decide that they're done and want something new.

 

[seoulsearch]

Excellent point about Paul being a member of the Sanhedrin, which would have required marriage at some point in his life. I had completely forgotten this.

I've never heard it said that perhaps Paul had a stressful marriage and therefore did not recommend it, but it's definitely something to consider.

I was taught in my old church that Paul's wife may have passed away, and that he chose not to remarry (or perhaps that was God's calling for him.) I have read accounts that said Paul was the kind of person who had a very strong personality--perhaps he seemed discouraged over marriage because he had been deeply in love but for whatever reason, his marriage ended.

It could be that Paul was like so many of us, hesitant about marriage... because of a broken heart.

 

[zaoman32]

Excellent point about Paul being a member of the Sanhedrin, which would have required marriage at some point in his life. I had completely forgotten this.

I've never heard it said that perhaps Paul had a stressful marriage and therefore did not recommend it, but it's definitely something to consider.

I was taught in my old church that Paul's wife may have passed away, and that he chose not to remarry (or perhaps that was God's calling for him.) I have read accounts that said Paul was the kind of person who had a very strong personality--perhaps he seemed discouraged over marriage because he had been deeply in love but for whatever reason, his marriage ended.

It could be that Paul was like so many of us, hesitant about marriage... because of a broken heart.

That's a very good point to, the speculations I heard about it being a stressful marriage was because of his quite abrupt conversion to christianity, it's possible him and his wife didn't see eye to eye on beliefs anymore, and he would not divorce her.

Thanks for pointing out her possible death too, very probable.

 

[Powemm]

A little excersise :
Draw a triangle
Write god at the top
Your name at one bottom corner
a question mark " if single " at the other corner

Erase the line at the bottom between your name and the question mark... leave only the lines connected to God visible...

What do you see??
where is the division?

when both people are coming into a closer relationship with God... what happens to the gap between the two parties??
it's almost like a Jacobs ladder ...
if only one climbs up and the other doesn't , the connection a true and loving connection is never made, it is, only a" mirage " that a connection is made.
if neither climbs up , the connection together is never made .. another mirage...
If both are clbing and growing in their relationship with God.. You gotta major "Bingo!!!"

 

[Powemm]

Every person is different in where their relationship with god is..
it is about encouraging , appreciating, respecting , loving, waiting, being your partners fan.. As Jesus is ours
if we are not ready to be "that" to someone , rather then our focus being on getting that for ourselves... We definately "Should" remain single !