These are my beliefs:
WHAT IS THE SOUL?
The Bibles teaching about the soul is very clear. It says that when man is animated by the breath of life from God, man becomes a living soul. At Genesis 2:7 it is written: And God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground [elements found in the earth] and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul. You will note that this passage does not say the soul was created before the body. Neither does it say the soul was given to or put into man. Nor does it say that the breath of life was the soul. Instead, it says that when man came alive, beginning to breathe, man came to be a living soul.
Thus, as used in the Bible, the word soul means a living, breathing, sense-possessing creature. This is why the Bible also calls animals souls, though it does not use this word for plants.
CAN IT DIE?
If the soul is inseparable from the body, does this mean that when you die your soul dies? Yes. The Bible speaks of souls as dying, and as being struck fatally, killed, destroyed or devoured. And it uses the specific term dead soul.
It may further surprise many persons to know that, exactly opposite to what is taught in modern catechism classes and Sunday schools, Jesus own disciples said that the soul dies. In their gospels, epistles and other writings that are now included in the Christian Greek Scriptures of the Bible, the words soul and souls appear more than fifty times. Yet not one single time is the word immortal associated with them. Not even once does the Bible use the common expression immortal soul.
Instead, Jesus disciple James showed that a sinning soul dies. He wrote: Know that he who turns a sinner back from the error of his way will save his soul from death. (Jas. 5:20) In the apostle Johns vision of Gods anger every living soul died, yes, the things in the sea.Rev. 16:3.
God created man to live on the earth. He already had "myriads" of angels, seryphs, etc. in heaven.(Yes a very few of mankind will go to heaven to be co-rulers with Jesus, but that's a different topic than the one at hand).
Think about this: If Adam and Eve had not sinned, where would they be today? They'd still be alive, here on earth. In Genesis, God told Adam and Eve that if they sinned (ate from the tree that they were told not to eat from), they would perish. And starting from the day they ate the forbidden fruit, they started to age and deteriorate, and ultimately died. Otherwise, they never would've lost their perfect state, the aging process never would've started, and they never would've died.
The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all. Yes, the dead know absolutely nothing.
Personally, I've never had a desire to go to "heaven". I like it right here on earth. LOL All of our sense were created by God to enjoy all that the earth has to offer; smells, sights, sounds, etc. When I learned what the bible really says about death and life, I was relieved to know that God's original purpose to have man populate the earth, in a perfect condition like it started out, will (eventually) come true. And with the way things are going in the world right now, all biblical signs point to the fact that it could happen in our lifetime.