In the episode The Soul Hunters, the race believed it was their duty to collect the souls of the most worthy so that they would not be lost. Otherwise, they believed that the souls would be lost forever in the great void of space and would never be seen again. This was a complete anathema to the Minbari, who believed that souls were being reborn into the next generation, and if the soul hunters took them, then they would lose them forever. The Minbari-Earth war was halted because they realized that Minbari souls were being reborn into humans. How could they kill their own? So they surrendered, even though they could have crushed the humans. But the reasons for the surrender were kept secret by the religious caste.
In our little corner of the world, Catholics believe that the soul goes to purgatory first for a short time, then to heaven. The two exemptions are Jesus and Mary. I was raised a congregational protestant, and they believe in the soul - you must accept Jesus as your savior, he will forgive your sins and then your soul will go to heaven. The other major religions: Islam, Buddhism, and Hindu - all believe in the concept of the soul, and the afterlife.
When Delenn saw the Soul Hunter on the station she went wild because she knew what it was. She knew that it had to go before an innocent life was claimed. Little did she know it would be hers. Jeffrey Sinclair ended up saving her from dying at the hands of the Soul Hunter, and his "collection" was given to Delenn to release. This is what I find most fascinating, because as she is doing this, opening the containers, something leaves them, presumably the soul. Does that men that JMS believes in the soul, or that the Minbari believe in the soul, or that in this particular universe, the soul is an important concept and one that must be paid attention to for later purposes.
In the next article, I'd like to go a little further in the concept of the soul, and some of the Minbari beliefs, and some of the Earth beliefs
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