Crystals can act as a lens, which concentrates solar radiation (energy) and can produce fire. There's some scientific proof for ya. A lens, in itself, is a form of manipulated Crystal, so there's that.
I never said the Crystal could HOLD energy. But yes. It can concentrate it.
And there are many things we do not yet understand, I try keep an open mind to that.
A "soul" is, literally, the electricity within our bodies. That's it. Electricity. A form of energy.
Would you not say that a gaseous star is alive? Or is it just an inadament object using gravity and the reactions of gasses to produce radiation?
Then I will ask you this. Is a tree or plant alive? Or is it inadament organic matter using minerals and solar radiation to grow?
It all depends on your perception. And if you don't believe in earth based religion, it's probably BS to you. The same way I believe that most organized religions are BS to me.
A crystal in its normal form cannot concentrate energy. Yes, when you use manufacturing processes to turn it into a lens, it can use the well understood
scientific principle of refraction to concentrate light, but at that point sand or oil might as well be as magical as crystals to you (or rather, more magical, since we use sand to make lenses far more often than crystals).To use that as a basis to argue that it also can concentrate unknowable, unmeasurable "energy" in its raw form is unsound logic.
A soul, by your definition, may be the electricity within our bodies, but making up your own definitions for words doesn't make that definition true for everybody.
the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.
The electricity generated by our bodies definitely does not meet that criteria. Electricity is not immortal, especially the very low level of electricity generated by your body, which we are fairly certain does not survive the death of your body, since it's the organic processes of your living body that create and use that electricity, and it would be easy to detect moving away from the body after death.
Life doesn't have an easily quotable definition, but stars aren't alive. There are scientific criteria that something has to meet to be regarded as "alive", and stars don't meet those criteria. For example, stars don't breed (yes, a star might create some stuff used to form another star when it dies, but that isn't breeding). Plants meet the criteria to be considered alive, and they're definitely not
inanimate. Again, you don't get to define words to mean whatever you want and expect the rest of humanity to fall in line.
Yes, there's lots of things we don't understand, I keep an open mind to that too, but just because somebody makes something up doesn't mean I have to give it equal consideration with rigorously studied and tested principles. Having an open mind doesn't mean you just believe whatever you're told even if it is in conflict with rigorously tested scientific principles. If I didn't have an open mind, I wouldn't be having this discussion. The reason you're not changing my mind on this isn't because it's not open, it's because you aren't presenting any compelling evidence, just flawed reasoning.
It doesn't depend on perception; the statements you're making are not perceptual in nature. Whether or not things are alive isn't perceptual, the way electricity behaves is not perceptual. We have rigid criteria for these things based on scientific principles of observation and experimentation.
