ZAVibes

Libraries have thousands of books on theology and doctrine arising therefrom, there are thousands of books on Christology, there are thousands of books on the Bible and the characters depicted therein; the number of Bibles, Korans and other ’sacred’ books printed run into countless millions and yet all theistic religions and religions which propose life after death depend on one proposition, viz. that there is a spirit world distinct from the physical universe we know through direct experience.

There are two aspects of this conceived spirit world: a spirit god or gods (and a -myriad of spirit creatures ranging from imps, leprechauns, ghosts and fairies to genii, angels and bunyips) and individual ’spirits’ or ’souls’.

As any attempt to define the ’soul’ effectively shows non-existence this aspect will be ignored here and an examination will be made of some of the practical difficulties associated with their presumed existence. We are dealing here with the religious definition of ’soul’, not the loose application of the term ’soul’ or ’spirit’ meaning the personal physical and emotional characteristics which obviously have no existence beyond physical death.

Religious belief assumes that an individual and specifically unique ’soul’ is conferred on each person at conception. In Christian theology the ’soul’ is provided by the god Yahweh so with conception taking place at the rate of about 10 per second it looks like a full time job. There may be many millions of ‘earths’ in the universe with a species equivalent to humans so the enterprise is truly daunting. If all souls were identical the job would be much simpler. Yahweh could go in for mass production and apportion the appropriate amount to each fertilised ovum. Delivery of each soul at the precise moment may conceivably be a real problem.

Perchance all space is composed of living ’soul’ and whenever a spermatozoon penetrates the ovum a bit of soul slips in also. Maybe the characteristics of the soul are determined by its environment. However, this hypothesis is flawed, for space is not confined and would be present even in unfertilised ova.

According to theology, the soul which is not properly nourished withers and degenerates so one must ask what is the appropriate food provided for the ’soul’ pre and post implantation.

As only about a third of all fertilised ova develop to full term one must ask what happens to all the ’souls’ of the aborted ova and foetuses both naturally occurring and induced. Have they been stored in limbo for hundreds of thousands of years (or even the 6000 years of the Creationists) in a state of suspended animation? Will they have to undergo further development before they are resurrected?

At this point another problem arises. When conception takes place theologians confidently assert that the fertilised egg has now been given a living individual ’soul’. From now on everything is plain sailing? Not quite! A certain proportion of fertilised ova divide into twins, triplets and even up to sextets. So what happens about the ’soul’? Does it also subdivide to meet the changed circumstances or are new ’souls’ provided at each division? What say you learned theologians? As the writers of the inspired books had no knowledge of the biology of reproduction they are no help at all.

The concept of human evolution was bitterly opposed by the advocates of religion because it introduced another problem. With the Genesis account of the origin of man the moment of soul implantation was precise. With evolution how could one determine when the soul-less animal had developed into a human with a ’soul’, particularly when the process involved many thousands of years? Most Christian denominations now accept evolution as factual so they have to face defining the stage when ’souls’ were first made available.

We come now to the effect of the physical on the immaterial ’soul’. How do they interact? Does the ’soul’ determine the destiny of the person or does the physical body, with its multitude of differing functions, determine the fate of the ’soul’? We do not know if ’souls’ are considered everlasting because the Bible, the infallible text-book of many ages says both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Here again theologians disagree. Some think the physical world cannot influence the spirit world, some think the spirit world determines the physical world and some think the influence is in both directions.

Atheists and Freethinkers can find no evidence of a spirit world but seek to learn as much as possible about the physical universe. Strangely when religious people testify to seeing returning souls the apparitions are always clothed so it follows that things which Atheists see as materialistic and very physical have their counterparts in immaterial material.

We come now to the growth of ’souls’. Do they grow and age or remain static? Is the ’soul’ of an aborted fertilised egg the same as that of the person who dies after reaching old age? What about disfigurements caused by accidents? The disciples are reported as saying that Jesus still had the scars of the crucifixion.

Where is the domicile of the ’soul’? Is it spread throughout the body or housed in some specific spot? If throughout the body what happens when limbs are lost?

Christians are convinced after much weighing that ’souls’ have no weight so there is no body weight loss at death but Christians are not sure where the ’soul’ goes. Here again the Bible gives several conflicting answers “absent from the body, present with the Lord”; “the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall arise”; ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die”; “the smoke of their torments ascendeth for ever”.

The idea of souls in spiritual bodies being tormented for ever in spiritual flames with spiritual smoke does stretch the imagination somewhat! The idea of reincarnation of the soul in some other physical body brings in another element It almost makes it mandatory to kill as many of the most horrid creatures as possible so that ’souls’ are liberated and hopefully enter higher life forms.

Finally, where is the blessed abode of ’souls’ - the mansion where they live for evermore? Is it up there in the stratosphere, on this earth, or in the infinite expanse of space at near absolute zero temperature? Could it just be that a large proportion of the human race is still being conned by charlatans?

If humans have no ’soul’ then all the rigmarole associated with religion is silly humbug and unworthy of humankind.

This story was posted on Landover Baptist Church’s Website a while ago. Finally the church (well, at least this one!) says something truthful! Now they just also need to realise that MEN also don’t have souls…

Landover Baptist Creation Scientist, Dr. Fred Neiman, announced findings related to his research into the female soul early this week. “The absence of either salvation or condemnation for women finds extensive support in the Word of God.” He reported. “Jesus said that the sole reason God created women in the first place was to provide company and service to men (1 Corinthians 11:9), God determined that men would be lonely living alone, so he created women purely to keep men company and serve their needs (Genesis 2:18-22). Women are therefore completely subordinate to men (1 Corinthians 11:3). It stands to reason, though, that once men enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they will be one with God, and will no longer be lonely and in need of mortal companionship. Thus, the reason behind having women will no longer exist. Women, like the members of the animal kingdom, will fall by the wayside.”

Dr. Neiman went on to say that, “once men reunite with their maker, they will no longer be burdened with the care of women. After all, women were inferior creations from the start. Women are fond of self-indulgence (Isaiah 32:9-11). They are silly and easily led into error (2 Timothy 3:6). They are subtle and deceitful (Proverbs 7:10; Ecclesiastes 7:26). They are zealous in promoting superstition and idolatry (Jeremiah 7:18; Ezekiel 13:17, 23). And they are active in instigating to iniquity (Numbers 31:15-16; 1 Kings 21:25; Nehemiah 13:26). It was the inherent weakness of women that led them to be deceived by Satan (Genesis 3:1-6; 2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14). Consequently, women were cursed from the start (Genesis 3:16). There is simply no room in heaven for such flawed and inadequate beings.”

Pastor Deacon Fred warned the congregation that there was no reason to be alarmed. “Dr. Neiman’s conclusions still need to be formalized,” he assured. “I am certain that our team of religious experts will find some way around these Scriptures.” Some of the women present were visibly shaken by the report. A teary eyed Sister Taffy Crockett said through choked sobs, “I’ve heard of colored women not having souls… but me? NO! This is outrageous!”

Pastor did have some comforting words for the ladies of Landover. “I personally want to assure all female members of this church that until we examine Dr. Neiman’s research to our complete satisfaction, consider yourselves saved.”

The Depressing, Dangerous Hypothesis: We Have No Souls.

This year’s Edge question makes me wonder: Which ideas pose a greater potential danger? False ones or true ones? Illusions or the lack thereof? As a believer in and lover of science, I certainly hope that the truth will set us free, and save us, but sometimes I’m not so sure.

The dangerous, probably true idea I’d like to dwell on in this Holiday season is that we humans have no souls. The soul is that core of us that supposedly transcends and even persists beyond our physicality, lending us a fundamental autonomy, privacy and dignity. In his 1994 book The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, the late, great Francis Crick argued that the soul is an illusion perpetuated, like Tinkerbell, only by our belief in it. Crick opened his book with this manifesto: “‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.” Note the quotation marks around “You.” The subtitle of Crick’s book was almost comically ironic, since he was clearly trying not to find the soul but to crush it out of existence.

I once told Crick that “The Depressing Hypothesis” would have been a more accurate title for his book, since he was, after all, just reiterating the basic, materialist assumption of modern neurobiology and, more broadly, all of science. Until recently, it was easy to dismiss this assumption as moot, because brain researchers had made so little progress in tracing cognition to specific neural processes. Even self-proclaimed materialists — who accept, intellectually, that we are just meat machines — could harbor a secret, sentimental belief in a soul of the gaps. But recently the gaps have been closing, as neuroscientists — egged on by Crick in the last two decades of his life–have begun unraveling the so-called neural code, the software that transforms electrochemical pulses in the brain into perceptions, memories, decisions, emotions, and other constituents of consciousness.

I’ve argued elsewhere that the neural code may turn out to be so complex that it will never be fully deciphered. But 60 years ago, some biologists feared the genetic code was too complex to crack. Then in 1953 Crick and Watson unraveled the structure of DNA, and researchers quickly established that the double helix mediates an astonishingly simple genetic code governing the heredity of all organisms. Science’s success in deciphering the genetic code, which has culminated in the Human Genome Project, has been widely acclaimed — and with good reason, because knowledge of our genetic makeup could allow us to reshape our innate nature. A solution to the neural code could give us much greater, more direct control over ourselves than mere genetic manipulation.

Will we be liberated or enslaved by this knowledge? Officials in the Pentagon, the major funder of neural-code research, have openly broached the prospect of cyborg warriors who can be remotely controlled via brain implants, like the assassin in the recent remake of “The Manchurian Candidate.” On the other hand, a cult-like group of self-described “wireheads” looks forward to the day when implants allow us to create our own realities and achieve ecstasy on demand.

Either way, when our minds can be programmed like personal computers, then, perhaps, we will finally abandon the belief that we have immortal, inviolable souls, unless, of course, we program ourselves to believe.

John Horgan

I am not concerned here with the radical claim that personal identity, free will, and consciousness do not exist. Regardless of its merit, this position is so intuitively outlandish that nobody but a philosopher could take it seriously, and so it is unlikely to have any real-world implications, dangerous or otherwise.

Instead I am interested in the milder position that mental life has a purely material basis. The dangerous idea, then, is that Cartesian dualism is false. If what you mean by “soul” is something immaterial and immortal, something that exists independently of the brain, then souls do not exist. This is old hat for most psychologists and philosophers, the stuff of introductory lectures. But the rejection of the immaterial soul is unintuitive, unpopular, and, for some people, downright repulsive.

In the journal “First Things”, Patrick Lee and Robert P. George
outline some worries from a religious perspective.

“If science did show that all human acts, including conceptual thought and free choice, are just brain processes,… it would mean that the difference between human beings and other animals is only superficial-a difference of degree rather than a difference in kind; it would mean that human beings lack any special dignity worthy of special respect. Thus, it would undermine the norms that forbid killing and eating human beings as we kill and eat chickens, or enslaving them and treating them as beasts of burden as we do horses or oxen.”

The conclusions don’t follow. Even if there are no souls, humans might differ from non-human animals in some other way, perhaps with regard to the capacity for language or abstract reasoning or emotional suffering. And even if there were no difference, it would hardly give us license to do terrible things to human beings. Instead, as Peter Singer and others have argued, it should make us kinder to non-human animals. If a chimpanzee turned out to possess the intelligence and emotions of a human child, for instance, most of us would agree that it would be wrong to eat, kill, or enslave it.

Still, Lee and George are right to worry that giving up on the soul means giving up on a priori distinction between humans and other creatures, something which has very real consequences. It would affect as well how we think about stem-cell research and abortion, euthenasia, cloning, and cosmetic psychopharmacology. It would have substantial implications for the legal realm — a belief in immaterial souls has led otherwise sophisticated commentators to defend a distinction between actions that we do and actions that our brains do. We are responsible only for the former, motivating the excuse that Michael Gazzaniga has called, “My brain made me do it.” It has been proposed, for instance, that if a pedophile’s brain shows a certain pattern of activation while contemplating sex with a child, he should not be viewed as fully responsible for his actions. When you give up on the soul, and accept that all actions correspond to brain activity, this sort of reasoning goes out the window.

The rejection of souls is more dangerous than the idea that kept us so occupied in 2005 — evolution by natural selection. The battle between evolution and creationism is important for many reasons; it is
where science takes a stand against superstition. But, like the origin of the universe, the origin of the species is an issue of great intellectual importance and little practical relevance. If everyone were to become a sophisticated Darwinian, our everyday lives would change very little. In contrast, the widespread rejection of the soul would have profound moral and legal consequences. It would also require people to rethink what happens when they die, and give up the idea (held by about 90% of Americans) that their souls will survive the death of their bodies and ascend to heaven. It is hard to get more dangerous than that.

Paul Bloom