-Caveat Lector-
From
Ventura County Star
>>>Note: Given the statement at the end of the article, comparing Mama T & the Merrie
Land shootists, what the real emssage is? Given that Mama T's organisation in India
syphoned off scads of dinero from the willing unsuspectful but didn't invest much in
the
infrastructure, AND, in order to save even more dinero, washed off ("sterilised") hypo
needles under the Calcuttan tap water before reuse, is this to indicate that the
BushMasterMind and Boie Wonder, MALeVOlent, are the forces of non-evil? A<>E<>R<<<
To print this page, select File then Print from your browser
URL: http://www.insidevc.com/vcs/religion_and_ethics/article/0,1375,VCS_151_
1488851,00.html
Soul searching
People of faith contemplate that part of us that, perhaps, transcends death
By Tom Kisken, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
October 18, 2002
Store it in the attic along with the slide rules, eight-track tapes and manual
typewriters.
The soul is obsolete, according to a professor of Christian philosophy who asserts
spirituality comes from the body and the way it reacts to surroundings, not an immortal
spark of energy that is God's imprint on humanity.
"We are flesh and bones that have the capacity to think rationally, inquire about
morality
and inquire about and obey God," said Nancey Murphy, a Fuller Theological Seminary
scholar and ordained minister who will speak next month at California Lutheran
University in
Thousand Oaks.
In a program called "Whatever Happened to the Soul?" Murphy will assert that questions
about people's capacity to feel connected to God can be explained by neurobiology and
culture. She'll argue people can be Christians without believing in the duality that
God
created Adam as part body and part soul.
"It's not a matter of parts, it's a matter of how we live," she said, explaining a
person
connects to God by making choices. "We can use all of our parts to live spiritually or
we can
use all of our parts to live carnally."
But saying that belief in a soul is integral to religion is similar to saying oxygen
is important
to life. Hindus, Jews, Christians and Muslims all view the soul as an X-factor that
helps
solve core questions of faith.
How are people different from each other and from other living beings? How do people
communicate with God? How can impermanent life have a shot at eternity?
Because people are more than just bodies, said the Rev. Steve Larson of the Evangelical
Free Church of the Conejo Valley. They are material and nonmaterial. They are physical
and spiritual. They are mortal shells and immortal souls that can ascend to heaven and
be
united with a new, eternal body.
"The soul is that part of me that is created in God's image," Larson said. "My
definition is
it's that part which makes me me."
It's portrayed in many faiths as spirituality's fingerprint on humanity.
"The thing that makes any human being unique is their soul," said Rabbi Lisa Hochberg-
Miller of Temple Beth Torah in Ventura. "We never fully know or understand our own
soul."
Jews believe the way a person lives dictates whether his or her soul climbs a ladder of
levels with the highest rung known as yechida and meaning a person is at one with God.
"The soul is our barometer of the kind of human being we want to be," Hochberg-Miller
said. "It's kind of the compass point."
It plays into debates about abortion and the use of fetal stem cells in medical
research, with
Catholics often opposing both procedures on grounds a soul is created when life is
conceived. Many Muslims believe ensoulment begins about four months into pregnancy.
Many Jews believe a soul becomes alive at birth when a person takes his or her first
breath.
R. Swami Narayanaswami, a Hindu engineer and businessman who lives in the Thousand
Oaks community of North Ranch, defines the soul as an energy that allows the eye to see
and the ear to hear. It is the essence of life and when the body is worn out, the soul
finds a
new home in another physical shell.
Hindus believe reality never changes. The soul, known as Atman, is part of that
reality while
bodies that age and wrinkle are not.
"That reality is what we seek," Narayanaswami said in a living room decorated with
pictures of deities Ganesha, Krishna and Shiva. He explained the cycle of
reincarnation ends
when people no longer need their physical bodies, instead becoming one with the energy
that is their souls.
"To realize the soul, that is the goal," he said.
Marrying faith and science
Murphy's intent is to help people understand they can have faith and science. They can
believe in God and eternal salvation without believing the flesh and bones of the body
is
augmented by a soul.
She was raised Catholic but now is a nonpracticing minister in the Church of the
Brethren, a
pacifist Christian denomination.
She teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and is working with a
neuropsychologist on her seventh book. Its working title, according to her partner, is
"Did
My Neurons Make Me Do It?"
The soul was born about 2,500 years ago as a way of explaining the difference between
life
and inanimate objects like rocks, Murphy said. It also helped define the difference
between
a dead body and life graced with the ability to move, feel and think.
"It was an explanatory move that has turned out to be unnecessary," she said,
suggesting
neurobiology provides explanations for movement, sensation and intellectual capacity.
She believes it's also the brain, along with cultural and social influences, that
dictates a
person's sense of faith.
Science hasn't given absolute answers but neuro-scientists like Michael Arbib say
feeling
connected with God has more to do with the firing of neurons in the brain than it does
with
soul.
"It's part of the way our brain works," said the USC professor. "It's a particular
kind of high
that through social experience many of us have learned to interpret as religious."
Arbib's theories are one reason he describes himself as an atheist theologian. Murphy,
though, is Christian. She doesn't believe in an immortal soul but does think that
people can
be bodily resurrected to heaven in a phenomenon that probably happens at the end of the
universe.
She believes God created humanity as entirely physical beings. She believes in the
Bible but
subscribes to what she calls a scholarly interpretation that "leaves us free to an
account of
human nature that is consistent with science."
Larson, the evangelical pastor from Thousand Oaks, talks about the verse in Genesis
that
refers to God breathing life into Adam and creating him as a living soul. Murphy
argues that
the Hebrew word used in the text can be translated not only as "soul" but as "living
being."
"That's not interpreting the Bible, that's changing the Bible," Larson said. "The
Scripture is
not ambiguous. ... Either the Bible lied when it said we had a soul or it's true."
People of other faiths are just as skeptical. Mahmoud Abdel-Baset, coordinator of
religious
and social services at the Islamic Center of Southern California, said people without
souls
would be the same as any other animal.
"We would have no moral foundation, no sense of right or wrong," he said. "We would
respond to our natural bodily instinct rather than our values and our judgments."
Rabbi Hochberg-Miller wonders if neurobiology can provide as many answers as belief in
the soul.
"I don't think science can explain why each of us is utterly unique," she said. "We're
made
up of the same cells and matter and yet there can be a Mother Teresa and there can be a
sniper in the woods of Maryland. What is it that makes us unique? That is the great
mystery."
Copyright 2002, Ventura County Star. All Rights Reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A<>E<>R
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Forwarded as information only; I don't believe everything I read or send
(but that doesn't stop me from considering it; obviously SOMEBODY thinks it's
important)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without
charge or
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of
information for
non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth
shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http://archive.jab.org/ctrl@;listserv.aol.com/
<A HREF="http://archive.jab.org/ctrl@;listserv.aol.com/">ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
