Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting emails and contact form submissions from a couple of former commenters here, ones that I banned. They have been pushing me to give full coverage to two topics, one the Gilbert film and the other allegations that Obama is gay. You might imagine the kind of people who eat up such stories and conclude that they might be rather unpleasant to deal with one on one, and you would be right. Calling me a liar is one of the nicer things they said.
I don’t go to deeply into these stories because I find them personally disgusting, and further that they are already dunked by the weight of their lack of evidence, leaving nothing that needs to be said. There is a reason why I debunk some worthless claims and not others–unlike some birthers, I respect family, decency and respect, and violations of these deeply offend me. On the other hand I don’t want to puke when I see a birth certificate clipping region misrepresented. Conspiracy theories can be fun, but smears are no fun at all — they are serious evil.
Last evening one wrote something that they probably considered the ultimate insult:
You have no soul.
It might surprise him to learn that I agree. When I first became a Lutheran, I asked my pastor whether Lutherans believed in “the immortality of the soul” or “the resurrection of the dead.” He replied that it was the latter.
I took Philosophy of Science in college where we looked at the mind-body problem. The idea that consciousness resided in some non-material entity that survives death is very problematic, leading to questions like: how does my mind1 make my finger move if the mind is isn’t part of the body? Why can a bump on the head change ones personality? Why does drinking alcohol make you do stupid things? Why does a drug make you less depressed? and Why does brain physiology correlate to belief systems? If the soul is anything meaningful, it has to embody personality, desire and memory. We can talk about “soul” just as we can talk about “patriotism," but they are abstract concepts.
So literally, I don’t believe I have a soul2. I do believe I have moral sense and one that I consider better developed than that of most birthers.
1I was never able to make much sense of the attempts to separate mind and soul. What meaning does “soul” have without personality and memory?
2A racist once told me that black people have no souls.
“The mind is what the brain does.”
So…if birthers are claiming that you have no soul, and that blacks don’t have souls, does that mean birthers think that you’re black?
Dr. C.,
You post reminded me that I’ve never been able to get a clear gasp of mainline Protestant teaching on what is supposed to happen to a soul after death. While looking on the web this morning, I couldn’t find a straightforward statement from the ELCA on the subject. Any suggestions?
Doc, you are a black person?
Just another expression of The Other. Darn that Us v. Them, black/white mentality.
I prefer rhythm and blues.
Does that mean you’re incapable of enjoying James Brown? If so, that is a tragedy.
Catholics have Purgatory and the Mormons believe that souls pre-exist the body and have their Celestial Kingdom. Unlike Catholics and Mormons, Lutherans don’t seem to think they have to have an answer for everything, and are content to say that we don’t know.
Official Lutheran theology is found in the Book of Concord, and I read that a long time ago and don’t know if it touches this question. Certainly a belief in the Catholic Purgatory was prevalent among the Catholics who became the first Lutheran theologians.
To approach the modern teaching of the ELCA, one would probably do best to ask what is taught in the seminaries, and this might be found in such books as Christian Dogmatics by Braaten and Jensen. From that work, Volume 2, p. 568:
I hope that short excerpt helps.
The issue of the soul is important when looking at the question of abortion from a Christian viewpoint.
I had always understood that family lore said there were Choctaw Indians somewhere in our heritage, but I couldn’t find anything to support this in my genealogical research. I asked my Dad about it shortly before he died. He said “I don’t know about any Indians, but there might have been some half-nigra in there somewhere.” I haven’t been able to find any records of that either. If there is a “nigger in the woodpile” it is before my great grandparents. All I have found are Scottish, Irish, English and German ancestors, fairly typical for the South.
doc: Catholics have Purgatory
what happened to all of those catholics who ate meat on fridays?
do zygotes have a soul?
the vatican and scientists believe eggs and sperm are “living” – that’s why the church bans spilling sperm except for procreation –
how many catholic men violate that tenet?
italian catholics are big on visiting the cemetery – i always ask “what are we visiting if the souls are in heaven?”
doc, you have a “good soul” – i comes through my screen –
others ….. not so much
Thanks, it was. I like the principle of acknowleging when one doesn’t know something.
On the subject of “what happens between death and resurrection,” I’ve noticed that there is a significant difference between popular notions that exist in the average church-goer and the official doctrine of a particular faith. Most people I’ve talked to believe that after death, a person’s soul is immediately judged, and then it’s off to heaven or hell for eternity. (If it’s a loved one, then no matter what, he or she is surely in heaven!) The principle of the physical resurrection of the body+soul is typically not something that figures into their eschatology, even though they affirm it whenever they recite the Nicene Creed. Of course, people say all kinds of things in church that they don’t really understand and haven’t thought very deeply about.
Catholics were losing converts in Africa, Africans didn’t like the idea of dying children going to a hell like place (purgatory) [limbus infantum, Doc] so they dropped the purgatory belief, it is no more
The thing that is so despicable about their “Obama is gay!” rhetoric (putting aside for now the fact that it isn’t true, and that they’re only saying it because they have this need to assign to him every negative thing they can think of, even if contradictory) is that they make the statement with the underlying assumption that merely being gay should disqualify one from, or make one unfit for, office (much like not long ago the same people might have charged that being black should do the same). They make the charge hoping people that might otherwise vote from might say “But gays are icky!” and not vote, or vote differently, or to reassure people that don’t like Romney that its OK to vote for him since they’re voting against the gay guy.
A proper argument, were there actually any merit to their accusation, might be to ask what that would mean for Michelle Obama or the children to have him denying himself. Or the like. But they don’t think about that because for them the mere existence of gays in this world that aren’t shunned and shamed is a crime unto itself (and it likely infuriates them that it is far less of a stigma today than even ten years ago, and becoming less so every day).
Well, to show that they have no ethics, journalistic or otherwise, Jerome Corsi and Joseph Farah have this very thing as the front page at WND. They claim that Obama is on the “down low,” a closeted black man with a wife and children to cover up for it. Michelle, in their estimation, is a woman that no straight man would have married. They further claim that Rev. Wright used his church to help such men find both wives and gay partners. They back this up, as usual, with nothing of substance.
Rich, I think you’re confusing Purgatory with Limbo. Purgatory is a sort of “between” place that souls go to before going to Heaven. The damned go straight to Hell, but the Saved go through Purgatory for a while and then go to Heaven. I don’t quite understand the Biblical basis for it. I think it’s something in the book of Maccabees, which is in the Apocyrpha (part of the Bible that Protestants don’t use).
Limbo is the place where unbaptized babies went. Until, like, I guess the Pope reconfigured the afterlife or something. You can do that if you’re the Pope.
Actually, as my father explained it, he said that Limbo was always just hypothetical and not really grounded in the Bible. So the Vatican just said “Yeah okay, we admit it. We just made that part up.”
I was raised Catholic, but am not currently religious. My parents and 3 of my 6 siblings are still devout Catholics. Especially the one who is 26 and has been pregnant 4 times in the past 57 months.
It also puts you in this Seinfeldian position, like the Muslim claims. You say “Obama is not gay!!!! Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”
I think it’s kinda rude to tell someone he has no soul. The exceptions are:
1) That person is a close friend and it’s a friendly joke you both mutually agree on.
2) That person has publicly expressed a dislike of Calvin and Hobbes.
you have to be very full of hate for Obama to accept the wild conjectures of the Gilbert film
.
Thrifty – thanks for correction – it was limbo I meant
Ha! We go to the biggest Costco imaginable, for eternity.
Eat your hearts out, people.
If I buy another car, it will be a Kia Soul. Then people can say, ‘There’s a Jewish guy with soul.’
And I love their hamsters.
Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics,
And the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Hindus hate the Muslims,
And everybody hates the Jews.
Tom Lehrer
The Nazi’s had their Jud Süß and the birther’s have NObama. Some people need scapegoats on which to pin their worst imaginings. Other just use their spouses.
Right on, T., such rainbow flamers are projecting and betraying their own prejudice. Such comments may affirm the likeminded, but literally have no effect on their supposed targets (any and all who fail to agree with grade school truisms).
… or do they insist on believing everyone else is secretly homophobic?
Well, all I know about this is, if somebody offers to pay you money for your soul, you had better run like heck! Because you shouldn’t play around with this kind of stuff. Or things like this will happen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L97umTAnRvM
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
I see your Tom Lehrer, and I raise you one Emo Phillips:
Okay, all that’s very offensive and I’m black, but still, I laughed out loud at the word “nigra.”
And no offense to your dad, but that word conjured up an image of a klan member looking ridiculous in a sheet with a pointy hat and spitting tobacco…..like that guy in the Porky’s film.
I’m sure I have many whites in my “woodpile” being a product of slavery, and you’d know that if you saw me and some members of my family.
…a little surprised to see you use the “n” word, though….even jokingly.
…not that there’s anything wrong with that.
You knew someone had to say it, didn’t you Tarrant??
Actually, I will buck things and say that were President Obama gay I WOULD see something wrong with that. It would tell me that he is not being honest with himself or America, and that would make me question his judgment, just like it does any of the legislators who shout out anti-gay platitudes from the rafters then get caught with their lover. Anyone who would decide to not be themselves in order to be elected to a high office is someone that I would question.
Now, I don’t believe he is gay, and if he were, I don’t believe he would hide it. So I don’t think this is an issue. But I do see a problem with politicians that decide that to further their careers they should get married and have kids and live a life they may not truly want.
Someone who is gay and is comfortable with themselves, that there is nothing wrong with.
Let me expand on that a bit. I am gay, and I live in Washington, DC (I don’t work in government, though).
I have met many people that work for conservative organizations – think tanks, Representatives, Senators, the Bush administration – who go out to the gay bars in DC and when one talks about jobs and the like they ask you to please not out them. I would never – ever – do such a thing, and I know few people that would (I know there are gay organizations that try to make a point of doing that kind of stuff, but that’s wrong). Hell for years I was friends with the senior legislative director for a Senator where said Senator knew he was gay, but for which they both knew if his constituents ever find out he’d have to quit in disgrace (he eventually got a hired as a lobbyist instead).
This is not healthy for these people. I see it too often, and I feel horrible for many of these people.
By birther logic, yes. They will pull a Minor and claim “black => no soul” is the same as “black = no soul”.
This reminds me of the vile crowd at WND. In one of the religion threads, a person claimed he had dreamt of both white and black angels. The crowd immediately scolded him that black angels don’t exist and that those beings were demons.
My Angel is black with a white chest. Where does that leave her?
http://www.cutepuppiesforsale.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Afghan-Hound-For-Sale.jpg
the jihadist was very excited talking about his reward in heaven of 72 virgins, that was when he was reminded the the soul has no PeePee
Thanks for a great chuckle.
I don’t believe in a soul either.
There was an article some decades back, titled “The Gap between the Pulpit and the Pew” (more or less) that might have been in Christian Century magazine that talked about the fact that pastors learn stuff in seminary that they never talk about in sermons. Because I became a Lutheran later in life, I didn’t go through the confirmation training, so I don’t know what doctrinal instruction they get there.
holy freeperly crap, I wish I could believe you were kidding.
Did I read it right, Doctor Conspiracy?: You disbelieve in the soul from studying philosophy of science and observing how profoundly we are connected to the physical world, and you believe in the resurrection of the dead because you asked your pastor what Lutherans believe and that’s what he said.
I’m an atheist recruiter and I’m putting you on our list.
That may have been written by the Episcopal Bishop John Spong? He certainly tries to emphasize that in his essays and books.
No. I didn’t say that. My pastor’s remark was cited to say that this is what Lutherans (a mainline Protestant denomination) say, not as for the reason for what I believe. The resurrection of the dead for me is a hope, not a belief. I should hasten to add that the creeds of the Church, e.g. the Apostle’s creed use the word “believe” on this matter, but the Christian scriptures say “hope.”
I’ve read some of Spong’s books, but I think the author was someone else.
It reminds me of the field trip we took to the synagogue. The Rabbi showed us the Torah scrolls, and I asked him how many of his congregation could read them. He said they just had this one guy who could. I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I were the only one in our congregation that has read the Book of Concord. Doctrine just isn’t a big deal in the Lutheran churches I have known.
It’s even harder to pin down what Evangelicals believe since they don’t have creeds and authoritative historical confessional writing. In practice a congregation basically follows its spiritual leader (minister/pastor/preacher).
Having been brought up High Church Anglican (Episcopalian)….”All the Smells, All the Bells…All the Frocks….None of the Guilt”, tempered by the various “muscular” Protestantism of a range of boarding school and miltary padres I am now in the Swale of Comfort where I JUST DON’T CARE about anyone my or anyone elses religion.
‘Course, if you are one of those who just can’t help trying to push your personal sky jockeys mantra on me I will have a distinct sense of humour failure and it will end in tears.
My parents used to live in a rather devout and evangelical area in Florida and on one memorable occassion finally remembered that mixing Bov, alcohol and God Botherers was a BAD IDEA.
It ended (on the other side) with screaming, yelling, imprecations, much calling of the Lords Name, begonning and vile creatureness labelling.
Me, I giggled like an 8 year old boy who has just dropped a frog down his big sisters back. I hadn’t had so much fun since an equally memorable occasion where during a Free Fire Exercise an NCO minion of mine called in an artillery strike on a herd of sheep on the grounds that they were “suspicious and distinctly Welsh”.
I guess I am a bad mother these days. Raised Southern Baptist I ran screaming to the Episcopal Church, (We have 10 suggestions, not 10 Commandments), and raised my daughters there. Now, at the tender age of 50 I’m contemplating the local UU church where doctrine isn’t an issue. I have one daughter who is like me, questionable, and one who is a declared atheist but who says that she will raise her children, if she has any, in the Episcopal Church because the discipline of the liturgy is good for them, LOL! Do I have soul? depends on if I’m hanging at Grant’s Lounge in downtown Macon, GA on a Friday or Saturday night.
The late Michael Goulder was an eminent biblical scholar and, early in his career, an Episcopal priest. In the early 1980’s he declared himself a non-aggressive atheist and resigned his orders. His colleagues in the Church were astonished, and assured him that not believing in God was no reason to resign his orders.
I’ve taught at two Catholic universities. The number of agnostics in holy orders is higher than most people think.
I attend an Episcopal church because my wife is the director of music there. I guess I’d call myself an aesthetic atheist, for while I don’t believe in God, I enjoy the music, art, drama, literature, and architecture that religious faith has inspired. During the service there are things that are said, or that I’m required to say, that I find intolerable. At those moments I just close my eyes and think of football.
I’ve been around the horn, so to speak. I was raised Roman Catholic and was an altar boy, but by high school I was only going through the motions. In the late 70s I was living in Arizona and my wife wanted to go to a non-denominational evangelical church, so I tagged along to keep her happy. Then we moved to Fresno and tried a couple of churches there before moving to Colorado, were we tried a Southern Baptist church which was in the neighborhood and then an Episcopal church. I grew weary of it all and except for weddings and funerals I haven’t been to church in more than twenty years.
I’d rather stay up late watching movies on Saturday nights than get up to go to church on Sundays. I don’t regret the exposure to various religious beliefs (and more than a few religious wackos). I recall that the Southern Baptist pastor counseled an employee of Coors that he should quit his job because beer is the devil’s brew. I also knew two women who were vocally anti-abortion but who secretly paid for abortions for their teenage daughters.