Philosophy of Religion (Cont.)

Are Souls Real? by Jerome W. Elbert

Do you believe your soul will survive after you die? Do you even believe you HAVE a soul? Many people devote their lives to caring for their souls and preparing for an afterlife. Others doubt souls exist. For questioners, the local experts on souls are usually ministers, priests, or rabbis. Not surprisingly, spiritual counselors almost always believe in various spirits, including some kind of supernatural soul. But given what we now know about the brain, psychology, and body chemistry, the skeptic may well ask what meaning or relevance this medieval term can possibly have today.

Physicist Jerome W. Elbert takes up this intriguing issue in his informative yet accessible study. He points out that many contemporary dilemmas have much to do with whether or not we posit the existence of a soul -- for example, the question of free will and the debate over abortion. Reviewing the ancient origins of the soul concept, Elbert looks at Christian beliefs and pagan parallels, and then considers how the advance of science has changed our fundamental understanding of the brain and consciousness. He shows how these new scientific insights inevitably affect our traditional ideas about the soul.

For anyone who is at all uncertain, ARE SOULS REAL? offers an alternative to the views of a spiritual advisor. Various experts, from biblical scholars to neuroscientists, have gathered information that allows soul beliefs to be judged more skeptically. This book brings these conclusions together, offering a new perspective on whether supernatural souls really exist.

Insightful and absorbing, ARE SOULS REAL? is popular science writing at its best.

From The author, Jerome W. Elbert , April 18, 2000:  
This book gives a skeptical discussion of soul-beliefs.  Do you believe your soul will survive after you die? Do you even believe you have a soul? Many people devote their lives to caring for their souls, while others doubt souls exist. Given the explosion in scientific knowledge about the brain, mind, and body chemistry, anyone who is even slightly skeptical may wonder whether the ancient concept of the soul holds any meaning in the modern world.

In Are Souls Real?, I review the ancient origins of the soul concept, look at Christian beliefs and pagan parallels, and consider how scientific progress has changed our understanding of the brain and consciousness. As a physicist with a life-long interest in religious and philosophical questions, I have developed my own insights and have gathered information from various experts, ranging from biblical scholars to neuroscientists and philosophers. The results allow me to make a thorough, but readable, evaluation of soul-beliefs. I come to a strong conclusion that a wide range of readers will find convincing.

That supernatural souls may not exist can have an enormous impact on our thinking about our basic nature and how we should live our lives. Does a soul impart consciousness to our bodies, or is consciousness a natural result of the functioning of our brains? I present an easily understood picture of how consciousness arises as a result of natural processes in biological organisms. I discuss how the possible non-existence of supernatural souls affects our ideas about practical issues such as free will, responsibility, crime and punishment, and abortion.

As the first book devoted entirely to a skeptical discussion of the soul's existence, Are Souls Real? is bound to be somewhat controversial. It does not treat soul-beliefs as primarily a matter of faith and tradition, but as questionable statements about reality. I expect a wide range of reactions. Although some may find the book disturbing since it challenges certain cherished beliefs, I hope that most will find that it gives a persuasive and enlightening description of what we are and what we are not.

About the Author
Jerome W. Elbert, Ph.D., is an independent researcher and writer. For many years he worked as a research professor of physics at the University of Utah. He is a member of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Origins

Site Includes:

Teaching Minds,
Changing Hearts

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Apologetics Resources

Pro

Con

Agnosticism

An Introduction

Atheism

Agnosticism

Non-theism  Critiques of Atheism, Agnosticism & Non-theism

Skeptical Theism

Teleological (Design) Arguments

Moral Arguments

Cosmological Arguments

Ontological Arguments

Miracle Arguments

Transcendental Arguments

Theistic Arguments in General

Websites Promoting Christianity (But helping to promote Atheism and Humanism by their example)

Big Bang Cosmology

Atheism, Theism and Big Bang Cosmology (1991) By Quentin Smith. This article was originally published in  Australasian Journal of Philosophy in March 1991 (Volume 69, No. 1, pp. 48-66).

Excerpt:

The idea that the big bang theory allows us to infer that the universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago has attracted the attention of many theists. This theory seemed to confirm or at least lend support to the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Indeed, the suggestion of a divine creation seemed so compelling that the notion that 'God created the big bang' has taken a hold on popular consciousness and become a staple in the theistic component of 'educated common sense'. By contrast, the response of atheists and agnostics to this development has been comparatively lame. Whereas the theistic interpretation of the big bang has received both popular endorsement and serious philosophical defence (most notably by William Lane Craig and John Leslie¹), the nontheistic interpretation remains largely undeveloped and unpromulgated. The task of this article is to fill this lacuna and develop a nontheistic interpretation of the big bang. I shall argue that the nontheistic interpretation is not merely an alternative candidate to the theistic interpretation, but is better justified than the theistic interpretation. In fact, I will argue for the strong claim that big bang cosmology is actually inconsistent with theism.

Theologicial Research Exchange Network

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World Union of Deists

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Xavier Zubiri Foundation

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Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North America
1571 44th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007 USA
Phone 202-298-0495, Fax 202-338-9084
President: Thomas B. Fowler

Página sobre XAVIER ZUBIRI

El objetivo de esta página es dar a conocer materiales sobre el pensamiento del filósofo en lengua castellana Xavier Zubiri (1898-1983). Para ello comienzo poniendo en ella aquellos de los que yo dispongo en soporte electrónico. Si a alguien que pretenda estudiar o investigar la filosofía zubiriana le sirven de algo me doy por satisfecho.