![]() ![]() What’s more, these intuitions are constantly reinforced by a wealth of books, TV shows, movies, and pronouncements made by writers and gurus of all stripes who purport to have found convincing evidence for the existence of the soul. In my own interviews of college students enrolled in upper-level undergraduate psychology classes like the ones I regularly teach at Rutgers University, I have found that a majority of students also believe that they have a soul. ![]() Explaining the mind as a product of evolution, claimed the pope, was incompatible with the truth about man. Belief in the soul is also very much alive in North American culture today, as the results of numerous polls demonstrate. Pope John Paul II famously articulated the idea in a message delivered to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in October 1996, in which the Holy Father declared that the human body might originate from preexisting living matter, but the spiritual soul is a direct creation of God. This intuition also plays a central role in most religious doctrines. As Mark Baker and Stewart Goetz observe in their book "The Soul Hypothesis," “Most people, at most times, in most places, at most ages have believed that human beings have some kind of soul.” ![]() This intuition is deeply rooted in the human psyche and has been shared by people across cultures from antiquity to the present day. There must be something else in addition to the atoms and cells that make up our bodies-an essence, a spirit, something precious and beautiful. But Bayley’s story remains powerful because most of us share his intuition that human beings are more than mere collections of physical parts. This is a summary of the short story called "The God Gun," by science fiction author Barrington Bayley, which was written in the early 1970s. Today, in spite of considerable advances in technology, most people would find Rodrick’s quest futile and hopelessly simpleminded, to say nothing of its evil nature. This is what God supplied when he was alive, after all, reflected Harry. ![]() There was no beauty, no meaning, no inner life. Life went on, and the vast clockwork of the universe continued to tick according to mechanical laws, but all you had to do now was look into people’s eyes to realize that they were all dead inside. Rodrick had indeed killed God, and in the process, he had destroyed every living creature’s soul. Rodrick then removed his goggles to inspect the room, and it was at that moment that the truth was revealed to Harry. Harry looked around, and everything seemed perfectly normal. Gradually, the light intensified, and the brightness started to expand, swallowing the mirrors, the workbench, and the entire room. Through the dark lenses, they could make out the pattern of light in front of them as the beams followed their geometric paths. The two men adjusted their goggles and Rodrick flipped on the switch. He reasoned that it should be possible to generate a self-sustaining pattern of light that would reinforce itself indefinitely, transcending space and time to reach the Creator, striking God with a deadly bolt of energy. The machine that Rodrick built to carry out his plan was an elaborate framework of lasers, mirrors, and prisms, all precisely arranged and calibrated, sitting on the workbench in his home laboratory. When prompted to explain how he might be able to reach God, Rodrick remarked that the information had been available to us for a long time: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light,” (Genesis 1:3). He explained to Harry that even though God was not material, He must possess at least some material characteristics, for otherwise He would not have been able to create the physical universe. This desire was motivated in part by his conviction that the universe should exist on its own, but mostly it was fueled by Rodrick’s deep contempt for the unfairness of existence for which he held God responsible. Rodrick had decided that he wanted to kill God, and he thought he knew how. One July night in a small English village, sometime near the end of the twentieth century, Harry stood by his friend Rodrick as the radio engineer calmly explained his plan to strike at the creator of the universe. Lawrence Krauss, "A Universe from Nothing," 2012 It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. Excerpted from "The Soul Fallacy: What Science Shows We Gain From Letting Go of Our Soul Beliefs"Įvery atom in your body came from a star that exploded. ![]()
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