For some, the central message of Christianity is about personal salvation. What it is exactly that we need saving from is debatable, depending on who you ask: from the fires of hell; from ourselves, from an apocalyptic end to the world as we know it. But I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately and I'm beginning to think that we're going about the whole salvation thing the wrong way.
The idea first arose when I was going over the possible questions to be included in my next Banned Questions book, which is about Christians. The question reads:
When a baby is conceived, where do Christians believe that soul comes from? Is it created at that moment or has it been floating in existence in the universe from the beginning of time?
For starters, this assumes a relatively modern Western mindset that places the individual center stage. This has not always been the case. In fact, human beings were more community-minded for most of history before the fierce individualism of today's world took hold. The ancient Jewish notion of sin wasn't so much focused on individual deeds as it was referring to the collective well-being and orientation of an entire group.
Taking this difference in perspective and applying it to the concept of the human soul, I began to wonder if we're beginning with a fundamental distortion of what it means to have a soul. While mulling this idea over in bed at 2 in the morning, a quote from Louis CK's show, Louie, came to mind. In this particular scene, Louis CK is talking to a friend, Eddie (Doug Stanhope) who is contemplating suicide, and who is looking to CK for a reason not to follow through with his plan. Finally exasperated, CK hits him between the eyes with a profound truth:
"You know what," he says to Eddie, "it's not your life. It's life. Life is bigger than you. If you can imagine that. Life isn't something that you possess; it's something that you take part in, and you witness."
Amen.
Somewhere along the way we got this idea that we were given this thing known as a life, which has a beginning and end as defined by our own personal human experience on Earth. But what if CK is right? What if life just is, and we're jumping in mid-stream to participate in an ongoing conversation that was, is and will be much larger than us? How, then, does this change our perspective on our right to life, or our responsibility for it, be it occupied by us or someone else?
If we really begin so see no distinction between our own lives and the lives of others -- at the deepest existential level -- how profoundly might this affect the way we understand everything else?
Back to the idea of the human soul. I've always imagined souls like the question suggests. There's some sort of warehouse somewhere that checks out souls as there are bodies to employ them. Perhaps they get re-used, or perhaps they're as unique as fingerprints. But lately I'm beginning to think the very idea of the soul has fallen victim to the same sort of fierce individualism that our understanding of life, God and personal salvation suffer from.
What if we don't each possess "a soul"? What if there is some greater Collective Soul (no, not the nineties garage band) in which we get to take part, but which we never own, so to speak?
And if we're all participants in the same Collective Soul, what does this mean for the Christian message of salvation?
I grew up hearing that the crux of Christianity lay in the proclamation of faith that would then ensure your passage into an afterlife in communion with God. You effectively protected the fate of "your" eternal soul by doing so, and that your life's mission beyond this proclamation was to go and get others do to likewise.
But the idea of a single, Collective Soul blows up this entire concept of personal salvation. There's no longer a possibility of individual salvation while others still suffer. Now, for some this might mean that the entire world has to be converted to Christianity before we can be truly reconciled with God. But I tend to think, based on Jesus' life and teaching, that it has more to do with lifting one another up and making ourselves collectively whole by working together toward the eradication of suffering, be it physical, emotional or spiritual.
This also re-frames the idea of the phrase "Thy Kingdom come" in the so-called Lord's Prayer. Whereas some consider this a plea to God to bring some sort of yet-to-be experienced kingdom here to earth, what if it's meant to be a pledge from us to God? What if it's we who are responsible for invoking God's kingdom, by living as if there truly is no man, woman, slave, free, Muslim, Jew, gay, straight, Republican or Democrat?'
The responsibility for "God's Kingdom come" then is on us. Rather than waiting on God to act, we bear the burden for making real the perfectly complete love of which Jesus spoke. In doing so, it's hard to imagine that I could sit back and consider my own personal salvation, however you interpret that, while others still suffer.
After all, their life is also my life.
Their soul is also my soul.
Their salvation is also my salvation.
To make any other distinction is to place "self" above "other" and thus take a step back from fully realizing the vision glimpsed in Jesus' life and ministry. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's about us.
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SAVED FROM SUFFERING - YouTube
The Suffering: Ties That Bind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saved but suffering - Boston.com
HSUS Video - Channels - Puppy Mills - Saved From Suffering ...
Hebrews 2:10 In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God ...
Measure for Measure
Shakespeare
When I look in the mirror I marvel at the discrepancy between what I see, an aging face, and my experience of clear awareness. As Doug Harding said, "I have no head." As you say, "I'm just life."
I often used to feel guilty in church for having thoughts like
...this whole pile of subject matter that we hear each sunday seems to be about how I can get right with God so that I can live rightly , so that I can be rewarded on earth and in heaven so that I can also steer clear on earth of the influence of the evil one's forces which/ who are active and real in this earthly real, seeking to destroy and devour who they will. ie the bad spirits are after me so I better be on great , great terms with my God at all time so that he can afford and grant i protecion to me, me, me , me
The more we experiment, the more we discover that animals are not all that different from us. That what we consider uniquely human traits are actually not all that unique.
Before we have a long discussion about souls, shouldn't we first address the question about whether this is substantiated, or whether this is a hypothetical discussion along the lines of whether Superman or Spiderman was cooler.
But there are problems using the term ''soul'' to describe the animistic belief that all things have some form of life force in them. The meaning is not the same as the soul of theists who have developed the meaning into the self-aware component of the human being.
Human belief systems on the Huffpost threads are mostly reduced to the opposing worldviews of atheism and theism. Truth is, many people follow a different path.
Karma causes it, whatsoever any lifeforce experience from any other that lifeforce has to experience the reverse. All existing being types, animated or still, interacts or are interacted upon by others therefore those interactions has to be experienced by the lifeforces of each, receivers and givers. Therefore, reincarnation is the law by which the lifeforces on earth and similar planets evolve through the being types. As lifeforces prepare to evolve to another plane or layer, like onions, during the last incarnation the being goes through a "New Birth" or Metamorphosis to become eternal without discarnating again until becoming the lifeforce of existence or to reenter another timeline [sequence of passing from being type to being type].
I imagine there are lifeforces awaiting incarnating after being the lifeforce of existence because I believe it takes time for the lifeforce to forget everything learned while maintaining existence. The last lifeforce to incarnate existence goes "to the end of the line" of lifeforces awaiting. In that light, all lifeforces are saved and suffering as we know it ends after the metamorphosis is completed.
The trouble is what is at equilibrium is never quite explained. As a result, Karma, while an interesting concept is one of the pseudo-scientific concepts that prima facie looks cool but is difficult to substantiate. That is not to say that there isn't some sort of equilibrium, but if there is, the current view of Karma is too garbled to be able to explain it.
What in most religions is science able to prove? Existence has things unprovable by physical science because it has no way of detecting certain activities of spirit or energy. Thus Karma, also called "reaping what's sown", is explained as "every lifeforce which acts upon the physical manifestation of another has to have that action done to it as that manifestation". In that light, there is no karma without a lifeforce.
I enjoyed reading about your 2 a.m. musings. Very interesting. God only considers those who are in union with Him, "participating in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) as having "life". Consider in the parable of the lost son how the son is classified as "dead" when he is apart from the Father (Luke 15:24), but "alive again" when he returns to the Father. Consider Christ's words, "the time has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live," John 5:25. Also note in that last passage that it is "those who hear" who are alive again.
While the Lamb of God "takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29), it is possible for individuals to "trample the Son of God underfoot," treat as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them," and "insult the Spirit of grace," Hebrews 10:29. There are many, many Scriptures that indicate the possibility of either death or life for humans. Yes, the believers are pictured as "members of one body" (1 Corinthians 10:17) and pictured as being built together into one building in which God dwells. Yet there are humans who are not in that union participating in the divine nature.
The phrase, "Thy Kingdom Come" refers to that time when the Kingdom of God is established on earth. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof". Earth is where "heaven" will be for us. This is based on Scripture. Surely, you know these things.
Man lacking in perfection can never achieve the lofty goals of establishing the Kingdom of God without God's help. Nor, would you necessarily like to bear the burden's of my sins in your one for all philosophy.
The Scripture doesn't speak of collective forgiveness...but, individual forgiveness by the blood of Christ. And, "no!" the soul is not in some magic place prior to birth...nor, is it in some magic place at death. At death it is in the grave, and the spirit returns to God until Christ's return. Then the spirit is reunited with the soul and the body. And, man is judged in his own trinity in the image of God.
Every attempt to find any evidence souls exist has found nothing. Without such evidence is it utterly illogical to even begin to discuss the properties souls have. It's like talking about the mating habits of Bigfoot. It is meaningless.
However, as the history of religion shows, it's also very dangerous.
one note if you are religious or a materialist dont bother to look as you, meaning your ego, will reject before investigation. the human mind is that deceptive.
as far as danger, the materialist and the religious system of beliefs can be very dangerous to society.
There is no evidence for there being any sort of soul. Until there is your whole 'argument' is empty, meaningless prattle.
Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you don't.
"That which is stated without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
Logically, before you can talk about a deity having a "kingdom" you first have to prove said deity exists. To date, in the roughly 5000 years of recorded history, no one has ever managed to do that.
As Christopher Hitchens used to point out, "That which is stated without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". Your post falls into that category.
Proof?
by the way....noticed your screen name....its not by might or power....
1 Corinthians 1 says it nicely
"friends, remember what you were like when you were called, not many of you were wise or influential or born into wealth, because God chose the lowly losers of the world to shame the high and mighty, God chose the weaklings to shame the strong, God chose the despised outcasts over the popular VIP, so that no one may boast..............by my might and power I did such and such"
the thought occurred to me to mention it
God is into shame? this is another example of a God made in the image of man.