A widespread view among contemporary philosophers and scientists is that the soul is a mystification. For Marilynne Robinson, American essayist and novelist, the crux of the matter is not the existence of the soul in itself, since this cannot be settled by debate. Rather, she challenges the sort of evidence that her opponents—mostly basing themselves on the work of neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists—deem to be decisive in determining the question. The soul, she claims, does not appear at the level of (...) our genes and neurons. Rather it is encountered in the many works of art and reflection that human beings have produced from the earliest times. This paper will focus on one such document, Robinson’s novel Gilead, in which she proposes a vision of the soul closely allied to the notion of blessing. Blessing, in turn, is inseparable from metaphor, pointing us to mystery, an elusive reality whose presence we experience only intermittently, although it is always there. Although Robinson’s several collections of essays provide needed context for the view of the soul displayed in the novel, it is our claim that it is the novel that truly turns the tables in the debate, inviting the reader to affirm or deny the soul’s reality not on the basis of the pronouncement of experts but on the basis of the way a given language aligns with experience. The internalization that such a process requires reveals the soul in action. This paper is thus a reading of Robinson’s writings on the soul. (shrink)

A review of The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse by Steven D Smith.

This paper raises some issues about understanding religion, religions and spirituality in health care to enable a more critical mutual engagement and dialogue to take place between health care institutions and religious communities and believers. Understanding religions and religious people is a complex, interesting matter. Taking into account the whole reality of religion and spirituality is not just about meeting specific needs, nor of trying to ensure that religious people abandon their distinctive beliefs and insights when they engage with health (...) care institutions and policies. Members of religious groups and communities form an integral part of the structure and fabric of health care delivery, whether as users or in delivery capacities. Religion is both facilitator and resistor, friend and critic, for health care institutions, providers and workers. (shrink)

New scientific approaches to religion have delivered a considerable number of theories aimed at explaining it, despite its cognitive and adaptive oddities. These efforts were built on available theoretical frameworks, including those from cognitive science, biology, and anthropology. Many voices have raised criticism against several aspects in the cognitive and evolutionist program, even if recognizing their legitimacy and the fruits collected to date. A pressing issue is whether the problem with the new scientific study of religion is related, to some (...) extent, to the use of outdated views on human evolution, mind, and behavior. If this is the case, then a deep revision concerning current models is required. The new direction proposed should account for more complex aspects of human nature following multilevel models, and a specific human feature—language—that could better explain religion as a meaning system. Understanding religion as a language might open an alternative path inside cognitive studies that is closer to how it is lived by believers. (shrink)

The Neurogenomic Paradigm. Anthropological Dimensions and Freedom in the Care of the Patient: The experimental scientific method disengages the body from the mind and the spirit. Ascertaining the meaning of each individual may overcome the methodological limitations within the current scientific paradigm. The noetic clues afforded by Neurogenomics via an integrative anthropological perspective should pave the way to heal the individual who feels ill, at the heart of his or her disease.

While strolling with my beloved in the local zoo, we came across a shortish, furry, brown fellow who engaged our sight and seemed to want to play with us, albeit at a distance. He was friendlier even than the acknowledged local clowns (the bears) and surprise followed surprise as we read that this guy belongs to the ferocious wolverine species. Could this same jolly creature be one who would promptly dispatch us, much larger animals, if he were not fed for (...) a while? Thinking about these seemingly contradictory views of one and the same being and of how reality is always more complicated than our models of it, I had the insight that what mostly afflicts "skepticism" is the inability to tolerate complexity and even seemingly contradictory views about a phenomenon. I write "skepticism" in quotation marks to differentiate the epistemological absolutism that pervades both the strident anti- and pro-psi proponents from what I consider a healthy abeyance from fully committing to a closed position in science or other aspects of life. I contend that although the person in a "New Age fair" trading in everything from magical rocks to mysterious odors may seem to be the counterpoint of, say, the arch-skeptic academic who a priori declares psi impossible, they are both afflicted with the same inability to assimilate contradictory information and tolerate ambiguity, and it is only their axioms that differ. And even those may not be that different when we compare superficial materialism and superficial spiritualism (Cardeña, 2010). Consider Humphrey's comments (1995:54) that "materialism is to all intents and purposes the fact of life" no matter how contentious that concept of "matter" is in physics and philosophy (e.g., Wigner, 1969), and that of a Brazilian medium who reported that after death there is food, the same as here, just better-tasting (cf. Playfair, 2010). For both, nothing else seems to exist but everyday objects, the only difference being that for the second they continue after death. (shrink)