I’m not sure what I believe about life after death. I’m quite sure that I don’t believe in life before life.

            When I was about ten, my mother told me that my father had proposed to another woman, before he met my mother.

            He had finished his Master’s degree. He had signed up to go to India as a missionary with  the United Church of Canada. He invited this other woman to go with him.

            She said no.

            By a fortunate coincidence for me, my mother went to India about the same time, as a Presbyterian missionary from Northern Ireland. My parents met at language school. Six years later they had me.

            Even at the age of ten, it occurred to me that if that other woman had said “Yes,” I wouldn’t  be who I was. I would be someone else. Maybe even –horrors – a girl!

            Later, I learned more about the mechanics of conception. That the mother releases only one egg at a time, out of several hundred. And that only one sperm in 30 million will penetrate and fertilize that ovum to start a new life.

Predestined outcome

            The odds boggle my mind.

            Which doesn’t prove, of course, that some form of supernatural intelligence couldn’t plan to have Dad’s proposal rejected so that years later a specific pre-selected sperm could fertilize a specific pre-selected ovum and thus enflesh a physical body as a habitat for an immortal soul that had been hovering around through all eternity waiting to become me.

            But it does make me wonder why anything that intelligent would bother. And it makes me skeptical about the existence of immortal souls. Also about intelligent design, pre-destination, and karma.

            I believe a human being is more than just the temporary incarnation (or embodiment) of something eternal. And also more than the re-incarnation of something that previously existed, struggling to transcend its past.

            Each person is a new creation. Unique. Un-duplicated. And therefore deeply precious.

Disembodied souls

            Naturally, if I don’t believe that my immortal soul existed before birth, I have difficulty believing that my immortal soul will continue existing after death.

            Neurologists now talk about whole-body thinking. Without millions of inputs from our senses, our little grey cells have nothing to work with. In a sense, they say, we are our senses.

            We see with our eyes. We taste with our mouths and smell with our noses. We hear with our ears, and perhaps with resonances felt in other parts of our physical bodies too. And we touch with our whole bodies. Every millimeter of skin is a sensory organ.

            Descartes’ famous aphorism, “I think, therefore I am,” might be re-stated as “I am a body, therefore I can think.”

            I can’t rule out the possibility of something continuing after death. I just haven’t  been there yet.

            Besides, my church’s creed challenges me: “in life, in death, in life beyond death…”

            I don’t want to disbelieve many people’s apparent conviction, shortly before death,  that their loved ones were welcoming them into some new existence. I myself have felt the continuing presence of a loved one for months after his death.

            But if  we think with our whole bodies, and we don’t have bodies any more, would our immortal souls still think? How would we relate to other souls?

            Here, I think I stand.

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Copyright © 2020 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

I made some comments in last week’s column about the right-handed technologies that left-handers have to cope with. Wayne Irwin suggested,  “It all seems very sinister to me!”

            Okay, if you’re not a word-smith, “sinister” comes from the Latin for “left”.

Steve Roney didn’t agree that we consider our un-thought-out rituals vitally important: “How often do we really go to war over ‘head stuff’? I don’t think it is really very often, although this is a common claim.”

            [You might claim that] “the current war in Afghanistan is ‘head stuff,’ Islamism versus secular liberal democratic ideas; but the practical consequences of living under the Taliban are not purely academic. Not just in your head. Freedom is a real experience: the ability to lead your own life as you wish.

            “ISIS in Iraq: again, the difference between living under ISIS or the Iraqi government is stark in practical terms, even life or death to many. Not purely theoretical or philosophical.”

            Steve continued with examples from Vietnam and the two World Wars. “Perhaps there are cases where a purely theoretical difference has been a significant factor in a war. More commonly, however, such ideological differences do not cause the war so much as be used to justify it. Any government, at war, will seek to convince their population that right is on their side, and the other side is bad. Accordingly, they will argue the justice of the war based on their shared world view.”

            Steve took issue with my hypothetical question – suppose we found, and were able to analyze, traces of Jesus’ DNA, and thus establish his human or divine parentage. “Christian theology asserts that Jesus had a full complement of human genes: he was fully man,” Steve replied. “God does not have DNA.”

Isabel Gibson responded to the same hypothetical question, “I take the point that we seem disproportionately attached to our rituals, and invest them with rightness (even holiness), rather than just seeing them as our preference. A choice at the level of ‘I'll have a skinny latte, not a double-double’  and about as significant.

            “But I'm not sure our rituals are where we might expect to see a difference after learning definitively that Jesus was or was not divine. Never mind the morning coffee: Would such a revelation makes us any kinder? Or any more likely to care or share?

            “Bad enough that the thinking underpinning our rituals is just head stuff. What about the elaborate theological systems we (well, some of us) construct?”

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PSALM PARAPHRASE

Psalm 15 only shows up in the lectionary listings once every three years. It’s worth paying attention to more frequently.

1          Your doors are always open, God;
you have no locks or fences.

2          Anyone can walk in -- anyone who does no harm to others,
who holds no grudges,
who rejects pretense and sham.

3          Your guests have no double standards;
they will not double-cross a friend for their own gain,
nor sow dissension among their colleagues.

4          Yet they do not simply tolerate whatever comes;
they steer clear of evil causes.
They keep their word -- even at personal sacrifice.

5          They do not see money only as a means of making more;
they will not seek profit from the plight of the poor and helpless.
They are not fickle or changeable.
They will not do anything to cut themselves off from your company.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalmsfrom Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.

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                  I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

                  And for those of you who like poetry, please check my webpage .https://quixotic.ca/My-Poetry I posted some new poetic works there a few weeks ago.  If you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca,  or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blank email (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca (If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.

                  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!

                  I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.

                  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

                  I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)