I Got Soul, and I'm Super Bad

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is Michael Medved. Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor of Germany, once said that God offers special protection to drunkards, lost dogs, children, and the United States of America.

We'll explore that special protection and what it means in The American Miracle. Subscribe to The American Miracle on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan McClellan (0:30)

They are literally taking these pillowcases and like... And, you know, oh, I got your soul. And then God is like, you naughty little minxes, I'm gonna grab those pillowcases, and I'm gonna open them up, and the souls are gonna be able to get back out.

Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher (0:51)

And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan (0:52)

And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and combat that pernicious spread of misinformation about the same. How are things, Dan?

Dan Beecher (1:07)

I'm pernicious, man. I'm out here being... My sister has a tattoo...

My sister actually has a tattoo of the word pernicious on her elbow, because...

Dan McClellan (1:16)

Oh, does she?

Dan Beecher (1:17)

Someone wrote an article about her music in a sort of underground rag, and called her pernicious in pink, because she had pink hair at the time. And she was like, okay, I'm going to be pernicious now.

Dan McClellan (1:30)

She's just going to lean into that.

All right. Not making it her whole identity, but at least the identity of her elbow.

Dan Beecher (1:37)

Yeah, that's right. That's exactly it.

Dan McClellan (1:40)

Fair enough.

Dan Beecher (1:40)

So, speaking of pernicious, today's show is going to be a little pernicious. We're going to talk about, or rather, it's going to be about a concept that has been pernicious, permiscuous, it's been permiscuous in my life. So, we're going to ask about the soul.

And then in the latter half of the show, we'll do a chapter and verse about, that sort of uses that concept, and we'll see how that plays out.

Dan McClellan (2:18)

Yeah, we're going to push back a little bit against the conventional wisdom about the concept of souls in the Bible.

But using my own research, one of my books, a book from another very well-respected scholar named Richard Steiner, and some material remains that have come to light in more recent years that are going to help us get a better grip on what the Bible is talking about when it talks about a soul. And there I'm, in my head, I'm quoting Lisa Simpson from one of the best Simpsons episodes ever where Bart sells his soul.

Dan Beecher (2:58)

Yes, indeed. To Millhouse, right?

Dan McClellan (3:01)

Yeah, yeah. And one of my favorite comic book guy lines when Bart is sleeping out front of his store because he wants to get his soul back, and the comic book guy says, as my breakfast burrito is congealing rapidly, I will be brief.

And then tells him he sold his soul, found a buyer right away for that.

Dan Beecher (3:24)

I, on the other hand, have tried to sell my soul, and no one will take it.

Dan McClellan (3:28)

No buyers, huh?

Dan Beecher (3:29)

Yeah, it's very sad.

Dan McClellan (3:31)

It's not a seller's market right now.

Dan Beecher (3:33)

No, not for an atheist soul. An atheist soul means nothing to anybody. As an atheist, I will say, I have people talking to me, using this word, soul, or a spirit, or whatever, which aren't necessarily synonyms, but can be used as synonyms.

Dan McClellan (3:54)

There's certainly semantic overlap, but at the same time, they are different concepts.

Dan Beecher (3:58)

Yeah, so I have people use that word with me, and then I say, I don't know what that is.

I don't have a concept of that that applies to my philosophy of the universe or whatever. And it blows people's minds. Even other non-believers who still have some sort of sense of a spirit or whatever, it really confuses people for me not to have that sense.

Dan McClellan (4:29)

And maybe we can clear up a little bit of that today, because I'm going to start from the cognitive sciences and our conceptualization of the self, because that has a lot to do with why pretty much every society that has ever existed that we can document has, maybe not has an authoritative version of this, but has some concept of an unseen kind of locus of animacy, of agency, of cognition, concepts of spirits, souls, ghosts, things like that. And so it's actually a very natural what's called a, well, it's kind of a side effect of human cognition, of how we became, how our brains became the way they are.