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Category Archives: Immortality

Immortality – Infidels

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The question of survival of bodily death concerns whether some aspect of an individual (usually one's personality or consciousness) continues to exist after the death of one's normal physical body. Immortality concerns whether that surviving aspect continues to exist forever. While evidence for survival is not necessarily evidence for immortality, evidence against survival is clearly evidence against immortality. Thus articles advocating pure mortalism or "the extinction hypothesis"the thesis that death is the complete, permanent annihilation of the personreject immortality in virtue of rejecting survival after death. Since there is little difference between impersonal survival and complete annihilation, the articles below generally only concern the notion of personal survivalthe idea that persons will survive death as distinct individuals.

Of the articles listed below, those listed under conceptual arguments primarily concern conceptual or logical arguments against (all or certain kinds of) survival of bodily death, or critiques of conceptual arguments in favor of (all or certain kinds of) survival after death. For instance, some have argued that disembodied existence is inconceivable or incoherent (e.g., Terence Penelhum). Others have argued that resurrection in a new body would merely be the creation of a replica of you, and thus "you" could not survive death through that sort of resurrection (e.g., Antony Flew). Survival proponents, by contrast, have occasionally offered conceptual arguments in favor of a kind of substance dualism which, if true, would allow discarnate survival or even make it probable (e.g., Richard Swinburne), or defended the viability of bodily resurrection (in the absence of a soul) as a way to survive death (e.g., Peter van Inwagen).

Articles listed under empirical arguments generally concern scientific evidence against (some or all kinds of) life after death (such the mind-brain dependence argument or mortalistic argument from physical minds), as well as critical investigations of phenomena (such as near-death experiences) alleged to provide evidence for the survival hypothesis. Where both conceptual and empirical arguments are considered, I have categorized articles according to their emphasis.

-- Keith Augustine

Could We Survive Our Own Deaths? (1998) by Antony Flew

Flew argues that we do not survive death.

David Chalmers' Principle of Organizational Invariance and the Personal Soul (2014) by Clifford Greenblatt

David Chalmers argues that conscious experience is a real but nonphysical feature of nature. However, he also believes that all particular facts about any conscious experience supervene (naturally, but not logically) on physical facts, such that physical facts fully determine any conscious experience. His principle of organizational invariance goes even further to claim that fine-grained functional organization fully determines any conscious experience (naturally, but not logically). This principle has powerful implications for artificial intelligence, allowing for the possibility of fully conscious digital computers. But the principle of organizational invariance is not compatible with the concept of a personal soul. This paper does not attempt to prove or disprove the existence of a personal soul, but defends its conceptual coherence against the challenge presented by Chalmers' principle of organizational invariance.

Problems with Heaven (1997) by Michael Martin

"Belief in Heaven is an essential part of the great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Famous theologians have written about it and ordinary theists hope to go there after death.... However, the concept of Heaven is neither clear nor unproblematic.... [T]here are three serious problems with the notion of Heaven. First, the concept of Heaven lacks coherence. Second, it is doubtful that theists can reconcile the heavenly character of Heaven with standard defenses against the Argument from Evil such as the Free Will Defense. Third, Heaven is unfair and, thus, it is in conflict with the goodness of God."

Trouble in Paradise? Michael Martin on Heaven (2003) by Tom Wanchick

"In a sampling of his Internet publications, Prof. Michael Martin has argued that, when closely evaluated, the concept of Heaven as historically construed by Christians is found to be a veritable mare's nest of philosophical difficulties and confusions. But his arguments are aimed largely at conceptions of Heaven that the vast majority of the Christian community would reject. And even those that are relevant are less than impressive. If Dr. Martin wishes to uphold his thesis that Heaven is without philosophical merit, he needs to revamp his arguments--for, to date, none of them work."

More on Heaven (2004) by Michael Martin

Martin contends not only that there are serious problems with the Christian concept of Heaven, but also that although belief in Heaven may sometimes be liberating, it has more often been politically and socially repressive, hindering social change and making people complacent about poverty, political oppression, and injustice.

Review of The Evolution of the Soul (2005) by Yujin Nagasawa

In The Evolution of the Soul Richard Swinburne makes a courageous attempt to defend (Cartesian) substance dualism--the thesis that the mind (or soul) is distinct from the body, yet interacts with it. Nagasawa's review critically analyzes two of Swinburne's arguments: (i) that one's conscious existence entails the existence of one's soul; and (ii) that a dualist has no obligation to explain how interaction is possible between ontologically distinct minds and bodies. At the very least, Nagasawa concludes, Swinburne has an obligation to explain why such interaction is inexplicable--and without invoking the existence of God.

Substance Dualism and Disembodied Existence (2000) by Nicholas Everitt

Richard Swinburne defends substance dualism--the idea that mind and body are two radically different things--throughout his various works, including The Coherence of Theism, Is There A God?, The Evolution of the Soul, and Personal Identity. Nicholas Everitt's critique focuses on the latter two books, as Swinburne appears to believe that the argument from the possibility of disembodied consciousness he develops there is his most persuasive argument. After much philosophical reflection, Everitt concludes that Swinburne's primary argument for dualism has no force because it simply assumes what it is trying to prove.

Another Case Not Made: A Critique of Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator (2005) by Paul Doland

In this chapter-by-chapter critique of Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator, Paul Doland comments on the general direction of the book before analyzing Strobel's interviews with his various experts on specific topics. Topics include the origin of life, evolution, the relationship between science and religion, the origin of the universe, the alleged fine-tuning of the universe, whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, intelligent design, information theory, the origin and nature of consciousness, and whether consciousness can survive the death of the brain. Particularly noteworthy is Strobel's silence when his experts make conflicting claims (e.g., Wells and Dembski on evolution).

Book Review: Whatever Happened to the Soul? (2000) by Keith Augustine

Augustine reviews the book Whatever Happened to the Soul? edited by Warren Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony, which attempts to reconcile Christian doctrine with the scientific evidence against the existence of a soul.

The Case Against Immortality (1997) by Keith Augustine

Defining the Problem

The Philosophical Case Against Immortality

The Scientific Case Against Immortality

Postscript on Survival

Criticism of Immortality (J.P. Moreland and Gary Habermas) (1993) by Jim Lippard

A page-by-page critique of the book (recently reissued with a few additional chapters as Beyond Death) which was sent to the authors, and a reply to their responses.

Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences (2003; revised 2008) by Keith Augustine

Even if we disregard the overwhelming evidence for the dependence of consciousness on the brain, there remains strong evidence from reports of near-death experiences themselves that NDEs are not glimpses of an afterlife.

Mind-Brain Dependence as Twofold Support for Atheism (2001) by Steven Conifer

Conifer presents a pair of parallel (evidential) atheological arguments whose basic premise appeals to the empirical and conceptual implausibility of disembodied consciousness. He critically examines and refutes numerous objections to his two arguments. Accordingly, he concludes that both of them constitute potent demonstrations of God's nonexistence.

The Near-Death Experience: Unanswered Questions (2009) by Gerald M. Woerlee

Since the publication of Raymond Moody's Life After Life in 1975, several investigators have performed outstanding studies of the incidence and properties of near-death experiences. Unfortunately, many authors have enticed readers to accept uncritical supernaturalistic or paranormal explanations for NDEs, causing many good studies to languish unread by mainstream scientists. Despite over 30 years of public interest and scientific endeavor, many promising lines of research have not even been touched upon, while others have not been followed up. This article considers a select inventory of the gaps in our current knowledge of the causes and genesis of the NDE, with particular emphasis on whether NDEs represent scientific confirmation of life after death, or simply manifestations of brain function. The latter is implied by what is germane to the NDE itself, the psychological and sociocultural influences on NDEs, and what it would take to make it possible for something to leave the body during out-of-body experiences and see and hear events going on in the physical world.

Review of Owen Flanagan's The Problem of the Soul (2005) by Thomas Clark

While tradition holds that the soul is an immaterial essence which can survive bodily death and choose independently of physical causes, science reveals that we are wholly physical beings. Jettisoning a "philosophically diseased" dualism inherited from Descartes, The Problem of the Soul notes that our neuroscientific understanding of cognition leaves little room for an immaterial self inhabiting the body, and that philosophical reflection demonstrates that contra-causal free will is conceptually incoherent. By naturalizing the soul, Flanagan argues, we secure what matters to us most--our individuality, rationality, genuine freedom, and moral responsibility--on a much surer footing.

Review of Patrick Glynn's God: The Evidence (1998) by Michael Martin

Martin reviews, among other things, Glynn's claims that out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences are evidence for the existence of an afterlife and a soul.

Review of The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain (2011) by Dan Ferrisi

Professor of Neurology Kevin Nelson has long had a fascination with near-death experiences. In his new book, The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain, Nelson provides a deeply neurologically driven interpretation of these extraordinary and often spiritual episodes. In this review, Dan Ferrisi analyzes Nelson's principal arguments about how unusual brain activity might explain near-death experiences and finds them quite persuasive. The human brain, the most highly evolved organ of which we know, is capable of bizarreness far greater than we could ever imagine, and Ferrisi finds that Nelson's scientifically literate book has much to teach us about it.

Is Science Killing the Soul? (1999) (OffSite) by Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker

A transcript of a seminar by Dawkins and Pinker in which they discuss the scientific evidence against the existence of souls.

Why I Am Not a Christian (2006) by Graham Oppy

Graham Oppy explains the ways in which his reasons for rejecting Christianity differ from those offered by Bertrand Russell in his famous paper of the same title. In section I, Oppy considers how Christianity should be characterized, the best way to build a case against theism, and the nonrational reasons why people believe in God, among other things. In section II, he offers an account of his journey to unbelief and the philosophy of religion. By section III, Oppy explains why he is not a Christian, as well as some of the things that he does believe. Here he pines in on appeals to contingency and causality in theistic arguments, the problem of evil, free will, the mind-body problem, the history of the universe, human history, and the historicity of the Gospels--outlining his "supervenient naturalism" along the way. Oppy wraps up by considering the meaning of life and whether virtuous behavior relates to Christian belief.

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Immortality - Infidels

Will Google Use Aborted Babies In Their Quest For Immortality? – Video

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Will Google Use Aborted Babies In Their Quest For Immortality?
Our children and unborn babies are being used as commodities and soon will be traded like livestock. A California company is using organs from aborted babies to grow full sized organs for transplan...

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Will Google Use Aborted Babies In Their Quest For Immortality? - Video

536. Ode. Intimations of Immortality. William Wordsworth …

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THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparell'd in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5 It is not now as it hath been of yore; Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more. The rainbow comes and goes, 10 And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; 15 The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound 20 As to the tabor's sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong: The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; 25 No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea 30 Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday; Thou Child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy 35 Shepherd-boy! Ye blessd creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, 40 My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feelI feel it all. O evil day! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning, This sweet May-morning, 45 And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm: 50 I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! But there's a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have look'd upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone: The pansy at my feet 55 Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 60 Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come 65 From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 70 He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; 75 At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day. Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother's mind, 80 And no unworthy aim, The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her Inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came. 85 Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years' darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, With light upon him from his father's eyes! 90 See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learnd art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; 95 And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long 100 Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his 'humorous stage' With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 105 That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation. Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul's immensity; 110 Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind, That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, Mighty prophet! Seer blest! 115 On whom those truths do rest, Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the Day, a master o'er a slave, 120 A presence which is not to be put by; To whom the grave Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight Of day or the warm light, A place of thought where we in waiting lie; 125 Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 130 Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, 135 That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest 140 Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; 145 But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, 150 High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, 155 Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 160 To perish never: Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! 165 Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, 170 And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young lambs bound As to the tabor's sound! 175 We in thought will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright 180 Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; 185 In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, 190 In years that bring the philosophic mind. And O ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquish'd one delight 195 To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripp'd lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; 200 The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 205 Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

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  1. Immortality