Life After Death

Feuerbach

A belief in life after death is simple wish fulfillment

Freud

A belief in the life after death is a childish inability to cope with death

Hick Evaluation

A break in continuity makes it difficult to validate Doesn't state whether replicas would be personal Identity is not just based on memories (Alzheimer) Would terminal illnesses be replicated? Uncertain on whether Hick believed in souls

Materialism and Gilbert Rhyle

All contents of the universe are physical so at death the body ceases to exist The two being a single entity is a 'category of mistakes'

John Hick's Replica Theory

An omipotent God would be able to recreate us within another world 1. if a person appears and disappers we can assess it to be true 2. if a person die and the reappeared, we would assess them to be them by their person 3. If a person dies, is burnt and then reappers, we could logically still identify them by their personality Validation via memories of previous existance

Richard Dawkins 'Life is just bytes and bytes of digital information' 'survival mechanisms-robots blindly programmed to serve the selfish molecules known as genes'

Argued for biological materialism so no part of the body is non-physical, it is our genetic makeup that guides us and DNA and memories only continues after death for the next generation Evolution: we have a complex colony of genes that have evolved for decision making The belief in the soul is anachronistic for humans Conscience: electrochemical events in the brain that science has not yet discovered

H.H Price 'There cannot be evidence for something which is unintelligible to us' (life after death is intelligible to human life) Analogy of Silver: Silver (real life), death (brass plated silver)- both appear the same Analogy of the nightmare: the person cannot wake when experiencing negative life experiences

Argues the concept is not a contradiction Dreams: death is like a series of vivid mental images in which we have sensory awareness but do not feel bound by time/space Death becomes personal and subjective because it is built up from encounters of familiar places and people, however we may share our worlds through telepathy Evidence: mediums/telepathy, dreams

The Sikh belief of Reincarnation

At the release of reincarnation, the 'divine spark' of humans is taken to 'Wahegri' but has to travel through 8,400,000 life forms first. Freedom of reincarnation is called 'Mukti' and also depends on the law of karma and whether the life has been devoted to 'sewa'

The Problem of Evil: explanation of Theodicies 'veil of soul making where physical and moral evil play their part in enabling man to grow' Free Will in explaining evil allows moral responsibility and judgement

Augustian Theodicy: we are seminally present in Adam and Eve so sin (deprivation of good) and death are human faults and therefore God is just in not intervening, although he sent Christ as redeemer which means that the afterlife is our salvation Iranean Theodicy: suffering and evil enable us to achieve God's plan of making a noble soul, we are made in Gods image but we must grow to his likeness

The Buddhist belief of Rebirth

Consciousness is generated by life experiences. At death, the conscience attaches itself to a new body because it becomes attached to life. Escape from rebirth is labelled as 'Nirvanna' and occurs through meditation. Rejects the idea of an eternal soul and states the self is an illusion

Plato and his arguments of doubles 'The Body is the source of endless trouble' 'While in the body, the soul cannot have pure knowledge'

Doubles: two aspects of humans like the forms and particulars Arguments for Dualism: The argument for knowledge (see Socrates and the slave boy having knowledge of Pythagoras), the argument for opposites (the body and soul are necessary to each other like light and dark)

Resurrection - mainly monist because the body is required Latin for 'raised up again'

God will raise the dead at eschaton in order to judge them Weaknesses: Based on scripture so not persuasive to non believers and the idea seems mythological and non plausible within 21st Century, the body is the source of flaws, and there is no empirical evidence so would be rejected by Logical Positivism

Kant and the problem of evil

If we have the innate sense that goodness is demanded, then a reward for this goodness must be achieved. Life does not always provides rewards and therefore there must be an afterlife in order to make earthly evils just

Jewish beliefs on Resurrection 'those who sleep in the dust and the earth will awake' (written when Jews were being persecuted)

Importance should be placed on life, whilst death is left to God, but at judgement the body and soul are reunited. The soul is cleansed in sleep and a new soul is given on sabbath

Immanuel Kant

Life after death is necessary for morality: we have the innate sense to do good which suggests that we should be rewarded with happiness, but this is not always possible within this life so we must look to the afterlife for reward (Summon Bonum)

Islamic belief of Resurrection

Life is simply the preparation for the afterlife, Allah is omnipotent but provides humans with free will so is just in judging them. Allah will forgive people for their bad deeds and they will enter paradise (except for Shirk)

The Hindu belief of Reincarnation

Maja (happiness in the world), Atron (permanent/unchangable soul). The atman is reborn into samsura but each death leads us closer to Moksha, the speed of this process depends on the law of karma

John Hick 'genetic information has programmed the growth of living organisms'

Materialist who stated life after death was still possible The Soul: 'behavioral dispositions', a way to value humanity Traducianism: The soul is inherited, thereby explaining the origins from original sin that fits with modern science (originated from 3rd Century Bishop Tertillian) Evidence: ESP/telepathy, our physical and mental aspects interact although they are not dependent on each other

H.H Price Evaluation

Not consistent with traditional teachings of revelations of God, repeating negative memories means the concept of justice is lost, implies we should avoid all negative images Hick: Individual differences within humans means we can't all live in the same world

Plato Evaluation

Peter Oeach: incompatible to say we can 'see' the forms Learning tends to mean acquiring new knowledge Not everything has an opposite Depends on an unproven theory (the forms) Dawkins attempts to explain preserved ideas as 'memes'

Developing after Death

Price: we modify and form new desires to develop from negative desires Hick: moral development and 'soul making' continues after death to enable the human process of drawing closer to God

Christian belief on Resurrection 'A Ghost doesn't have flesh and bones as I have'

St Paul: God is capable of recreating a perfect human body 'sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body' Judgement occurs due to Jesus dying on the cross and humans can either be sent to heaven, hell or purgatory (Catholic belief)

Reincarnation in solving the problem of evil

Suffering we experience in this life is due to the law of karma and our previous incarnation However, how do we explain suffering that may have occurred in our first life, the idea of karma seems immoral and if the self is only an 'illusion', how can we be individually rewarded and punished?

Plato and his theory of the soul and body Analogy of the black (body) horse and white (soul) horse Analogy of the charioteer: the soul separated into reason, desire and spirit (reason must be at the helm for balance)

The Soul: more superior because it is not subject to change, therefore making it simple and provider of the truth The Eternal Soul: The past (present in the realm of forms so we have previous knowledge), the present (pulled to earth by desires, the body acts as a prison), the future (freed at death, reincarnated into another body or returns to forms) The Body: subject to change so can only empirical opinions, thereby driving us away from philosophical thought

Disembodied Existence (Dualist)

The body and the conscience are linked because we can 'think' without any evidence of our thoughts being transmitted to others

Evaluation of a Disembodied Existance

The idea of the soul joining God is comforting, Near Death Experiences support the concept, immortality of the soul is logical if we accept that the thinking self is separate

Monism

The mind and body are a single unit but the unity survives after death because it cannot be seperated

Dualism and Descartes

The mind and body are separate entities, the mind determines the personality whilst the body acts as the outer shell Descartes: the body is spatial and unconcious whilst the mind is non-spatial and conscience

Reincarnation- Dualist Theory 'the embodied soul casts of worn out bodies and puts on new ones' (Bhagavad Gita)

The soul is eternal and will be born into new bodies Evidence: past life memories, deja vu, past life regression therapy, people take on new characters and languages (could be simply scientific evidence) Weaknesses: Relies on a belief of the immortal soul, how can two lives be connected if there is no memory, immoral to use the law of karma as explanation for suffering, Swinburne: there is no direct link between the brain and body so it cannot be proven Peter Oeach: 'How is the new body you if it lacks your memories, experiences and feelings?'

Aristotle Analogy of the axe- wood (body), the ability to cut (soul) Analogy of the eye- ability to see (soul), without it the eye would only be an eye by name *Therefore, concerned with the final purpose

The soul is the 'form' and principle of life for all living things however, ever species has different faculties Reason is the highest faculty because it places us above plants/animals and therefore, may continue after death in a non personal form Final purpose for all humans is to reach the prime mover, but reason may live on

Richard Dawkins and the problem of evil:

There is no afterlife so we should only look to the problem of evil within the context of our own lives

Kant Evaluation

There is no reason to assume that justice will be made Life after death may not compensate for the injustice of life

Aristotle Evaluation

Unclear on reason being separate No evidence that everything must have final cause All arguments are based on senses which may be unreliable (e.g. faith more reliable) Avoids duelist/forms weaknesses Influenced Christian ideas on resurrection

Richard Swinburne and the problem of evil

Unlimited freedom must include the freedom to damn ourselves so death and judgement are an essential part of life because otherwise our actions are irrelevant

Descartes and Disembodied Existence 'I think, therefore I am'

We are primarily 'thinking' beings and not physical beings Our basic knowledge of the self is independent from the body and the source of our consciousness is the immortal soul which is distinct from the body and is connected to the pineal gland However, to say one thinks does not prove the soul is separate

Richard Swinburne and Disembodied Existence

We can imagine existing without our bodies and therefore it is a coherent idea, we have the intuitive sense of being separate from our bodies e.g. 'we have bodies' Brian Davies: Just because we can conceive something, does not mean that it should be relied on as fact

Kant and Disembodied Existence

We have short lives to achieve the ultimate goal of Summon Bonum and therefore, the soul must be immortal so that we can achieve reward in life after death However, this can be rejected if we acknowledge that perfect goodness never has to be realized

Heaven and Hell in solving the problem of evil

We receive judgement on our actions and therefore they must be free However, Hell is immoral because it provides infinite punishments for finite sins and the idea of predestination damages the notion of free will DZ Phillips: God would have to commit evil to allow for soul making John Hick: Hell should not be understood as literal