Life After Death: The Evidence

[Almajoya]

Newsweek covers the presentation of scientific proof of an afterlife in Dinesh D'Souza's book, Life After Death:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/220296?GT1=43002

Ghosts, mediums, and miraculous cures by the intercession of saints play no role in his argument, which draws instead on quantum mechanics, neuroscience, and moral philosophy. Life After Death, along with other recent books including mathematician David Berlinski's The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, physicist Frank J. Tripler's The Physics of Christianity, and The Language of God by the director of the National Institutes of Health, the geneticist Francis S. Collins, constitutes an effort by believers to confront the so-called new atheism on its own intellectual turf, without benefit of scripture or revelation....

The "evidence," of necessity, is indirect: D'Souza doesn't claim to have communicated with anyone who has died, and he doesn't expect to. Instead, he looks to the human heart, and finds therein a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity that appear to run counter to the Darwinian imperative to outcompete thy neighbor. This is a time-honored argument for the existence of a God who created human beings in his image and imbued them with a moral sense, as well as the free will to follow, or ignore, it....

And if your smart-alecky kid, full of all that Galileo stuff they get in school nowadays, should ask just where this Judgment business takes place, D'Souza provides you with a response. It happens in the multiverse, the infinitely multiplying complex of worlds predicted by some versions of quantum theory. In the multiverse, physical laws can take on different values, and matter itself may have a different form, so "there is nothing in physics to contradict the idea that we can live beyond death in other realms with bodies that are unlike the bodies we now possess."

What sayest thou, NSG?

As for me,

D'Souza provides a checklist of benefits from believing in life after death...believers have better sex.

I'm sold.

[Mikertaz Kein]

Well, for starters, Atheists tend to look at religion as false; any materiel supporting religion will most likely be ignored. Second, the existence(theoretical) of other universes only adds to the arguments over which religion is the right one. I think with the multitude of possible alternate realities your own view of what happens after death is what you will find,. If you believe in Heaven, there is likely an alternate reality that can suit your belief. I think we get our own little universe to toy with after death, so my afterlife will likely be a massive house with a room like a giant computer, allowing me to play with my universe endlessly. Then, when I get bored, I can invite other deceased people over to compare universes.

I am also writing a book on my religion, so be prepared to witness the birth of Objectivism. If that name is already taken, I will have to settle with 'Not Catholic' for our name...


The list of possible names goes as follows(help me pick a name and you get mention in our holy book...)


-Objectivism
-Dispositionism
-Alternatism
-Conceptionism
-BetterThanChrisianityIslamAndHinduismCombined-ism.


Let it begin...

[Getbrett]

Instead, he looks to the human heart, and finds therein a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity that appear to run counter to the Darwinian imperative to outcompete thy neighbor.

If this is what he bases his argument on, his argument is wrong.

[Fiduses and Diuses]

Snip

How about
BetterthanChristianityIslamSecularNonreligiousAgnosticAtheistHinduismChinesetraditionalreligionBuddhism# primal-indigenousAfricanTraditionalDiasporicSikhismJucheSpiritismJudaismBaha'iJainismShintoCao DaiZoroastrianismTenrikyoNeo-PaganismUnitarian-UniversalismRastafarianismScientologyism
or Bobism for short..

[Charlotte Ryberg]

In my opinion, it is difficult to say whether there are multi verses or just one universe as a generic term as far as Judgement is concerned, but it is true that each planet we discover has its own characteristics, weather and forces that may appear to be like the Judgement as described in many religious texts.

[Mikertaz Kein]

Snip

How about
BetterthanChristianityIslamSecularNonreligiousAgnosticAtheistHinduismChinesetraditionalreligionBuddhism# primal-indigenousAfricanTraditionalDiasporicSikhismJucheSpiritismJudaismBaha'iJainismShintoCao DaiZoroastrianismTenrikyoNeo-PaganismUnitarian-UniversalismRastafarianismScientologyism
or Bobism for short..

Bobism it is, though it may change. I have to talk it over with the Keins...

[Czardas]

Instead, he looks to the human heart, and finds therein a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity that appear to run counter to the Darwinian imperative to outcompete thy neighbor.

Evolution. Does. Not. Work. That. Way.



Also, even if I became religious, I would have a very hard time accepting the concept of a life after death. The idea of being dead appeals to me not at all, and I'll try to avoid it if at all possible, but I don't see any possible rational way the mind or consciousness could survive the body.

[Kobrania]

I only except peer reviewed and testable evidence, if it isn't testable and it hasn't been reviewed by neutral uninvolved parties, it isn't held as fact.

[The Imperial Navy]

"Deep into that darkness peering... Long I stood there. Wondering. Fearing. Doubting."

[Northwest Slobovia]

Instead, he looks to the human heart, and finds therein a universal moral code underlying acts of self-sacrifice and charity that appear to run counter to the Darwinian imperative to outcompete thy neighbor.

Evolution. Does. Not. Work. That. Way.

*sigh* What is it with the evolution-ignorant crowd that they constantly dream up this arguement? Some bizarre misunderstanding of "survival of the fittest"?

In case anybody's curious, My Man Chuckie D wondered about the origin of altruism, and then surmised that the first tribe to figure out (or evolve a trait for) cooperation for mutual benefit would simply out-breed their more selfish neighbors. We don't actually know how it happened; people keep looking for "altruism genes", but AFAIK, none have been found.

[Fassitude]

Newsweek covers the presentation of scientific proof of an afterlife

One can stop reading right there, it's nonsense already.

[Kobrania]

You can't prove an afterlife until everyone on earth has seen it for themselves.

[Concordeia]

As far as science and logic go, there is not yet any feasible method of determining whether there the soul exists or if there is an afterlife (hence I am agnostic) although I certainly hope so. I just hope that if there is one, it doesn't involve eternal damnation like in Dante's Inferno (yes, that means even for bastards like Hitler and Stalin; What they did was absolutely horrible but I as a human being could not wish upon any soul a punishment crueler than that which they committed against others in life).

I really like the Bobism idea. That would be frickin' sweet.

I think that the state of death is the same as or similar to the state we were in before we were born. This MIGHT suggest that when we die, either we go spend a finite period of time in some afterlife (blissful or otherwise) and are then reborn as another person (or even another lifeform entirely), or if our souls (if we have them) are recycled into some great Force-like energy field which permeates the universe.

It's really fun to think about!

[Fassitude]

if there is an afterlife (hence I am agnostic) although I certainly hope so.

Why do people hope that? It's such a futile and empty hope.

[Miclania]

quantum theory and the such means basically nothing to the scientific world. It's like the philosophy class at college.

[Fassitude]

quantum theory and the such means basically nothing to the scientific world. It's like the philosophy class at college.

Yeah, and it's often philosophers build things like the LHC...

[Yootopia]

You can't prove an afterlife until everyone on earth has seen it for themselves.

This is not how science works.

[Risottia]

What sayest thou, NSG?

Total bollocks.
The "moral code" stuff could, to the best possible extent, just hint (not prove) that humans BELIEVE there is an après-vie and that one is going to receive punishment or candies there, according to what they did in their lives.

[Kobrania]

You can't prove an afterlife until everyone on earth has seen it for themselves.

This is not how science works.

Aye, but no one will believe in an afterlife other than their own belief unless they see it for themselves.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

quantum theory and the such means basically nothing to the scientific world. It's like the philosophy class at college.

Ironically enough, the very computer that allowed you to type that abortion of a thought and the computers that sustain the internet that allows you to post on NSG are all based on quantum theory. It's also interesting, and ironic, to note that quantum field theory is the most accurate and thoroughly tested theory ever devised by man. Quantum field theory can make accurate predictions that don't disagree with measurements out to as many decimal places as we can take measurements. (about 10 for some experiments)

[Lunatic Goofballs]

I find it hard to believe that if someone is arguing that life after death transcends the Universe that he or she can offer scientific evidence of such considering that nothing within the Universe can empirically measure beyond the Universe.

[Peisandros]

You can't prove an afterlife until everyone on earth has seen it for themselves.

This is not how science works.

Aye, but no one will believe in an afterlife other than their own belief unless they see it for themselves.

Really? I still don't think that's how science works. I believe in a lot of things I've never seen, does that mean I'm wrong?!

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

I find it hard to believe that if someone is arguing that life after death transcends the Universe that he or she can offer scientific evidence of such considering that nothing within the Universe can empirically measure beyond the Universe.

"Beyond the universe" is also an interesting term. Physics is very precise when it makes such statements. What do religious people mean when they say "beyond the universe."

[Lunatic Goofballs]

I find it hard to believe that if someone is arguing that life after death transcends the Universe that he or she can offer scientific evidence of such considering that nothing within the Universe can empirically measure beyond the Universe.

"Beyond the universe" is also an interesting term. Physics is very precise when it makes such statements. What do religious people mean when they say "beyond the universe."

I'm not convinced that very many scientists can define 'The Universe' nevermind non-scientists.

[UnhealthyTruthseeker]

I'm not convinced that very many scientists can define 'The Universe' nevermind non-scientists.

One old way of describing it is as "the sum total of all that exists." This definition, however, would mean that nothing outside the universe could ever exist. By this definition, what we call the universe isn't the entirety of the universe. Usually, the modern definition of universe is "the observable universe." In other words, everything within the Hubble radius from us.