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Afterlife - Criticism | | Afterlife - Criticism: Encyclopedia II - Afterlife - Criticism | | Upon death, brain activity ceases and a person's body begins to decompose. This marks the end of the individual's mind in the physical world. The fundamental belief of an afterlife is that there exists a non-physical means (a soul or spirit) for the mind to survive the brain's destruction and continue to function in a non-physical world.
Occam's Razor is a strong counter to this belief. There are two basic alternatives to be compared:
When you die, your mind ceases to function and your body decomposes.
When you die, your mind continues to function despite the physical destruction of your brain, continuing its ex ...
See also:Afterlife, Afterlife - Afterlife as a belief, Afterlife - Afterlife as an individual existence, Afterlife - Afterlife as reward or punishment, Afterlife - Afterlife as reincarnation, Afterlife - Related studies, Afterlife - Criticism, Afterlife - Philosophical arguments | | | Afterlife, Afterlife - Afterlife as a belief, Afterlife - Afterlife as an individual existence, Afterlife - Afterlife as reincarnation, Afterlife - Afterlife as reward or punishment, Afterlife - Criticism, Afterlife - Philosophical arguments, Afterlife - Related studies, Akhirah, Animism, Death, Doomsday, Electronic voice phenomenon, Elysium, Enlightenment, Eschatology, Eternity, Ghosts, Heaven, Hell, Immortality, Jewish eschatology, Life, Near-death experience, Out-of-body experience, Pre-Birth communication, Reincarnation, Salvation, Soul, Undead, Valhalla | | |
| | | Afterlife: Encyclopedia II - Afterlife - Criticism
Afterlife - Criticism
Upon death, brain activity ceases and a person's body begins to decompose. This marks the end of the individual's mind in the physical world. The fundamental belief of an afterlife is that there exists a non-physical means (a soul or spirit) for the mind to survive the brain's destruction and continue to function in a non-physical world.
Occam's Razor is a strong counter to this belief. There are two basic alternatives to be compared:
- When you die, your mind ceases to function and your body decomposes.
- When you die, your mind continues to function despite the physical destruction of your brain, continuing its existence in a non-physical world.
The first belief is simple and well-supported. All available scientific evidence indicates that the mind is the product of the brain's activity, and that destruction of the brain also destroys the mind. Therefore, believing in an afterlife (at least in a logically-consistent way) requires the additional beliefs that:
- There exists a non-physical entity associated with a person (the soul or spirit).
- The mind can continue to operate in the absence of the brain, being somehow supported by the soul.
- The soul exists in a non-physical dimension that we are unable to perceive in a measurable way.
There is no reliable evidence to support any of these beliefs and they do not help to explain any observed phenomena. The fact that these beliefs are nevertheless widely held is easily explained by wishful thinking.
Simply put, humans instinctively fear death and yet we know that our eventual deaths are inevitable. Therefore it is unsurprising that a belief system which promises an escape from death would be strongly embraced. People often suspend their better judgment when presented with "too good to be true" promises (consider Nigerian scams and similar instances of fraud), and an escape from death is the ultimate promise.
The philosophical belief of materialism holds that only the physical universe exists, and therefore precludes belief in an afterlife. Atheism and materialism are closely related, and most atheists do not believe in any sort of afterlife.
Other related archivesAfter Life, Afterlife (television), Akhirah, Animism, Atheism, Buddhists, Christian Bible, Christianity, Death, Devourer, Doomsday, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Egyptian religion, Electronic voice phenomenon, Elysium, Emanuel Swedenborg, Enlightenment, Eschatology, Eternity, Ghosts, God, Heaven, Hell, Hindus, Immortality, Islam, Jewish eschatology, Judaism, Last Judgment, Life, Mark, Mind-body problem, Near-death experience, Neopagans, Nigerian scams, Occam's Razor, Out-of-body experience, Pre-Birth communication, Reincarnation, Salvation, Soul, Undead, Underworld, Valhalla, Wiccans, agnostics, angels, animals, atheists, belief, brain, building, decompose, dimension, electronic voice phenomena, embalmed, esoteric knowledge, eternity, existence, fear, ghosts, happiness, heaven, hell, house, information age, limbo, mastaba, materialism, meaningless, metaphor, metaphysics, mind, near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, positivism (philosophy), psychomachia, purgatory, rebirth, reincarnation, religion, religions, resurrection, soul, souls, spiritual, tabernacle, tent, the afterlife and olam haba ["world to come"], the mind-body problem, torment, undead, unfalsifiable, universalism, wishful thinking
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Criticism", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
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