I felt it was such a good message that I wanted to reproduce it in its
entirety here for your education. If after reading it you wish to email the
author who wrote it, you may email Brooks at:
bbu84@aol.com
Enjoy the essay, and maybe print out a copy or two to share with your
friends.
You are not going to live forever. That old book you worship isn't going to
save you. Words scribbled on papyrus 2000 years ago will not inoculate you
from death.
Let's start with some basic facts: We are biological organisms. We are
made out of flesh and bone, and we depend on the operation of certain
cellular, chemical processes in order to continue functioning and experiencing
the world around us. Once these functions stop, we die. When we die, there is
no longer any electrical activity going on within the structure of our brains,
and it is then no longer possible for us to experience anything. What had been
our personalities, our memories, our hopes and fears all cease to exist. From
this point on, the walls of our cells break down, and eventually our bodies
decompose into their constitute elements through biological/chemical
processes. This is a fate we share with every other living thing on the
planet.
Of course you believe in something called a "soul" which you think
transcends death. I will examine the term in a moment.
So where did the idea of eternal life come from originally? It is
reasonable to suppose that when ancient people saw dead relatives and friends
in dreams and visions, they thought that the deceased were still alive in some
form. Ancient people had no real understanding of the source of their dreams
and visions, and an afterlife would account for why they still saw the
deceased. The idea of an afterlife is, of course, very appealing to most
people, since most people do not want to die. Indeed, one of the strongest
forces in biology is the will to survive. Since humans can conceptualize
death, it is not surprising that they would conceptualize an escape from
death. The idea of an afterlife can be developed to address other
psychological needs as well:
"...when [it's] obvious to people that the world is unfair, that what
'goes around' doesn't always 'come around,' the concept of justice being
served in an afterlife is wonderfully soothing. If, say, someone was
killed and the murderer goes free, believing that the murderer will end up
in hell might be the only way the victim's family [members] can put their
rage behind them and live a happy life. I remember realizing [that] 'Even
if hell didn't exist, people would invent the concept.'"
http://www.users.bigpond.com/pmurray/exchristian/Stories/0197.html
Of course, there is no evidence whatsoever for an afterlife. Nor is
there any reasonable, fact-based explanation for it. None. So here is where
the apologetics come in. You claim that human beings possess "souls" that
somehow represent consciousness and personality. You declare that these
"souls" can exist separately from our bodies. You assert that these "souls"
somehow leave our bodies at death and go somewhere else, employing some
inexplicable means of locomotion. This is all nonsense, of course. This is
wild speculation about things that you cannot know, and that you do not know.
Have you ever tried to figure out what a "soul" actually is? I have asked
numerous Christians to explain the term, and they can't do it, because they
don't know what it is actually supposed to be. No one does. The simple fact of
the matter is that there is
no evidence for a mind/brain duality, or a "ghost in the machine."
As a Christian apologist, you really have to ask yourself some
questions. You have to ask yourself, "Am I being manipulated? Is it at all
possible that the reason I argue so passionately about the ineffable and the
unknowable, about things that I cannot possibly know, is that I am simply
trying to convince myself that I will inherit eternal bliss-and that I
will escape eternal torture in hell? Is it possible that all my orgiastic
expressions of religious fervor derive from the primal will to survive,
something far more ancient than any holy book? Is it possible that my
religion's founders cynically co-opted this primal will to survive and the
universal fear of pain in order to gain converts-and thus increase their
wealth and power? Is it also possible that these leaders were deluded?"
While you are pondering all these questions, take a moment to read the
words of some early Church Fathers, and think about what their words indicate
about their honesty:
I'll repeat myself: You are not going to live forever. Just think about
it. You have no memories of your existence prior to the development of your
brain because you did not exist prior to the formation of your brain. And you
will not exist after it is gone. Look at your body-that is you. You are not
something else. You cannot escape what you are or overcome biology. You think
otherwise, of course, but you cannot explain how life after death would be
possible. The reason why you cannot explain it and the reason why you will
never be able to explain it is simply because it is not possible. The
afterlife is a fiction.
Your life is undeniably real. It will not last forever, but that is why
it is so very precious. Don't waste it on a delusion.
Good luck.
--Brian
