12. Life After Death: Dawkins (argument against Dualism and the Soul)
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 18-06-17 18:42
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- 12. Life After Death: Dawkins (argument against Dualism and the Soul)
- River Out of Eden
- A biological materialist - rejects the concept of an immortal soul
- "There is no spirit-driven life force, no throbbing, heaving, pullalating, protoplasmic, mystic jelly. Life is just bytes and bytes of digital information"
- A soul doesn't guide us, genetic make-up does as humans are merely DNA carriers, and only this exists beyond life through evolution, where good genes continue and bad genes die out
- Genes (the replicator) are a colony of information wanting to be replicated, and this is easier to achieve in multi-cellular organisms, and we only feel like a single organism because natural selection favoured co-operating genes
- On religious concepts of the soul
- Any evidence of divine activity is an illusion, and a belief in the soul is anachronistic and damaging to society as it discourages self-growth
- Scientific belief is supported by evidence (the existence of DNA etc) whereas myths and faiths are not
- Further argues that there is no creator God and that life lacks purpose and is indifferent to suffering
- "DNA neither knows nor cares, DNA just is"
- Life after death
- Only continuation of us is genes passed on to offspring
- Memes continue if they have been incorporated in the soup of human culture
- There is no soul and direct existence after death
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