Life After Death

Created by: Beth Millward
Created on: 20-05-15 11:17

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Life After Death
- Reincarnation
  - Hindu belief
  - "Just as a person casts off worn-out garments and puts on others that are new, even so does the embodied soul cast off worn-out bodies and takes on others that are new"
    - replace what we no longer require - remain same person underneath
  - ATMAN
    - soul
      - By following our dharma, we may achieve good karma, thus escaping from samsara and achieving moksha, an action which is fulfilled through Brahman's positive judgment of our atman.
        soul must face the consequence of good or bad deeds
        
        freedom of the cycle of life and death
        
        cycle of rebirth
  - BRAHMAN
    - chief God
      - By following our dharma, we may achieve good karma, thus escaping from samsara and achieving moksha, an action which is fulfilled through Brahman's positive judgment of our atman.
        soul must face the consequence of good or bad deeds
        
        freedom of the cycle of life and death
        
        cycle of rebirth
  - DHARMA
    - duty
  - KARMA
    - law of moral causation
  - MOKSHA
  - SAMSARA
  - BHAGAVAD GITA
    - one of the holy books (there are numerous)
  - EVALUATION
    - STRENGTHS
      - Dr Ian Stevenson - researched evidence for reincarnation
        'yoga memory' - experience of people who claim to be someone reborn with memories of a previous life
        birthmarks and recognition
      - If the soul is independent from the body, it is logical to suppose that it could have pre-existed
      - belief is ancient, tried and tested
    - WEAKNESS
      - impossible to know if one person is a reincarnation of another
      - Ryle
        mind should not be seen as non-physical
      - 'yoga memory'
        Stephen Davies
        contact between families may allow children to account for a remembered 'past life' which they have not really experienced
        are some cases deliberate fraud?
      - although it is ancient, that doesn't make it right
        incorrect beliefs may too be well established
  - Caste System
    - the higher you are, the closer you are to achieving your Dharma
- Resurrection
  - Christianity
    - Western religions
      - Judaism
      - Islam
  - Judaism
  - Islam
  - EVALUATION
    - FOR
      - Saint Paul
        Since Jesus was resurrected, so too should Christians hope to be ressurrected
      - Saint Paul
        since God has created many types of bodies in nature, we should believe that he is able to make human bodies perfect. if we accept that God is the creator, then resurrection seems a coherent idea
      - Thomas Aquinas
        adopted Aristotle's idea - the person had no truly independent soul
        "the natural condition of the human soul is to be united with a body"
        reinforces that it is the soul and the body that go to heaven
        we cannot make sense to ourselves without reference to our bodies
        "the natural condition of the human soul is to be united with a body"
        reinforces that it is the soul and the body that go to heaven
        we cannot make sense to ourselves without reference to our bodies
      - Pascal's Wager
        you're better off believing in religion because if you do, and it's true, you'll go to heaven but if it's false you won't have lost anything. Alternatively, if you don't believe and religion is true, you'll miss out on heaven in the afterlife
    - AGAINST
      - Christian arguments about resurrection of Jesus will not be persuasive to non-believers
        heavily based on scripture alone
      - Idea of the physical body being re-made may seem strange or mythological
        Is this really plausible in the 21st century?
      - the body could be seen as the source of flaws and limitations; desire, disease, suffering etc. we might be better off as non-material souls or spirits
      - no empirical evidence for resurrection. on this basis, supporters of the verification principle, such as A.J. Ayer would reject it
  - John Hick
    - resurrection is a logically possible theory
    - distinction between logical and factual possibility
      - theory not factually possible
        'It is I think clear that this is a logically possible series of events. it is of course factually impossible'
    - Norbert Weiner
      - candle analogy
        body is like a candle, and the personality is like the flame. flame contains elements of the candle but can be moved to another place, in the same way the personality contains elements of the body but can be moved to another place
    - Number 3 - 'replica theory'
      - A person who dies and is 'replicated' in another world populated with other 'replicates'
        God brings this about
      - it is logically possible for there to exist a separate world
        logically not factually this can happen
        resurrection world has different characteristics - would know that we were dead
        would be populated by people we know have died
        unanswered questions
        Where is this world?
        
        How is the person 'replicated'?
        moments before death?
        
        During the prime of life?
        
        are aborted foetuses resurrected?
        
        illegitimate of us to force questions on the theory that it can never realistically answer
        
        purely hypothetical
        illegitimate of us to force questions on the theory that it can never realistically answer
- Rebirth
  - Buddhism
  - Anatta
    - no soul
      - no soul so it can't be reborn
    - no soul so it can't be reborn
  - anicca
    - everything is temporary
  - a person is made up of the physical body and four elements
    - feeling, perception, moral will and consciousness
      - the name form (the nama-rupa)
        when the physical body dies, this is released and the entailed characteristics are reborn into the new person
      - when the physical body dies, this is released and the entailed characteristics are reborn into the new person
  - caste system is rejected
- Immortality of the soul
  - not tied to a specific religious belief
  - non-physical element = soul
  - PLATO + DUALISM
    - body is a prison for the soul, pulled into earth via desire
      - soul and body = related opposites (like light and darkness)
        the body and soul are separate and the soul is entailed within the body. the body and soul are completely different but are brought together through their relation of the idea of a 'prison'
        brought together due to same body
    - world of forms
      - perfect place for the soul to go
    - FOR
      - there are many psychological things science can't explain
        paranormal activities
        maybe there is a soul?
    - AGAINST
      - can a ghost control a bike?
        how can immaterial relate to material?
      - Ockham's razor
        simplest is best so it's more simple to believe in brain only rather than body and soul
  - ARISTOTLE + MONISM
    - belief that the body and soul are one
    - Aristotle
      - body and soul are in harmony
        belief that the body and soul are one
      - mind and body are like a lightbulb
        soul = filament, light bulb = body
        the bulb exists to produce light, something that it will be unable to do without the filament. therefore, the body cannot fulfil its purpose without the soul just as a light bulb has no reason to exist with the absence of the filament
    - AGAINST
      - Gilbert Ryle
        ghost in the machine
        Descartes sees the soul as non-physical (the ghost) and the body as the physical, working part (the machine)
        not necessary for it to be viewed this way as the soul doesn't have to be separate from the body. A ghost is as visible as the soul, so how can we prove it exists?

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Life After Death

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