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Sections (Content) :
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There is, perhaps, no more striking example of the credulity of man than the widespread belief in immortality. This idea includes not only the belief that death is not the end of what we call life, but that personal identity involving memory persists beyond the grave. So determined is the ordinary individual to hold fast to this belief that, as a rule, he refuses to read or think upon the subject lest it cast doubt upon his cherished dream. Of those who may chance to look at this contribution, many will do so with the determination not to be convinced, and will refuse to even consider the manifold reasons that might weaken their faith. I know that this is true, for I know the reluctance with which I long approached the subject and my firm determination not to give up my hope. Thus the myth will stand in the way of a sensible adjustment to facts.
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If people really believed in a beautiful, happy, glorious land waiting to receive them when they died; if they believed that their friends would be waiting to meet them; if they believed that all pain and suffering would be left behind: why should they live through weeks, months, and even years of pain and torture while a cancer eats its way to the vital parts of the body? Why should one fight off death? Because he does not believe in any real sense; he only hopes.
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There are those who base their hope of a future life upon the resurrection of the body.... It is safe to say that few intelligent men who are willing to look obvious facts in the face hold any such belief.
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There are those who base their hope of a future life upon the resurrection of the body.... It is safe to say that few intelligent men who are willing to look obvious facts in the face hold any such belief.
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...the whole scope and intention of man's creation, so far as we can judge by natural reason, is limited to the present life.
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A desire to be happy here, they [the churches] regard as wicked and worldly -- but a desire to be happy in another world, as virtuous and spiritual.
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It is a commonplace that the Christian Heaven, as usually portrayed, would attract nobody.
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As for the Muslim Paradise, with its 77 houris [wives] per man, all presumably clamoring for attention at the same moment, it is just a nightmare.
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And now what is the scientific doctrine of the great theme of immortality? Is there any hope for man? In one word, No. For any such hope, if men must continue to indulge in it after hearing the scientific arguments, they must go elsewhere -- to the theologian, the metaphysician, the mystic, the poet. These men, habitually dwelling in their several spheres of illusion and unreality, may find suggestions of the fantasy, which they persuade themselves are arguments in favor of a future life; the man of science, for his part, and the positive thinker, building on science, consider no proposition more certain than that the soul is mortal as well as the body which supported it, and of which it was merely the final flower and product.
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It is useless to surmise, or to assert, that the spirit passes, after death, into other spheres of activity or of happiness; for, even if there were proof of this, it would in no way lessen the grief of those who are bereaved of the actual.
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The Old Testament is interested mainly in blood and sensuality. The New one in Salvation. Salvation by fire.
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So far as science can speak on the subject, consciousness persists as long as the organized brain, and no longer.
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...nothing can be known of a life beyond the grave.
Chronology :
April 13, 2020 : The Afterlife -- Added.
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