One of the most powerful arguments in my mind for the atheistic viewpoint is that it makes no sense to think that we have 'souls' that can live separately from our bodies. If we have no souls, it makes the whole "God Hypothesis" pointless, as the main carrots (Heaven) and sticks (Hell) that are so fundamental to most world religions are removed.
Take memory. We know that our brains are used to store our memories. We know that if our brains become damaged or diseased we can lose our memories. As we get older we forget things as our brains shrink. So, when my body dies and my soul leaves it, what will I remember? Will I still have a memory? If so, where is the information stored? If I had Alzheimer's disease when I died, will I get some of my memories back afterwards (like some sort of computer back-up recovery system)?
If my soul does have memory, it implies that there is some kind of ethereal memory system outside of my brain cells, and hence a duplicate of my brain. This would, in fact, make the brain redundant ... and of course then you would not expect to lose any memory when the brain is damaged. In this case, it would seem that the brain is a huge con trick by God as it is buzzing away there, but in fact completely unnecessary!
If, on the other hand, my soul takes no memory with it when it leaves my body, would it really be 'me'? It would have no memory of my past life. If St Peter was to ask me about me life when I got to heaven, I would remember nothing about it, and I wouldn't know the reasons for what I did. The point of departure would carry no memories, and so really there would be no connection between my living self and my soul, and I would have lost my identity.
Anyone who has programmed a computer will be aware of the need for memory of one sort or another in order for the computer to do anything intelligent. You need local 'Registers' to perform many of the most basic logical operations, and you need RAM and ROM to do anything really useful (and of course hard wired circuitry ... but that's another story). Without memory we would be unable to communicate with St Peter in any meaningful way anyway.
I suppose our religious friends could argue that there is some kind of "Heavenly i-Tunes" operating. Our bodies are like i-Phones and our memories are all the tunes on it. As we go through life the memories continually get backed up in the i-Cloud so that when we die (lose our phones) they are recoverable from somewhere. In this case we get ALL our memories back, good and bad, unlike real life where we remember some things and not others due to the limitations of our brains.
And then there's personality. Our personalities are formed by the way our brains are formed, either through the DNA or through life experiences. We know that someone's personality can change through brain damage, and hence the brain determines personality. In other words, it is physiological. The brain determines our behaviour, who we love and don't love etc etc Once my body dies and my soul escapes from it, what personality do I have? None at all? Am I like a computer?
In short, if there IS an afterlife, we would be very different to who we are now, and it makes you wonder if there is any relevance, or any point in believing it. Is it something we want anyway? We won't be sitting there chatting away to our long lost loved ones anyway! Conversation, memory and thought processes will be impossible. It will be like Alzheimers disease squared .. drawn to the ultimate conclusion.
Knowing what we know now about the human brain, it seems unnecessary to invent the concept of the soul. In fact, it is stretching credibility to think that it is even possible.
Most importantly, once we view the afterlife in these terms it makes you wonder whether any of the religions (at least the Abrahamic ones) are of any relevance.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Most people are closet Humanists
I would like to explore the idea that most people are 'Humanists', or at least accept the principles, even if they don't realise it.
What I mean by this is that most people would accept the Humanist moral rule (The Golden Rule, and thinking in terms of the outcomes of actions) as 'trumping' other rules.
As an example, people that follow religious practices and views that affect other people will usually try to justify them with humanist principles ... or even modify their views to conform to humanist principles. Likewise many people frown on prejudice such homophobia and racism as unacceptable on humanist principles, and will generally accept that view as the higher principle, even if they fail to accept it at a lower emotional level. This is why so many racist remarks start off: "I'm not racist, but ..."
I will look out for examples from life and post them here to see how this concept stands up.
What I mean by this is that most people would accept the Humanist moral rule (The Golden Rule, and thinking in terms of the outcomes of actions) as 'trumping' other rules.
As an example, people that follow religious practices and views that affect other people will usually try to justify them with humanist principles ... or even modify their views to conform to humanist principles. Likewise many people frown on prejudice such homophobia and racism as unacceptable on humanist principles, and will generally accept that view as the higher principle, even if they fail to accept it at a lower emotional level. This is why so many racist remarks start off: "I'm not racist, but ..."
I will look out for examples from life and post them here to see how this concept stands up.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Error #1: "Atheists can have no morals"
I enjoy Nicky Campbell's religious discussion program on BBC on Sunday mornings ('The Big Questions'). Last Sunday they were discussing the question: "Is religion good for children?".
Some interesting thoughts arose from it, but one thing that jumped out at me was the often repeated views of religious people that if you don't believe in God you can't have any moral framework. The thought being, I suppose, that if you have no Bible or Koran you have no rule book to work to. They then take the logic a step further and say that if you have no rule book your behaviour deteriorates in to some sort of animal like behaviour, anarchism and ultimately social breakdown. One contributor said (in what the philosophers call a Post Hoc fallacy) that the London Riots last year proved that the schools need to be taught religion. A gentleman described as a Christian Evangelist stated that you can only get "true ethics" from the Bible. Another contributor amusingly claimed that if you don't have a religious belief you would wake up each day and arbitrarily choose a different ethical behaviour.
All these folks are trapped in a absolutist view point. However, Humanists take a relativistic view of morality. We judge the 'rightness' of an action based on the outcomes and how they affect people. The underlying principle is that we want the kind of world that we want to live in, and therefore we are looking for outcomes in terms of human happiness, personal fulfilment, a clean and safe world etc. In other words: "Do as you would be done by".(The Golden Rule that has been around for 4,000 years).
Not only is this a valid framework for an personal moral code, but it is far better that the absolutist codes based on ancient manuscripts, and I would suggest most people - even most religious people - actually believe this. I will elaborate on this in the next post. Watch this space...
Some interesting thoughts arose from it, but one thing that jumped out at me was the often repeated views of religious people that if you don't believe in God you can't have any moral framework. The thought being, I suppose, that if you have no Bible or Koran you have no rule book to work to. They then take the logic a step further and say that if you have no rule book your behaviour deteriorates in to some sort of animal like behaviour, anarchism and ultimately social breakdown. One contributor said (in what the philosophers call a Post Hoc fallacy) that the London Riots last year proved that the schools need to be taught religion. A gentleman described as a Christian Evangelist stated that you can only get "true ethics" from the Bible. Another contributor amusingly claimed that if you don't have a religious belief you would wake up each day and arbitrarily choose a different ethical behaviour.
All these folks are trapped in a absolutist view point. However, Humanists take a relativistic view of morality. We judge the 'rightness' of an action based on the outcomes and how they affect people. The underlying principle is that we want the kind of world that we want to live in, and therefore we are looking for outcomes in terms of human happiness, personal fulfilment, a clean and safe world etc. In other words: "Do as you would be done by".(The Golden Rule that has been around for 4,000 years).
Not only is this a valid framework for an personal moral code, but it is far better that the absolutist codes based on ancient manuscripts, and I would suggest most people - even most religious people - actually believe this. I will elaborate on this in the next post. Watch this space...
Friday, May 04, 2012
A great motto
One of my favourite quotations is supposedly by Albert Einstein: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
At first glance it might seem like a platitude, but I think it neatly sums up the Humanist philosophy.
Learn from yesterday: Don't slavishly follow the handed down 'rules' (such as the so called holy scriptures or church traditions) but look at the successes and failures in human endeavour and learn from them.
Live for today: As there is no afterlife we need to make the most of this life, and we certainly shouldn't expect others to tolerate suffering on the basis that there is better future 'heaven' for them.
Hope for tomorrow: The Humanist outlook must be optimistic. We must believe that that humans will ultimately build a better world, as we are all we've got!
Questioning: We are really only going to make progress if we keep questioning things, and we mustn't be afraid to be questioned. Critical Thinking is an important skill.
PS: I tried to get to a verifiable source of the quotation as Einstein's but have only drawn blanks. It may be a myth. One source said it was quoted in an interview in Life Magazine, May 2, 1955 - but I couldn't find it in the transcript. I would be interested to know if anyone has more information.
At first glance it might seem like a platitude, but I think it neatly sums up the Humanist philosophy.
Learn from yesterday: Don't slavishly follow the handed down 'rules' (such as the so called holy scriptures or church traditions) but look at the successes and failures in human endeavour and learn from them.
Live for today: As there is no afterlife we need to make the most of this life, and we certainly shouldn't expect others to tolerate suffering on the basis that there is better future 'heaven' for them.
Hope for tomorrow: The Humanist outlook must be optimistic. We must believe that that humans will ultimately build a better world, as we are all we've got!
Questioning: We are really only going to make progress if we keep questioning things, and we mustn't be afraid to be questioned. Critical Thinking is an important skill.
PS: I tried to get to a verifiable source of the quotation as Einstein's but have only drawn blanks. It may be a myth. One source said it was quoted in an interview in Life Magazine, May 2, 1955 - but I couldn't find it in the transcript. I would be interested to know if anyone has more information.
Thursday, May 03, 2012
It's been a while
Six years to be precise! To be honest, I had completely forgotten I had created this blog, and it was only the legacy migration reminder from Google that sent me here. Thanks for the interest from somuchtounderstand!
Not of course that I haven't been thinking about things in the intervening time.
The basis of this blog is to start with the underlying Humanist hypothesis that there is no supernatural super-being out there. We have one life ... and each other ... and so we need to work it all out ourselves. The Humanist generally has an optimistic view that humans will tend to figure it all out. Well, we have to, as this is all we have got.
So - if there is a problem to solve - we can't dive in to an ancient book such as the Bible or the Koran for definitive answers. We need to develop answers based in shared human values ... and this is where this Blog comes in.
Let's see where it takes us!
(If anyone has ideas for subjects to look at, add a comment)
Not of course that I haven't been thinking about things in the intervening time.
The basis of this blog is to start with the underlying Humanist hypothesis that there is no supernatural super-being out there. We have one life ... and each other ... and so we need to work it all out ourselves. The Humanist generally has an optimistic view that humans will tend to figure it all out. Well, we have to, as this is all we have got.
So - if there is a problem to solve - we can't dive in to an ancient book such as the Bible or the Koran for definitive answers. We need to develop answers based in shared human values ... and this is where this Blog comes in.
Let's see where it takes us!
(If anyone has ideas for subjects to look at, add a comment)
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Understanding the World
Welcome to my first Blog!
My objective starting out is to use this space to share my thoughts about the world we live in, and see if anyone out there can benefit from the comments and, even better, help expand and develop the ideas, and share any insights.
I expect the blog to be of most interest to those who share my belief that the world would be a better place if people understood each other more, and made a little effort to reach out and help.
I suppose you could call it a Humanist view of the world, but which does not exclude religious belief.
If you share this view, it follows that participating in this blog will help us understand each other ... and therfore make the world a better place!
If anyone in Cyberspace has read this, do leave a comment. And best wishes to you.
My objective starting out is to use this space to share my thoughts about the world we live in, and see if anyone out there can benefit from the comments and, even better, help expand and develop the ideas, and share any insights.
I expect the blog to be of most interest to those who share my belief that the world would be a better place if people understood each other more, and made a little effort to reach out and help.
I suppose you could call it a Humanist view of the world, but which does not exclude religious belief.
If you share this view, it follows that participating in this blog will help us understand each other ... and therfore make the world a better place!
If anyone in Cyberspace has read this, do leave a comment. And best wishes to you.
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