Atheist’s false
advertising:
1. Claim
that “there is no one coming back from death telling us what the afterlife is”
=>there is also no one coming back to death telling us there is NO afterlife
2. Afterlife
is only based on faith. The absence of evidences is the evidences of absence.
=>The absence of evidences may indicate only that we haven’t figured out how
to locate what we are looking for. “Not Found” is not the same as “Found not to
be exist”. Thus, atheist’s confidence in there is no afterlife is also based on
only faith.
3. Hume’s
Verification Principle: there are two ways for a claim to be true: 1. Is that
true by definition? All bachelors are single. 2. Empirical verification
=>Hume’ verification principle does not hold up by its own standard. It is
not true by definition and it can’t be empirically verified.
.4. Ideas
of afterlife, God, heaven are products of wishful thinking resulted from
human’s limitation and inevitability to avoid death and suffering.
=>First, just because it is a wishful thinking, it doesn’t tell much about
whether it is true or false. Second, how
about hell? Is that also a product of wishful thinking?
Third, evolution says creature that has wrong belief how life conducts will be
less likely to survive. Yet, humans seem
prevail to continue multiplying despite its “wrong belief”, then evolution is
not capable of filtering down the wishful thinking.
5. Life
after death is a product of religious claim that is heavily disproved by
science.
The ideas of life after death is universally hold by many religions and western
philosophy as well. Ranging from Taoist, Confucian, Hindu, Budha, Islam to
Socrates, Plato, from the eastern part of the world to western part, covering
decades of gap, a belief or ideas about life after death seem to be hold. Yet,
they differ in details, some of major differences: First, believe the survival
without the body (Islam, Plato). Second, survival the whole body and soul
(Christianity, Hindu, Budha). Third, there is no life after death (atheism).
6. Modern
physics or science are moving toward disproving anything beyond material world
exists.
While materialism has already had a difficulty to explain the origin of matter
without any “intervention from out of the system”, the modern physics adds more
problem to be answered by materialists. Recently, the physicists are moving
toward belief that most of energy and matter in this universe are filled by
some other kind that we don’t see, called Dark energy and dark matter. It is
called dark because its mystery that they behave unlike “natural” matter and
energy we knew yet their existence is necessary to explain the observed
phenomena. To add issue like the fine-tuning of our world, is pushing
materialist to the corner. Their best explanation for fine-tuning to support
life is it is a result of coincidence. With hundreds of constants exist,
accurate to 120 decimal places, the coincidental proposal sounds unscientific.
Further evidence in life-supporting evidence will follow.
7. Humans
are product of nature’s accident, no plan or purpose for human’s existence.
Knowing that life can only be sustainable in a very delicate environment,
should give a hint that “Somebody” prepared for life to be possible and
sustainable. Read “what if” book to see how the universe has been tuned exactly
accurate to fulfill that thin line of sustainable environment. Even moon,
jupiter and water are located, summed and having properties exactly the way it
has to be to sustain life. Evolution presume such condition to explain how one
living cell could evolve into another, but they have no explanation how and why
the appearance of fine tuning. Another question for evolution would be where
did the first living cell come from? Say, that the first living cell was
miraculously appeared out of nothing (yes, it is a miracle by itself), how can
it determine which being should evolve into ants, or elephants, or plants or
humans? And how can pure matter could have innate properties needed for each
species like ant’s ability to find home across an unmarked landscape, bat’s ability
to navigate in dark using sound wave, camel’s ability to store water in their
humps etc. Why in this time we could see both bacteria and animals together?
Why some bacterias evolved yet left some behind? Mammals appeared later than
reptiles but both are still exist today. How can pure matter can evolve into
something immaterial such as human’s mind? One must accept that mind does exist
and it exists in different form than any other material things.
8. Immaterial
realm (mental) is just a branch of material realm.
Different views on this issue:
a. Dualism: mental and material are 2 separate/distinct realm.
Body is just a vessel for mind, body decays but mind will still exist by
itself.
Con: How a mind affect physical realm? Only physical force can move physical
stuff
b. Materialism: minds and thoughts are just products of brain’s activities.
Death of body is the end, there is nothing left to continue on.
Con: how do material objects like neurons cause immaterial outcome like ideas,
emotions, sensations?
(i) epiphenomenon: mind to brain is like smoke to fire
Con: but smoke don’t do anything/No. use. In Evolutionary’s point of view: why
do we have mind if it is irrelevant?
(ii) eliminative: mental world doesn’t exist. It is just an illusion.
Con: we know exactly when we itch, it is real.
(iii) identity: the mind is the brain.
Con: mental has attributes that brain doesn’t: private, absence of specific
location, intention (refer to external to themselves), infallible (can’t be
wrong about my own thoughts).
(iv) functionalism: mental states is just a functional purpose. Thinking is
like a kind of computation.
Con: computation is not the same as thinking. Computer doesn’t UNDERSTAND what
it is doing.
Part of humans that are irreducible to material.
Consciousness and Free Will.
Consciousness:
- science can’t reach to immaterial realm
- mind can change brains: OCD, placebo effect.
- Mind is independent enough to create change in body and brain-> reasonable
to believe it can survive after body and brain dissolved.
- Consciousness seem to counter evolutionary theory=> many other species that
as far as we know have no consciousness managed to survive and reproduce.
- Consciousness merely comes with the body and operate through body serves as
kind of receiver and transmitter for the consciousness not its (consciousness)
author or manufacturer.
Free will:
- if the motions of atoms in brain fully determined the mental process, thus my
choices->humans’ decision is 100% predictable.
- presumed in morality choices, without free will nobody is morally responsible
for their actions.
- Kant: when we become upset or indignant at someone for acting a certain way,
our behavior onlu makes sense if they could have acted in some other way. Even
regret and remorse as emotions are incomprehensible to us in the absence of
freedom; we are sorry for what we did; therefore, it has to be the case that we
could have done otherwise. Yet, if all this is true, then humans do, at least
on some occasions & to some degree, have free choices. => Immanuel Kant,
Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, 55.
Another evidence based on philosophy:
George Berkeley:
what we think as a reality is actually how we perceive material world. THe only
thing we know is the experience about the physical world that is channeled/tuned
by our senses. What we called objective physical world is apprehended through
subjective mental experience.
Two things are real: experience and experiencing subject.
Dogs can hear sound with lower frequency, bats use sonar to see in the dark =>
some information that we don’t have access to but clearly exist.
Science is a study of this experience
(phenomenal).
The other world (noumenon) is immaterial, no space and time and continue to
exist after our bodies decay.
Evidence of life
after death based on morality
It is called
pre-suppositional = there is known fact that require explanation to make sense
of it.
The known fact: humans inherit knowledge about the way things are (facts) and
the way things should be (values).
From evolutionary point of view, knowing facts are the only thing matter to
survive, yet over time values do still exist. Regardless how cruel and
injustice our world is, we still hold what ought to be.
Morality is a gap in the modern materialism science that can’t be explained
=> accuse Christian to apply “God of the gaps” => worth to consider
instead of trying to fill the gap using current framework, materialist should
reform the framework to make sense the whole thing.
Arguments for the existence of cosmic justice beyond material:
- morality is universal
There is inner voice, has no power but authority to push us to do what ought to
be => judgement by guilt/regret.
- altruism to strangers
helping others purely for selfless motives.
- only humans has morality senses
if morality is required for survival then evolution theory dictates other
surviving species need to acquire such skill. Up to now, there is no evidence
there is morality in other than humans.
- morality is not a result of observed phenomenons
humans don’t always see justice being hold, yet choose to believe that is what
ought to be.
