Apologetics VII: immortality and consciousness, part II

As promised, here is the second installment addressing arguments for and against the immortality of humans from Handbook of Christian Apologetics. The authors divide their 25 arguments for life after death into three categories: arguments from authority, reason and experience. There’s no way I can, nor feel the need to, address every single one of these, and indeed, only a scant few of them deserve serious consideration.

  1. They begin with the argument from “consensus,” which basically says that since “nearly all cultures and the vast majority of all individuals who have ever lived have voted for (believed in) life after death,” then immortality is probably true. They give the example that, “For although it is not true that ‘forty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong'” it’s less likely that 40 are. Of course, this argument from consensus is precisely parallel to arguments for God, that, since most of the world believes, the chances are better than not that a deity of some kind exists. As we know through history, however, the majority can both be wrong and misguided at the same time. At one time, the majority of people in the world were OK with the institution of slavery, and some even justified it through their holy texts. At one time, the majority of all people thought the world was flat. The majority, at one time, thought the planets revolved around the Earth. At one time, the majority of people living in an ancient Greece and Rome got their consolation from gods that we, today, balk  at and mock. On all counts, how wrong they were.
  2. The argument from Sages attempts to stack the deck toward belief by stacking the number of prophets and religious officials against the unbelievers. Here, the authors list 19 sages or believing thinkers against 10 unbelievers. But again, weighing the number of believers in history with the number of prominent unbelievers says nothing about the truth of any claim about immortality. But if it’s a numbers game we’re after, here are 50 prominent atheists down through history, and I can add Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Dan Barker, John Stewart Mill, Omar Khayyám and many others.
  3. The argument from the authority of Jesus on the after life is weaker than the previous argument from sages, which, by the way, already included the authority of Jesus within the authors’ list of 19. Here, and for no good reason, the authors pull out Jesus from the likes of Buddha and Muhammad when a clear reason for doing so has not been established, other than the authors’ own belief that the whole of the gospels accurately portrays what Jesus did and said. And that point is an untenable one indeed.
  4. Since the authors admit that the next three arguments, from conservation of energy, evolution and dead cow, are weak, I won’t give them an airing here.
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  7. On the argument from magic, the authors say this one is so “pervasive and obvious that we miss it by taking it for granted.” Good! Perhaps, we’ll move into some serious arguments now. “The conclusion of this argument is that there exists in us an immaterial soul, which, since it is not made of matter, need not be obligated to the laws of matter, including mortality.” The authors then tell us how we on a daily basis use the power of mind over matter to perform such law-bending actions as levitating. Now, before I read on, I thought they had been witness to some conjuring tricks that I had not, since “levitating” usually is a term associated with floating. Man floating without the means of a blimp or hot air balloon would be a feat indeed! But no, the authors are talking about jumping. That’s right: suspending the laws of nature to lift ourselves into the air or to break gravity’s code with our minds by picking up an object off the floor. This they absurdly call “real magic.” Perhaps, in their attempts to equate the mind of man with the soul, the authors forgot that millions of ants perform this “magic,” and quite astonishingly, by carrying items much heavier than their own body weight every single day, and with more efficiently than man. Frogs jump. Most birds make a living out of suspending themselves in the air for very long periods of time. I don’t hear anyone championing the magic-wielding abilities of other creatures in the animal kingdom. Yet, the authors forget to mention that when we jump, we are automatically brought back down to earth when gravity acts on our bodies. Still, the authors continue: “The evidence (Didn’t see any evidence) is so obvious that one wonders who the real ‘primitive’ is: the savage who believes in spirits or the modern materialist who does not, and who cannot understand the difference between mind and brain, spirit and matter, active programmer and passive program, mover and moved.” I will grant the authors one point: I don’t think they explained this argument very well (or the argument should have been trashed altogether), and introducing the word “magic,” with all its connotations, doesn’t help the case. But still, to credit the soul with processes that are handled quite effectively by the mind is to ignore every biology textbook written in the last 500 years.
  8. The next, Plato’s argument from soul’s survival of its diseases, amounts to a tautology, and is thus, ignored.
  9. The following two assume the soul’s existence right from the start and thus, beg the question.
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  11. The argument from two immaterial operations, thinking and willing, seem to be a reiteration of the argument from consciousness, which I addressed previously.
  12. Here is the first serious philosophical argument thus far for immortality. It says that “If materalism is true, if the soul is only the brain, if there is no spirit, no human soul and no God, then the brain has been programmed by mere chance. … Therefore materialism cannot be true. It refutes itself. It destroys credentials. If the brain is nothing but blind atoms, we have no reason to trust it when it tells us about anything, including itself and atoms. Thus, if there is nothing but atoms, we have no reason to believe there is nothing but atoms.” Well, it’s not “programmed” by anything, especially not chance. That would be absurd. Neither are we evolved to the point we are, a highly developed species, by mere chance, and time and again, apologists use that word, “chance,” to attempt to ridicule the idea of evolution by natural selection. It’s absolutely not chance that has produced our highly developed brains, but a slow and gradual process that heaped advantageous selections over advantageous selections across millennia.
  13. The next three arguments, as the authors admit, are hardly convincing because they presuppose the existence of God. Thus, they begin from a tenuous position and are ignored.
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  16. The argument from ultimate justice says that “Since justice is often not done in the short run in human life on earth, either (1) justice is done in the long run — in which case there must be a ‘long run,’ a life after death — or else (2) this absolute demand we make for moral meaning and ultimate justice is not met by reality, but is a mere subjective quirk of the human psyche …” The authors then summon the famous quote from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. It’s shortened in the apologist book, but the full quote is: “If there’s no immortality of the soul, then there’s no virtue, and everything is lawful.” On the point about justice, actually “short run” justice is delivered every day in courtrooms across the world. And of the higher “long run” justice, this sort of justice seems only deliverable and relevant if we assume a god, as the authors do. The rest of us don’t demand any kind of higher justice, other than what the courts dole out, and we don’t drink from any well of morality to conduct our lives in a civil way. There exists psychopaths and other neurotic and emotionally disturbed individuals who will commit crimes with or without a justice system to punish them. The rest of us “behave” in polite society because it’s advantageous for us to do so, for if we don’t, unpleasant consequences could occur. It’s only a defeatest and destructive view of humanity that assumes we can’t carry on perfectly well without a divine authority embedding moral principles within us, for they are already there. Or else, believers must be ready to admit, unequivocally, that without God or Jesus or Allah, they would be bad people, and perhaps worse, that they need God or Jesus or Allah to be good. What self-denigrating and absurd thinking this is. Christopher Hitchens has eloquently made the case for morality without a divine authority, again, referencing Dostoevsky. Here is a video in which he says, “Is it not rather the case that with God everything is permissible. That once a primate believes he has God on his side, that primate is capable of anything. The suicide bombing community, more or less 100 percent religious. The genital mutilation community, practically 100 percent religious. The injunctions and warrants in the Bible, in the text itself, for slavery, for genocide, inescapably right there and acted upon and in the name of God …”
  17. The argument from “The Meaning of Life” is the point in this long list in which the authors appeal to our sense of purpose or a plan that must be at the crux of why we are here in the first place. But, upon searching for the truth in life, any honest believer or skeptic must be willing to accept facts that may seem unwelcome or unfavorable to them. We are all, of course, quite free to believe in anything as long as we are OK with the wasted time, money, resources and years off our lives that such a belief might entail if that belief happens to turn out not to be true. But let’s grant for a second that immortality is true. How are we to know that whatever “purpose” a deity might have for our lives is favorable to us. We, I think, assume too much in suggesting that sky gods might have our best interests in mind, that just because a higher power may exist doesn’t mean he’s of the benevolent kind.
  18. Pascal’s Wager: This one is barely worth mentioning, but it’s akin to this: If Christianity is true, what do you have to lose? Believe and go to heaven. If Christianity is not true, you have lost nothing. But if you don’t believe, and it all turns out to be true, you face eternal separation from God and have lost mightily. This is what we call hedging our bets, and it’s not true that if you believe wrongly, you have lost nothing, for you have lost the aforementioned time, money, resources, years off your life, etc. First, belief is not something I can do as a matter of policy, as Richard Dawkins has said. We can’t make ourselves believe something, at least I can’t. Second, it is a bet, after all, as Dawkins asked: “Would you bet on God’s valuing dishonestly faked belief (or even honest belief) over honest skepticism?” If you do take the wager and try to beat the odds, you had better hope that god is not of the omniscient kind or he will surely see through the game.
  19. The argument from Sehnsucht (Longing): In short, “There exists in us one desire that nothing in this life can satisfy,” this “mysterious” longing. C.S. Lewis wrote about this extensively. But if there is a longing that cannot be fulfilled by love or music or literature or time with family and friends, I have yet to find it, and have felt no special transcendent longing.
  20. The Argument From Presence is mumbo jumbo to me and doesn’t begin to say anything tenable about immortality. Here, the authors seem to have substituted “soul” for “subject” and again, without basis, assumed that the “presence of a subject does transcend that of an object” (which I take to mean the body). Regardless, this argument is quite ambiguous and can’t begin to mount any sort of defense of the after life.
  21. In the argument from love, the authors say, “Death did not change the meaning of Socrates; Socrates changed the meaning of death.” So it was with Jesus for the authors. But again, they seem to begin with their final argument, and arguments can’t flow backward from that which is trying to be proven.
  22. Near-death experiences, ghosts (Oddly referred to as “postmortem presences”) and mystical experiences aren’t worth more than a few words. I take it that since these appear so late in the list, the authors give great weight to these arguments. But conduct the thought experiment about NDEs for a second: suppose you are within your last moments of life. You may not be breathing well and thus, aren’t getting much oxygen to your brain. Tubes are everywhere. For all it’s tragedy, it is a surreal moment. The brain is a more powerful organ than we are aware. As has well been documented, it has the ability to create realities that may or may not exist in real time, and in stressed conditions such as these, this ability can become heightened. So, no, proofs from near-death experiences do not prove or argue for an afterlife. They argue for the power of the brain to create alternate realities in attempts to deal with or process current situations, not for other-worldly experiences.
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  25. The argument from Christ’s resurrection. The writers term this as their “most convincing” case for life after death, but since, again, they begin by assuming what they are trying to prove throughout the book, it’s one of the least convincing, and here are myriad life-death-rebirth deity tales in religious lore. John Dominic Crossan’s “The Historical Jesus” provides some perspective on what Jesus actually did and said. As it happens, the authors of this apologetics book mention Crossan only once on page 189 and call Crossan a “current media darling among the doubters,” yet fail to address any of Crossan’s many and detailed analyses from the biblical and extra-biblical evidence about what Jesus said and did. And while Jesus most likely uttered parables about the “kingdom of God” numerous times, it’s unclear whether Jesus meant a future apocalyptic kingdom or a kingdom of social transformation. The authors here, obviously, assume the former without any basis or evidence for doing so because it supports their claim that the real Jesus had something to say about a future kingdom of God, which they read to be talking about heaven, or perhaps, some new heaven and new earth, as in the Bible. As for the resurrection itself, we know that Matthew, Luke and John most likely sprang from the gospel of Mark, and many scholars feel Mark 16:8 is there the actual texts ends, while Mark 9-16 were added later once the Jesus tale was more fully established.

Thus, when looking at all of these arguments for immortality as a whole, only one (#12) makes any kind of serious claim about life after death, and as I’ve shown, it’s a shallow claim at that. Next, as I’m wrapping up this series, I will look at the authors’ claims for heaven and hell, free will and concluding thoughts.

Apologetics VII: immortality and consciousness, part I

If you will remember, I began a series of posts in which I attempt to address some of the arguments found in Handbook of Christian Apologetics, available in fine bookstores everywhere.

I now want to say a word or two about the book’s 10th chapter titled, “Life After Death,” in which the authors investigate some theories on the hereafter. They place particular focus on materialism, since, or as they say, this is the train of thought on the matter followed by most atheists today. Thus, their definition of materialism as it relates to the after life reads thusly:

Death ends all of me. Seldom held before the eighteenth century (but most certainly held),  materialism is now a strong minority view in industrialized nations. It is the natural accompaniment of atheism.

Well, at the very first point, we hit a wall. While many atheists today may regard themselves as materialists (Although my inclination is that many would reject a label such as that because of its materialistic connotations.) in the sense as it is defined here, pagans and pantheists (such as Einstein) could also be agnostics or atheists. Further, the authors fail to mention or realize that every other religious apologist is emphatically atheist with regard to all the other beliefs. Jews are atheists with regard to Jesus. Christians are atheists with regard to Allah. Muslims are atheists to both, and atheists who reject all gods simply go one god farther.

The trend throughout this book, a trend that makes it quite difficult to read, is to begin with a set of premises in more or less paragraph form and then answer specific objections or make points in outline form. After the initial list of six theories about what happens after death, which concludes with the Christian view of resurrection, the authors begin with four objections to immortality that, presumably, were pulled out of a hat, since no references are given for where these particular objections came from, other than this statement, “Some objections are frequently raised against the possibility of life after death.”

Normally, and especially books authored by college professors, as this one is, arguments from actual sources are cited and then refuted or accepted by further analysis. Here and throughout the book, the authors seem to pull the objections to which they are about to refute straight out of thin air. It’s almost as if they can formulate any type of “objection” against immortality however they like and in the manner that would most easily cater to a forthright dismissal.

So, without further adieu, here are their four self-generated objections:

  1. If there is to be a personal survival after death, then a personal self must live beyond the destruction of the body. But a surviving self has got to be in some way self-conscious, and without a brain there can be no self-consciousness. At death the brain ceases to function and, in a very short time, ceases altogether to be. So there can be survival of bodily death.
  2. Even if materialism is false, there may still be no possibility of surviving bodily death. For the self gains access to the world of experience  through the brain. We use the brain for sensing; we also use it for thinking. These are the basic human experiences. But death, in robbing us of the brain, robs us of the means by which we experience. Now we human persons are centers of self-conscious experience. If what survives death can in no way experience, then “we” do not survive death.
  3. What we mean by “person” involves embodiment. So no person can survive bodily death.
  4. If life after death is to have real personal meaning, each disembodied soul must have its own identity. There must be some way in which any two souls can be distinguished. But we use bodily criteria to identify (and so to distinguish) human persons, and these criteria cannot apply to a disembodied soul. Therefore, we have no means of distinguishing one disembodied soul from another. Now if disembodied souls cannot be distinguished, they cannot be identified. Since personal identity is essential to life after death, the question is: Can there be such a life?  The problem of identifying disembodied souls casts serious doubt on its possibility.

I’ll take these one-by-one, and then investigate the authors’ 25 (Yes, 25) arguments for immortality in a later post, as this one is quite long.

On the first objection, the authors make this odd statement: the argument “‘without a brain there can be no self-consciousness’ is ambiguous,” which refers to part of the preliminary objection above. It’s an odd statement to make because the objection wasn’t rendered by a known outside source, but by the authors themselves. So, one could make the case that they purposefully created the ambiguity within their concocted first objection to then dethrone it.

Regardless, the authors seem to be attempting to build a case that the “self” is an entity that exists outside the brain, and thus, we could then talk about a soul.

Here are the authors again:

Some think that the recent and spectacular successes of neuroscience show that materialism is obviously true. How, after all, do scientists investigate the mind except by investigating the brain? So materialism would seem to be favored, even demanded, by modern science.

But this  is false. Neurobiology is an empirical science and therefore must deal with the material reality. … When they (materialists) profess materialism, they are really making the claim that in matters relating to thought and intellect their is nothing for their science to abstract from. …

Whatever is material is limited to this region of space and time. … It follows that if thought it just a motion in matter, it must have spatial and temporal limits — the spatial limits of the matter, the temporal limits of the movement.

This is all a very roundabout way for the authors to say that thought and all of the wonderful things that happen inside our brains and as a product of our brains, stand outside of matter, and that what it means to be a “self” stands in parallel, or perhaps, in separation to the physical organ of the brain. But we have very good reasons based on important research about the brain that confirms that many, or all, of our emotions, thoughts and feelings find their beginnings in the brain. Here is an explanation, and in particular, view the “Geography of Thought” section. This is Neuroscience 101. Animals other than humans have many of the same experiences (emotions, good feelings from eating a delicious meal or smelling something pleasant). So, to try to make the case that the “self” or what we might want to call the “soul” sits outside of the mind is a tenuous position at best. Our minds and our genes are ourselves, and there is nothing more under the sun.

On the second objection about the death of self-conscious experience, I only need a paragraph. The authors ask:

Is all self-conscious experience apart from the body impossible? This has not been shown.

To simply say something has not been shown — without citing any sources, nonetheless — says nothing, and I can flip this around: “Is the flying tea pot a true and real entity somewhere in outer space? This has not been shown.” Case closed, and maybe we will be happily greeted by the grand tea pot someday. I’m glad we cleared that up.

Objection 3: Their reply to their own objection is this:

If “we” is shorthand for “we materialists,” then the objection begs the question.

So, they’ve managed to beg the question inside their own rendered objection. Not much of a feat.

Objection 4 about the problem of identifying specific souls after they have lost their material bodies. The writers conclude on this argument:

It is not clear how souls are individualized (How could they be?), how God identifies them, or how they can identify and communicate with each other. But we have no need to know these things. We know thart we are just the persons we are. We know that the self-identity allowing this knowledge is not describable in material terms and therefore cannot be understood that way. We know enough, in other words, enough to refute the present objection.

But, of course, by their own admission, they don’t know enough about the subject to refute any objection to it, and this point is clinched by their words, “It is not clear” and “we have no need to know these things.” If they have no need to know these things, why bother with any other objections. Like every other apologist making fantastic claims, why say you know anything about the material world whatsoever because it all matters not. The authors here would have suited their purposes better by simply saying, “God did it,” on all questions and objections, be done with it, and save us weary-eyed readers 100s of pages of vacuous arguments and doctrinal loop de loops.

But, the authors soldier on, presenting us with the aforementioned 25 arguments for immortality. And it’s here that I will pick up in a subsequent post.

Westboro Baptist strikes again, finds itself in court

The nutty and contemptible bunch from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., is at it again, this time, picketing its anti-gay message at the funeral of another fallen soldier, and outrightly calling for the death of more soldiers while the United States continues its tolerant policies regarding gay rights. Actually, unless you live in one of only a few states in the nation, those rights aren’t all that tolerant. But that seems beside the point. That we let gays live and breathe in our free republic, I suppose, is too much leniency when it comes to homosexuals. I don’t feel the need to comment much on this. Fred Phelps, head of the church, and his supporters do a fine enough job of building a case for their own utter stupidity and backwardness. Extremism of this kind is, at its best, corrosive to free societies, and at its worst, dangerous. Here’s a video about how the family of the fallen soldier has taken Phelps to court over the abhorrent protests. Needless to say, the Supreme Court justices weren’t very sympathetic to Phelps’ pathetic crusade.

Huge news from the cosmos

I learned about this a couple weeks ago, but as folks can see from the long tenure John Milton enjoyed at the top of this site, I haven’t devoted as much time to writing as usual as of late. More on that in another post.

But for now, one of the most significant discoveries, at least in my lifetime, was made in late September, when astronomers found the only planet besides Earth that is the right size and in the correct position to support life.

Credit: Lynette Cook; This illustration offers a glimpse of the Gliese 581 system from the perspective of planet G.

Orbiting around a red dwarf star in what is known as the Goldilocks Zone some 20 light years away, the planet known as Gliese 581g exists in an area of its galaxy that is neither too close or too far away from the star to foster ideal temperatures for life. According to Carnegie Institute astronomer Paul Butler,

This is really the first ‘Goldilocks’ planet, the first planet that is roughly the right size and just at the right distance to have liquid water on the surface. …

Everything we know about life is that it absolutely requires liquid water. The planet has to be the right distance from the star so it’s not too hot, not too cold …  and then it has to have surface gravity so that it can hold on to a substantial atmosphere and allow the water to pool.

As we know, Gliese 581g does have water on it, and some scientists think it most probably has liquid water, given the temperate weather conditions. It’s believed that the average temperature range varies between -84 to -49 F with no atmospheric effects added in, while the numbers jump to -35 to 10 F with greenhouse gas effects figured in. That sounds pretty chilly, but half, or more, of the planet’s surface is on the dark side sitting away from its sun, while the bright side could, as I’ve read, approach as high as 160 F.

Either way, it’s  a huge leap forward for science and for those interested in the question of whether life exists on other planets. Remember, of course, that when we say “life,” we don’t mean highly developed mammals like humans or apes, but most likely, we are referring to microbes and other simpler forms. With this discovery and others like it that have turned up water sources elsewhere in the cosmos, perhaps the only question that remains is: Not whether some form of life exists elsewhere, but how long will it be until we, in fact, discover it too?

More battles over textbook curriculum

Article first published as More battles over textbook curriculum on Blogcritics.

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In step with the Texas Board of Education’s attempts — and successes — in seeking to alter educational curriculum to give materials a more conservative bent, the state of Florida recently approved to utilize a marine science textbook that included a section that opponents say contains the language of creationism and intelligent design.

Life on an Ocean Planet

The textbook, “Life on an Ocean Planet,” was either approved for use as a whole or it was only later voted that the sidebar section containing the inaccurate and specious arguments be redacted. This article from the St. Petersburg Times quotes a Florida Department of Education spokeswoman as saying the book was adopted with the provision in place to remove the two pages in question. But according to a statement from the Florida Citizens for Science,

Information we have about the committee vote indicates that they voted to approve the textbook overall, and then a second vote was called for to remove the sidebar. That second vote failed but a compromise was reached to ‘fix’ the sidebar. … Further muddying of the waters comes from there being two versions of the textbook: an electronic one on CD and a print one. It’s unclear whether the votes pertain to both versions or just one since it looks like the committee only reviewed the electronic one.

So, what’s in this two page sidebar? The section called “Questions About the Origin and Development of Life” gives lip service to the idea that some questions — for instance, that life might have developed by unnatural forces before evolution got going — deserve our attention. Florida Citizens for Science Jonathan Smith pulled out a few problem areas he found within the section, which were submitted to the St. Petersburg Times’ education blog:

Skeptics [Read: creationists or anti-evolutionists] observe that general evolution doesn’t adequately explain how a complex structure, such as the eye, could come to exist through infrequent random mutations. Such structures consist of multiple integrated components … a subcomponent has no survival advantage by itself, it would not be passed along by natural selection. There’s no survival advantage unless all the components exist at once, yet no random mutation process would produce all the required components at the same time. Transitional forms for some specialized characteristics would be expected to have a survival disadvantage, say skeptics.  An example is the bat wing ….

Smith then commented: “This is a standard creationist trope, well known to be wrong.”

Yes, wrong being the key word.

And about the eye and bat wing: Richard Dawkins has already answered the argument from irreducible complexity, and even Darwin, speaking from the mid-19th century, astoundingly anticipated that some folks would attempt to dash his theory of evolution by bringing to bear the argument that various organs, like the eye, could not possibly be irreducibly complex.

But in The God Delusion and The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins explained the usefulness of partial eyesight or partial wing matter. For, as he argues, surely part of a wing is better than no wing. At least with part of a wing, a bat can temper the blow of a fall from the sky. So as with the eye. My eyesight, for instance, is quite poor, but without the invention of glasses, I would prefer my current level of poor sight to outright blindness. Further, our eyes can function on less complex levels without some of their parts, as in the case of cataract surgery and the removal of the natural lens. So it is with bat wings. Take away a bone or two, and the bat may not be able to fly perfectly, but again, the wing wouldn’t cease to be completely useless. Thus, arguments from irreducible complexity break down, and the Florida board of education was quite right to redact this section from the marine science textbook because it gives some measure of weight to theories that have long since been dealt with and discarded.

For further reading, here’s an interesting look at Darwin came to scientifically develop his theory of evolution by natural selection and his personal journey to accept it in light of what he formerly believed about God and creation.