Afterlife & Souls

More of this Feature • Part 2: Skepticism & NDEs • Part 3: Do Souls Exist?    Join the Discussion "People tell me that there is a ghost of some sort in this picture. Can you find it?" Blair     Related Resources • Who Do Voodoo? • Occam's Razor • Ancient Skepticisms     Buy these Books • Dying to Live • Do Souls Exist?

Is this life all there is? Is it true that when we die, that's it - no more us? Or do we live on after death, continuing to experience things in new realms? Do we have some sort of immaterial "soul" which is actually the origin of our minds and consciousness now? Does this "soul" continue on after our deaths, migrating to some sort of heaven or higher dimension?

All difficult questions, to be sure. And although it is not true that all atheists and all theists will answer the same way, it is a fact that most atheists and most theists will come down on opposite sides of the matter. Most atheists - at least in the West - don't believe in any sort of souls or afterlife. Most theists, including those involved in more modern "New Age" beliefs, believe in some sort of soul and afterlife.

If you wanted to learn more about the subject, just about everything you'd find would come entirely from theistic sources. Look in any bookstore or library and pretty much every book or magazine addressing the question of souls and an afterlife will be telling you that you do have a soul, that there is an afterlife, and that you should conduct your life with those two things in mind.

But what about skeptical sources? Isn't there anything out there for people interested in a more critical review of the claims and evidence? Unfortunately, there isn't much - the market for skeptical treatments of religious and paranormal claims just isn't that big, probably because people generally don't like to have their favorite ideas criticized. And, without a doubt, the claim you don't really die will rank as one of people's all-time favorites.

There are, however, a very few books that are worth looking at for general skeptical looks at claims about souls, an afterlife, and Near Death Experiences. I'll take a look at information from two of them, each approaching the topic from different angles.

The first book is Dying to Live, by Susan Blackmore. This book doesn't specifically address the existence of souls or an afterlife, but instead focuses on one very important thing: Near Death Experiences. These are important because they are cited as perhaps the best, most solid evidence for the existence of an afterlife by all types of believers. If this evidence is not as good as assumed, then the case for an afterlife is seriously weakened.

The second book is Are Souls Real? by Jerome W. Elbert, Ph.D. Elbert, a physicist and former researcher at the University of Utah, tackles the larger issues regarding the existence of souls and an afterlife. He explores recent scientific work on the nature of thinking, memories and consciousness in order to see if there is indeed any place for an immaterial "soul" at all. After all, if we don't need a soul to explain anything, then the case for one is once again weakened.

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