by Currie Jean

Created on: March 01, 2009

The first thing that makes belief in reward after death dangerous, is that it isn't real. When we die, we die. That we survive our own deaths to reap possible rewards is not true.

This is an easy problem to understand - whatever anyone thinks about reality, they're sure to agree that the truth is valuable, and thus worth knowing, because of the negative consequences of believing in something untrue.

That holding true beliefs is beneficial, and holding untrue beliefs is detrimental, is something most religious people and non-religious people can agree on. So - is it true that we can all survive our own deaths?

Most of us wish we could, especially if we aren't well aquainted with the vast, expansive meaning of unending 'eternity.' Why should we want to die? Not only do we love life, we've evolved to come equipped with a survival mechanism convincing us, instinctually, that death is a terrible, terrible thing.

Psychics say we can survive death. Some, like Sylvia Browne, go so far as to tell us exactly where heaven is, and "talk to" the dead for us. This apparent special ability can be explained by the completely natural tricks of hot reading and cold reading. Knowledge of psychology is a much better explanation for Browne's 'abilities' than is the existence of life after death.

People who survive drastic surgeries, dangerous accidents, and the temporary stopping of their hearts, claim to have experienced beautiful lights and arial views of their own bodies while unconscious. This can be much more easily explained by phsysical neural states than by positing the existence of the soul, which creates far more questions than it answers. For starters, how do souls 'see'? Do they have eyes? Are they shaped like people, but made of other "stuff?" What kind of stuff? Non-physcial stuff? How could we ever know anything about non-physical stuff?

People claim to have seen ghosts, but this is usually at night, when it's easiest to mistake what one sees. How many of us, at one time or another, have "seen" a monster in the near-dark, only to find nothing but a pile of laundry once the light is turned on?

Sometimes, one might hear voices, especially while falling asleep. We could hear muttering and mumbling, usually of words too garbled to make out. Someone unaware of her own ability to have auditory hallucinations - especially when falling asleep - might claim her bedroom to be haunted. She has no good reason to make such a claim. It makes far more sense to credit such experiences

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