by James Boyd

Created on: July 27, 2009   Last Updated: July 29, 2009

Despite any evidence, many (maybe most) people believe that is some sort of life after death. Many of us seem to be incapable of accepting the end of their existence. Most, but not all, beliefs in an afterlife have a religious basis. Some document claims that there will be a reincarnation and many people accept it at face value. It gives people some measure of solace for the misery in their current lives.

They believe that if they accept the authority of religious leader or the document on which the religion is based, and just follow the rules that are laid out for them, they will be rewarded with a pleasant existence after this life is over. Where is the evidence that such a thing actually happens? There is no evidence. Some guy said it once upon a time, some other guy repeated it, and now millions of people accept it as true. If indeed there is some sort of conscious existence after death, does this afterlife include everybody or is it just for a select group of people? Are animals other than humans included? If everybody is included, the afterlife must be awfully crowded. After all, there would be a spirit out there for every human who has ever lived. If animals are not part of this, what about non-human primates? If we go back far enough into the origins of humanity, we will find some primates that are almost but not quite human. Where is the dividing line? Did humans only begin to have an "immortal soul" when the Creator announced his presence and the rules he expected people to abide by, or do "pagans" who lived prior to the beginnings of modern religion also have an afterlife. If that is the case, where is everybody? We should be deluged with spirits, all day every day.

Instead, this world of those who have lived in earlier times is totally silent. The argument has been that we are possessed of something other than the cells and connections that make up our physical body. That is correct, as far as it goes. The cells and their constituents are constantly being replaced, so we cannot be considered as just a collection of chemicals. However, that assertion that our identity consists in more than just some molecular assemblies has been used to assert that there is something intangible, usually called a soul or spirit, that exists apart from our physical bodies and is immortal. There is no logical basis for that assertion. To use an analogy, let us assume you want to add a deck to your house. To save time and energy in planning exactly what you

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