Is there life after death?
Is death the final frontier? We ask scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders about life after death.
18 December, 2020
- Death is inevitable for all known living things. However on the question of what, if anything, comes after life, the most honest answer is that no one knows.
- So far, there is no scientific evidence to prove or disprove what happens after we die. In this video, astronomer Michelle Thaller, neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris, science educator Bill Nye, and others consider what an afterlife would look like, what the biblical concepts of 'eternal life' and 'hell' really mean, why so many people around the world choose to believe that death is not the end, and whether or not that belief is ultimately detrimental or beneficial to one's life.
- Life after death is also not relegated to discussions of religion. "Digital and genetic immortality are within reach," says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. Kaku shares how, in the future, we may be able to physically talk to the dead thanks to hologram technology and the digitization of our online lives, memories, and connectome.
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Pattern recognition influences religious belief, according to new study
Christians and Muslims that pick out unconscious patterns are more likely to believe in a god.
11 September, 2020
Credit: Nadia Grapes / Shutterstock
- Georgetown researchers found strong implicit pattern learning implies belief in a god.
- The study included American Christians and Afghani Muslims, representing two different religious and cultural backgrounds.
- Further research on polytheistic religious believers could provide insights into a cognitive basis of religion.
<p>In Genesis 1:27, one of the writers of the Bible claims that "God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created them." The reverse is most likely true: man created a god with his attributes. Physical features are not the only qualities gods share with humans. Pattern recognition appears to be another.</p><p>A god that can make sense out of patterns in nature is certainly a powerful being. According to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18362-3" target="_blank">new study</a> from Georgetown University, it appears that humans endowed with this skill are more likely to believe in a god. </p><p>The team, led by Adam Green, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, writes that religious variability is common. Universal themes might be extracted from disparate regions, but each of the hundreds of religious practices that came be known broadly as Hinduism espouse different ideas.</p><p>The same holds true for every religion: Buddhism has a "great vehicle" and a lesser one; Shia practices are wildly different than Sufis; Japanese Buddhists practice quite different rituals than California Buddhists; what's divine in one Christian sect is blasphemy in another. While the more fervent religious believe their views to be correct, open-minded believers are likely to see the possibility of communication. </p><p>To combat the problem of relativism, Green's team chose volunteers from American Christians and Afghani Muslims, two varied religious and cultural samples. They wanted to know if implicit pattern learning—"perceptual mechanisms evolved for predictive processing of environmental information"—is a predictor of belief in a god. </p>
Why religion is literally false and metaphorically true | Bret Weinstein | Big Think
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bb748b6454d9ea27e58c41be9c4b50f6"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c0_J998UD9s?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>The answer, according to their research, is yes. As Green <a href="https://gumc.georgetown.edu/news-release/study-suggests-unconscious-learning-underlies-belief-in-god/" target="_blank">notes</a>,</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"This is not a study about whether God exists, this is a study about why and how brains come to believe in gods. Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power." </p><p>Consciousness only provides a sliver of data that our brains pay attention to. Bottom-up processes operate below the conscious threshold, such as the biological operations that maintain our body's homeostasis. Threat detection and other forms of perception are also processed from the bottom-up, although, as the authors write, top-down processing is not an entirely separate domain. The two inform one another. </p><p><a href="https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/how-does-intuition-work" target="_self">Intuition</a> is another example of bottom-up processing that appears in consciousness. We pick up signals from our environment and process it unconsciously all the time.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Because individuals are not aware of such bottom-up influences, intuitions drawn from unconscious processing may instead be consciously interpreted via explicit belief narratives that provide a rationalized context for beliefs and behaviors."</p><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDAwODIyMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNzM2MDMwM30.rRzS-mubeF1S8E-oxYFhj7bJhN7bavCI5pWoIqaLeVo/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C166%2C0%2C166&height=700" id="5e9cc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f97338e7104091793c6716c6cd1677cc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="surfer on beach" data-width="1245" data-height="700" />
<p class=""><br></p>A general view of the beach and a surfer as photographed on March 20, 2014 in Marina del Rey, California.
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<p>Face processing, implicit racial bias, and pathogen avoidance provide further context. In fact, cleansing rituals likely evolved from an unconscious fear of disease. Our ancestors applied a spiritual dimension to their bathing rituals to make sense out of unconscious drives.</p><p>For this study, 199 (mostly) Christian volunteers in Washington, D.C. and 149 Muslims in Kabul watched a sequence of dots on a computer screen. They were tasked to press a corresponding button every time a dot appeared. Participants with strong implicit learning abilities began to unconsciously recognize patterns in the appearance of the dots, preemptively hitting the corresponding button <em>before</em> they appeared. None of the volunteers claimed to have seen a pattern, suggesting their guesses were unconscious. </p><p>The team observed a link between the strongest implicit learners and religious belief. Recognizing patterns before they appear is correlated with belief in a god. The team was surprised to discover such a strong correlation between two disparate religious and cultural groups, suggesting the potential of a universal theme. As Green notes, </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"A brain that is more predisposed to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in which religious context."</p><p>An interesting next step could be studying polytheistic groups, where pattern recognition is likely stronger. It's one thing to give credit to one god for everything, but quite another to assign a variety of divine figures for the relationships between natural phenomena. </p><p>The authors conclude that they cannot write off top-down processing as part of religious belief. Indeed, faith likes has multivariate influences. Still, this research details another cognitive basis of belief, highlighting common ground we all share regardless of the form of our deities. </p><p>--</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://derekberes.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Substack</a>. His next book is</em> "<em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."</em></p>
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Has science made religion useless?
Placing science and religion at opposite ends of the belief spectrum is to ignore their unique purposes.
15 July, 2020
- Science and religion (fact versus faith) are often seen as two incongruous groups. When you consider the purpose of each and the questions that they seek to answer, the comparison becomes less black and white.
- This video features religious scholars, a primatologist, a neuroendocrinologist, a comedian, and other brilliant minds considering, among other things, the evolutionary function that religion serves, the power of symbols, and the human need to learn, explore, and know the world around us so that it becomes a less scary place.
- "I think most people are actually kind of comfortable with the idea that science is a reliable way to learn about nature, but it's not the whole story and there's a place also for religion, for faith, for theology, for philosophy," says Francis Collins, American geneticist and director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "But that harmony perspective doesn't get as much attention. Nobody is as interested in harmony as they are in conflict."
Ask an atheist: Does the universe have a purpose?
All that matters is the here and now.
25 April, 2020
- While bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer doesn't believe in God or any outside force that cares about us, he also doesn't think that the existence of one would give our lives meaning.
- Shermer argues that it is up to us to create purpose for ourselves in various ways, including through meaningful work, familial and romantic relationships, and a connection and respect for the wonder of nature.
- "It doesn't matter what happens billions of years from now or whether there's a God or not, whether there's an afterlife or not," he says. "It's irrelevant. This is the life that matters."
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What are the chances that God is actually good?
Philosophy professor James Sterba revives a very old argument.
27 January, 2020
Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash
- In his book, Is a Good God Logically Possible?, James Sterba investigates the role of evil.
- Sterba contends that if God is all-powerful then he'd be able to stop evil from occurring in the world.
- God's inability (or unwillingness) to stop evil should make us question his role, or even his existence.
<p>Why does God allow evil to happen? This question has been at the heart of Western religious philosophy since the dawn of monotheism. The very term and concept of God has long divided humans. Is he the first mover? Beyond definition, as many have argued? If God is all-powerful and humans are incapable of even defining him—I'm using "him" out of convenience, as "it" would be more appropriate in this case; a gendered deity is quite definable—why are so many certain they recognize his moral standing? Given how many sects of religions exist, how can so many people be so wrong? </p><p>If we recognize that evil exists (a hard point to dispute), and we also believe that God is <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/" target="_blank">omnipotent and omniscient</a>, then we are granting this deity—to be clear, we're discussing the Abrahamic god—the power of knowing when evil exists and an ability to eliminate it. If God is incapable of stopping evil he is not all-powerful. If he is capable of stopping evil but chooses not to, well, we've got an evil God on our hands. </p><p>The latest thinker to tackle this unnerving question is <a href="https://philosophy.nd.edu/people/faculty/james-sterba/" target="_blank">James Sterba</a>, professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and author of the book, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030054687" target="_blank"><em>Is a Good God Logically Possible?</em></a> While many forms of evil can be discussed in this context, Sterba builds his argument in one specific domain, as he <a href="https://pointofinquiry.org/2020/01/is-a-good-god-logically-possible-james-sterba/" target="_blank">recently explained</a>. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I'm thinking about moral evil. This is the evil that human beings do. And I'm not thinking about all the evil of a particular action. I'm only worried about the external consequences. This is the part of the evil action that I think God gets in trouble about."</p><p>To highlight his reasoning, Sterba uses the example of homicide. A man gets a gun, loads it, aims, and pulls the trigger. The speeding bullet is the consequence of an idea: he wants to murder someone. Sterba does not concern himself with God's role in the internal process that led to the purchase and usage of that gun. Thinking, he claims, is for man alone. He questions why God would not have stopped the <em>external consequence</em> of the shooting. He's not looking for this deity to play the role of thought police, but to step in as actual police would.</p>
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A young boy carrying a placard in London's Trafalgar Square which says, 'Prepare to Meet Thy God'.
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<p>If God is unable or unwilling to stop the external consequences of evil—while good and evil can be culturally relative terms, murder is universally recognized as being in the red—then the implications, to the religious at least, would equate to blasphemy. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"If there's all this evil in the world, maybe God can't prevent it. Then he's still all powerful, he just logically can't prevent it. The problem there is it turns out that God would be less powerful than we are because we can prevent lots of evil. Now if God is stuck in a logical possibility while we're only stuck in a causal one, then he's so much less powerful than us. The traditional God can't be less powerful than we are." </p><p>While this discussion is often relegated to religious philosophy, we regularly witness the effects. Sterba mentions the Pauline principle, that "one should never do evil so that good may come." Murdering a doctor that provides abortions, a platform accepted by extreme religious conservatives, falls into this category. We can place the <a href="https://apnews.com/015702afdb4d4fbf85cf5070cd2c6824" target="_blank">record number of migrant children</a> held in detention centers in 2019, nearly 70,000, because their imprisonment supposedly saves American jobs, or keeps brown people out, or this week's excuse du jour in that category as well. </p><p>Sterba says that a religion that purports to champion charity and poverty should not be making a utilitarian argument when at root its adherents should be thinking about not doing evil. Doing evil for a supposed later good is not, by its very nature, a charitable act. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"In traditional religious views, utilitarianism is a horrible thing. Trying to maximize utilitarianism is a bad way of thinking about things. You should be thinking about not doing evil and you should be worrying about intention."</p><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="5DFJLQ1580053754" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Sterba invokes the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-05469-4_4" target="_blank">Doctrine of Double Effect</a>, citing the famous ethical dilemma known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem" target="_blank">Trolley problem</a>. A speeding trolly is about to kill five people. You're standing on a bridge and can pull a lever to veer the car to another track and only kill one. In most studies, five to one is easy for people to grapple with—except when they are asked to physically pull the lever, that is. Regardless, the tradeoff is less evil thanks to the hands of a human.</p><p>Sterba says this dilemma works in humans but not God. If God is truly powerful, "he's never stuck in allowing evil to happen. We sometimes are stuck if we're trying to do some good, we're allowing evil to happen, God could always, at the level of external action, stop the evil of all bad actions." </p><p>God, he continues, should not be causally or logically unable to stop evil, if he so chooses. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Either he's not done it because he's an evil god—that's not a helpful result—or he's not done it because he's not very powerful, maybe even less powerful than us." </p><p>While Sterba focuses on moral evil, he entertains nature as well. Take climate change. Beyond the acceleration of environmental catastrophes, the planet has never actually been completely hospitable to humans. Natural disasters have always occurred; our species has nearly been wiped out in past eras. Why would an all-powerful god not make this planet more amenable to our survival if we're really his chosen species? </p><p>There might never be answers to such questions given the contentious nature of this discussion. While Sterba goes to great philosophical lengths to contemplate the problem of evil, he also grounds his thinking in the practical and applicable. Regardless of your religious belief (or non-belief), it behooves everyone to remember that when it comes to moral evil, we are all empowered to play a beneficent, or evil, role. As he puts it, </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Even if we think God is behind everything, we should do all we can."</p><p>Amen.</p><p>----</p><p><em>Stay in touch with Derek on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/derekberes" target="_blank">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DerekBeresdotcom" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. His next book is </em>Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy.</p>
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