There is no evidence for life after death. Discuss this statement.

by g09poobp (student)

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Pavithra Poobalasingam 10G

Plenary – “There is no evidence for life after death”. Discuss this statement.

I strongly disagree with this argument because I am a Hindu, so I believe in reincarnation and the fact that our soul leaves our body and goes into another body. For both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs the concept of karma works with perfect justice. It is a natural law, rather than being a form of reward or punishment chosen by a God. It is irrelevant as to whether the person remembers the deeds it is just that they receive some form of punishment.

Christians will support my view. The argument to support it being that after Jesus died he rose from the dead, proving that the soul is not destroyed after death. “This proof of immortality has been accepted by millions of Christians and has been regarded as one of the most precious assurances brought to mankind by Jesus” All of the Christian teaching and beliefs come from the bible; and in the Bible it states “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Philosopher Anthony Flew will disagree with the view in the previous paragraph. He has questioned whether life after death has any linguistic meaning in his essay ‘Can a man witness his own funeral?’ If a ship is torpedoed, we classify those on board exclusively as ‘dead’ or ‘survivors’. It is accepted that one cannot be both. Flew argues that talk of surviving death is a bit like talking of ‘dead survivors’: a contradiction. Therefore, says Flew, the idea of afterlife is meaningless and untrue. Flew concludes that personal terms (I, you, him) can only apply to living organisms which we ...

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Bertrand Russell will support the statement above. He says that belief in an afterlife is the product of human wishful thinking. At death the person’s memories that make the person who they are is also lost because the brain, like the rest of the body dies and rots. Russell argues that the universe is indifferent to people and he suggests that the world is better understood without God and an afterlife.

Jewish scriptures do not have a prominent theme of resurrection within their scriptures, but there are passages about future hope and the “Last Days”, in which there is a clear reference to resurrection. The apocalyptic Book of Daniel refers to the prophecy about the end of time where “multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt”. Moses Maimonides also set down thirteen main principles for Jewish faith, with number thirteen being the concept of resurrection which states that: “there will be resurrection of the dead, at the time which pleases the Creator”. The Jewish scripture are not very clear on whether bodily resurrection actually occurs, however, the fact that there are examples within scripture where it is referred suggests that it is a belief held by the religion. The idea that post-death experience involves some form of body implies that heaven is in some form a physical place; this would mean that we may require some physical needs that our bodies require now such as food or drink. It brings about the concept that the resurrected body can change even though those who go to heaven will be said to be those who lived moral lives.