Gilbert or someone else stated here that atheism involves a lack of belief in the soul and after-life. This contention is pure nonsense. Atheistic religions such as Buddhism and Jainism, and philosophies that do not believe in a personified creator such as Taoism and Confucianism have very robust beliefs in souls, spirits, after-lives and netherworlds.
Science, on the other hand, and neurobiology and thermodynamics, in particular, have amassed substantial evidence that rules out the existence of a non-material soul or self, which exists independently of the body, interacts with it and survives its death. Briefly, three lines of evidence that explode the mythical concept of a non-material soul are: 1. Any interaction of a non-material entity with a material object such as the brain violates the well-established first and second laws of thermodynamics. 2. All mental functions and overt behaviors are dependent on underlying brain activity. In other words, electrical activity of the brain is necessary and sufficient for the generation of the entire mental and behavioral repertoire, essentially referred to in common parlance as the manifestations of ones soul. 3. No cognitive function or behavioral manifestation has been found to persist in the face of complete death or destruction of the brain. Anecdotal oddities such as near-death experiences have all been accounted for by parsimonious neurophysiological explanations. Cheers, Santosh _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
