OUTLINE:

I. DOES THE FEAR OF DEATH GIVE RISE TO RELIGION? 

II. THE MOST COMMON FORMS OF BELIEF IN LIFE AFTER DEATH

        A. Immortality.
        B. Resurrection.
        C. Reincarnation.

III. DO THESE BELIEFS HAVE ANY FOUNDATIONS?

IV. SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS
ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH

        A. Sense Perception—Can We See without Eyes?
        B. Consciousness—Can We Think without Brains?
        C. Memory—Can We Remember
                    without a Place to Keep Our Memories?
        D. Communicating and Relating—Can We Interact without Bodies?
        E. Conclusion: If We Lack Experience, Awareness, Memory, &  Action,
                How Does 'Life After Death' Differ from Death?

V. NEVERTHELESS, CONFRONTING OUR DEATHS
CAN MAKE OUR LIVES REMARKABLY BETTER

    From the dawn of human self-awareness,
we human beings have been concerned about death.
In fact, it makes sense to date the beginning of the human race
from that time in pre-history when human beings
first became concerned about death.

    When our ancestors began to bury their dead,
they were already speculating about life after death.
Often they buried tools with their dead—for the next life.

    However, just because most human beings
have wished and hoped for life beyond the grave
does not mean that these dreams will come true.

    Perhaps our desire to transcend death is only a wish.
And wishing does not make it so.

I. DOES THE FEAR OF DEATH GIVE RISE TO RELIGION? 

    Thus, perhaps the title of this cyber-sermon
should be broadened from:
"No Gods Can Save Us from Death"
to "No Religious Beliefs Can Save Us from Death".

    We should also acknowledge that many human beings
who are not religious in any conventional sense
still believe in life after death in some form.
So for them, the title should be even broader:
"Nothing Can Save Us from Death".

II. THE MOST COMMON FORMS OF BELIEF IN LIFE AFTER DEATH

        A. Immortality.

    The ancient Greeks believed everyone
had a part of his or her being that could not die—an immortal soul.
This was not specifically a religious belief.
Rather, it was more philosophical,
maintained by such people as Socrates and Plato.

    They also believed in the pre-existence of the immortal soul.
Socrates argued that if a child could be led by careful questioning
to 'recall' a mathematical truth,
this proved that he had lived before
—in the world of perfect forms.
And therefore, after he died, his soul would return to that world.

    This belief in immortality has been adopted by many religions,
including popular forms of Christianity, Judaism, & Islam.
And many people who have no religious connections
nevertheless believe that they have immortal souls.

        B. Resurrection.

    A different form of religious belief holds that
after death the individual person will be resurrected.
This means that some supernatural power
will bring this same person into a new existence
in a different realm—often called heaven.

    Some forms of Judaism and Christianity
hold that God can bring a dead person
back to life in a different dimension of existence.

        C. Reincarnation.

    A large part of the human race believes in reincarnation.
This belief finds expression mostly in Eastern religions,
but many people in the West also believe that
after their present bodies have died,
they—as the same persons—will be born into new bodies.
Some religions believe that the next incarnation
could be living as an animal.
But most who believe in reincarnation
expect that they will be reborn into new human bodies.

III. DO THESE BELIEFS HAVE ANY FOUNDATIONS?

    Even if 90% of the human race has believed and will believe
in some form of life after death, what bases could be offered
for believing in immortality, resurrection, or reincarnation?

    Because claims of life after death are so extraordinary
and so beyond anything that can be observed in life,
such beliefs require a very high level of proof.

    The most causal observation shows that all living organisms die.
And no similar observation has ever shown
dead individuals coming back to life in any form.

    The burden of proof rests on those who believe in life after death.
And any who wish to defend such beliefs
should take the following questions into account.

IV. SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTIONS
ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH

        A. Sense Perception—Can We See without Eyes?

    All five of our senses—seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, & tasting—
depend on sense-organs within living bodies.
After our bodies are completely dead and buried or cremated,
how could we have any sense experience at all?

    Those who believe in reincarnation will say
that their new bodies have all the needed sense-organs.
But everyone who believes in a new life in heaven
will have to explain how life is possible without sense-organs.

         B. Consciousness—Can We Think without Brains?

    Even more troubling should be the prospect of 'living' without brains.
We know that the human brain is a living organ of the human body
—located inside the skull of each living person.
When that person dies, all brain-functions cease.

    Those who believe in some form of consciousness after death
have the burden of explaining how thought takes place without a brain
—and then giving some plausible account of how
any such new consciousness connects with
the consciousness we have as fully-alive human beings.

         C. Memory—Can We Remember
                    without a Place to Keep Our Memories?

    Likewise, we know that human memories reside in our brains,
in living organs that can (and often do) deteriorate before death
so that we begin to lose our memories even before we are dead.

    Those who believe in some form of life after death
will surely be required to show how memory can persist
even when the organ of memory
—the living human brain—has been destroyed.

    And if there is no memory of the life we are now living,
in what sense are we alive in the new existence?
Without our memories, wouldn't any such living person or animal
be a completely different individual?

         D. Communicating and Relating—Can We Interact without Bodies?

    Now, in our earthly life, we communicate and relate
with other living human beings using several parts of our bodies:
We speak with our lungs and voice-boxes.
We gesture with our hands.
We hug other people with our arms.
We write and use other physical means of communicating.

    All forms of communication and relationship
depend on having physical bodies.
How, then, might we communicate and relate with others
after we are dead—and our bodies have been buried or cremated?

        E. Conclusion: If We Lack Experience, Awareness, Memory, &  Action,
                How Does 'Life After Death' Differ from Death?

    The thrust of all such questions suggests that believers in life after death
will not be able to give any coherent account of any such new life.
They might appeal to mystery,
saying that they know there is life after death,
but it is a mystery how all of these bodily capacities
will be recreated in their new existence.

    As said before, the burden of proof rests with those
who wish to affirm what is not obviously real.
Without persuasive evidence to the contrary,
we must conclude that nothing can save us from death.

    However, just as most of the religions of the planet Earth
began with the denial of death,
perhaps intelligent spirituality will begin
by embracing the reality of death.

V. NEVERTHELESS, CONFRONTING OUR DEATHS
CAN MAKE OUR LIVES REMARKABLY BETTER

    Even if we believe there is no life after death,
we can discover in telling the truth about death
that our lives are transformed in at least two meaningful ways:

    First, fully acknowledging and accepting death
might empower us to become more Authentic.
This means organizing our lives around values and goals
that are important even if we must ultimately die.
And the fact that we will die encourages us to take a longer view
than just the things that we can do for ourselves during life.

    Second, if we deeply confront our own deaths,
this process can lead us to Existential Freedom,
which means discovering how to live beyond
ontological anxiety or being-towards-death,
which is our Existential Predicament
disguised as the fear of ceasing-to-be.

    These positive benefits of confronting death
without the illusions of life after death 
are explored more fully in the books recommended below.

An Existential Understanding of Death:
A Phenomenology of Ontological Anxiety  

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/UD.html  

    This philosophical analysis of the deeper dimensions of death
first explores our denial of death,
our methods of avoiding and concealing our fear of ceasing-to-be,
and our ways of covering up our even deeper ontological anxiety.
Then it points in the direction of life without ontological anxiety.

Becoming More Authentic:
The Positive Side of Existentialism  

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/AU.html  

    This small book explores the possibility
of transforming the threat of death into Authentic Existence.
(Besides death, it also discusses other manifestations
of our Existential Predicament
such as absurdity, meaninglessness, & guilt.)
An Authenticity Test is included,
by which we can measure our own degrees of Authenticity.
And Authentic Existence is described by five existential thinkers
—Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, & Maslow.

    The possibility of life after death is explored
from several difference perspectives in a bibliography called
"Is there Life after Death?—The Best Books".

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~parkx032/B-LIFE.html

    If you would like to respond to this cyber-sermon,
write to the author, James Park, e-mail: PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU