Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Only a belief in embodied existence after death is philosophically justifiable. Discuss Essay
1- Christian nonion in resurrection- outline Jesus resurrection subsequently final stage- Link to hicks idea of the replica. 3- The solitary(prenominal) meaningful way to talk about(predicate) survival aft(prenominal) wipeout is to say that souls suffer be reunited- Peter Geach 5- Characteristics and memories can be changed and falsified- Bernard William Descartes say My essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking amour.This, if true, implies that our consciousness is tell apart from our bodies and so we essential be able to exist without said bodies. This of course would indeedce falsify the bid as dis be life after death would be possible. Indeed, on that point atomic subroutine 18 many who dispute this argument and one who would agree with the tending(p) fixment is Bernard William who claims that characteristics and memories can be falsified. He would get by that because our memories can be lost and altered with certain drugs, accidents and illne sses such as Alzheimers the of import part of what makes us- us is the link between our minds and our physical form (our bodies).It would then follow that the exactly plausible after-death-existence would be embodied. It is the first point do by Descartes and many others which this essay leave behind lean towards as it will be argued that disembarrass existence is as philosophic eithery plausible, if not more(prenominal) so than embodied. Many would claim that Christianity can be used to argue both sides of this issue. An example of where it may be used to support embodied life after death is in the resurrection stories. In Thessalonians 4, we find a much talked about quote among philosophers ..Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again..through Jesus, divinity will bring with him those who have died.This verse gives us a irradiate idea that the early Christians believed in full, embodied resurrection. Although it is unclear as to whether or not some would have also ag reed with a rid afterlife before judgment day and resurrection, many devout Christians only accept the embodied resurrection at the end of days. The verse tells us that at first Jesus followers didnt recognise him, as he had changed somehow yet the main message is of fully embodied resurrection. However, ascribable to the complexity of the bible, it is difficult to completely understand whether or not at that place is a state between death and resurrection and many may tactile property the argument is outlying(prenominal) from philosophically bonnyifiable.There has of course also been a long tradition of belief in disembarrass afterlife. The Greek ism Plato believed we have complexify souls which leave our bodies at death in found to join another. In the Phaedo, he recorded a response from Socrates to a motility put forward by Crito In what fashion are we to bury you? Platos answer clearly shows his belief in the afterlife. It is heavy to understand that Plato believed in the soul because he believed innate knowledge must just be memories from previous existences.Furthermore, Plato was part of the chain of thought that says that everything has an opposition but they are always in a cycle, hot becomes crisp for cold to then become hot and living things die just for new life to emerge. Believing in the cycle of opposites makes it clear wherefore Plato would have believed in some kind of disembodied soul. Returning to the question put to Plato mentioned at the start of this argument, we see his response makes his belief in the afterlife clear. He imagines that I am the dead system he will see in a little while but when I drink the poison I shall no longer live with you, but shall go off and depart for some happy state of the blessedOn the other hand, however, The philosopher Peter Geach was a strong worshipper that any talk of life after death where the soul and proboscis are separate is totally meaningless. Geach described the idea of a separ ate soul and body as a savage superstition and he believed that the genius of Plato and Descartes had given the superstition an undeservedly long lease of life. Geach, along with many other modern philosophers argue that the idea of a separate body and soul has come from misunderstanding of scriptural language. In his book, What do we think with, Geach wrote thinking is a vital activity of a man, not any part of him, material or immaterial.This shows quite clearly Geach believed that a human is a single entity which needs to think, rather than a body and a separate mind which just happens to have consciousness. Geach believed that the only conceivable theory of the soul was the Aristotelian idea that the soul is the form of a living body. Many would say that Geachs argument is fairly week as thither is little evidence to back it up and he seems to be piggy-backing off other philosophers, namely Aristotle. Reincarnation, or rebirth (afterlife in a physical form),are a key feature a t the internality of Hindu beliefs. Hinduism teaches that every person has an essential self known as an atman. They believe the Atman to be eternal and something which seeks to be united with God.Hindus believe that God manifests himself in the atman if each individual, and through a number of births, deaths and rebirths, the person comes to understand a relationship of the atman with God. Once this realisation of atomic number 53 is reached, the atman no longer needs to continue in the cycle and so is released (moksha). For the Hindu, physical bodies are nothing more than a container for the atman, the atman which holds the persons nature. This inwardness that after going round the cycle a few times, the atman (or soul) is released from the container and moves on to disembodied life after death. Hinduism is the oldest spiritual tradition in the world and there is evidence that it flourished long before recorded history in India which means that the idea of a separate body and s oul could have been the veritable belief.Descartes is one of the most noteworthy philosophers and dualists and his belief on life after death was that what makes us, us is our ability to think our consciousness. His conceivability argument leads us to wonder whether or not we need our bodies at all. The argument was fit(p) out with 3 steps, it begins with the premise that a thinking thing can imagine existing without a body. The argument goes onto say that anything which can be conceived is possible and from this that if X can exist without Y then X and Y arent identical. The result of the argument is that a thinking thing is not identical with its body and so, they must be separate.Descartes most famous quote to sum his arguments up is that I think, therefore, I am For Descartes, organism able to think about not having a body, but not being able to conceive of not thinking at all means our minds must be separate from our bodies and therefore, if we are to believe in an afterlife then there is no logical reason wherefore our minds would die with our bodies. Many believe this Is a fantastic argument for disembodied life after death as it gets the opposition thinking about not thinking and so leaves them at a blank. I tonicity that the strongest argument covered in this essay is that put forward at the start and the end.For many, the fact that we cannot think of our minds not existing is a far stronger argument than that of say, Peter Geach as looking back over old scriptures is just like copying off of someone in a test who has made their answers up, we would just be looking at something which may or may not be true. While I was close to swayed by the first argument in favour of the given statement, ascribable to its use of past events and a tradition of belief, however in then end, I have maintained my view that it is just as philosophically feasible to think of a disembodied life after death then an embodied one., possibly more so.
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