The concept of having a Soul, a spirit, or immaterial part of you that is separate to your body, is fundamental to the idea that there is an afterlife or reincarnation. In order to go to heaven, (or hell), or keep coming back to life for the rest of eternity, it is assumed that your soul or the essential essence of your uniqueness, continues after your physical body has rotted away and turned to dust.
This idea of a soul is fundamental to the worlds religions, who say that your life on earth is preparation for the next. Be good now, and after death reap the rewards for eternity. We must earn those “pennies in heaven” as my mother used to say. The idea has attractions for everyone. Individuals, even the lowly can have a great afterlife, Rulers get compliant subjects, and Priests get status and perks too.
But knowing what happens to you after death is unknowable and always will be. Communication between dead people and living people has never happened and never will, despite all the ghost stories and séances held. Whether you believe in a soul and life after death or not, it is impossible. You can imagine a wonderful afterlife, but imagining something, is not proof of its existence. Neither is the fact that nearly every human being that has ever lived believed in an afterlife make it true either. It just means that human beings find the idea of life after death attractive and it is comforting to think that death is not the end of everything we are. Also, belief in a soul and an afterlife also means our ordinary lives are not a waste of time, even if they have been hard and joyless lives.
Peoples recent experiences have lead me to conclude that there is no such thing as a soul, and so there can be no such thing as an afterlife. Because of modern medical knowledge and accessible high quality health care, more and more people are living far longer than at any previous time in history. Whilst this is wonderful progress for humanity, the down side is that we are now exposing ourselves to new forms of dying, such as neurodegenerative diseases of the brain. Today, we can keep our bodies going far longer than our deteriorating brains, because the ongoing death of neurons is currently unstoppable, The results of modern health care is frequently sad and depressing, as people have to witness their loved slowly fading away inside a frail but still functioning body. I have heard all too frequently stories of elderly parents who no longer know their own homes, can’t recognise their loved ones, or remember their own offspring. Their brain dies faster than their bodies and confusion results.
So, if it exists, what is happening to the soul, as the diseases of the brain take hold?
“She is just not there anymore” I have heard sons say of mothers, who fail to recognise the person they once knew in front of them, despite all the love they give them. It’s hard, but when the brain fails the person is damaged, their character diminished, memories lost.. If they ever did have a soul, it is also damaged and diminished. And so, if the soul is diminished as more and more neurons die, the soul will also die when the person dies too.
If you believe the soul does exist, why can‘t a person with dementia still recognise their own spouse, son and daughter? If a soul does exist, will it be this unloving, confused soul that will continue to exist for eternity, or the one we remember of them in their prime, a soul from a previous time when they were at their most beautiful? And if this is true what or who decides when they were at their best? Or is the reality of a modern disease just requiring us to use our imaginations a little harder to make the new facts fit an old idea that it's time to ditch? Perhaps their soul only exists in our living minds?
For this reason I reject the idea of a Soul, an afterlife, reincarnation or ghosts hanging about after death. Our brains and bodies are inseparably interlinked to make the person and both must function correctly for us to exist. If one develops faults, our living consciousness is affected and our lives and character changed. The stark reality is that when we die, we end. There is nothing of us that can continue.
You may find this hard, cold and desolate, but if you accept there is no afterlife, every minute of this life becomes precious, priceless and wondrous and not something to be squandered. Our time alive is truly the most amazing and valuable thing you can possibly own. And if you accept this then it is easy to realise that the life of others is also the most amazing and valuable thing they own and we all share this fantastic life with each other and the other forms of life around us, making it all even more valuable, wondrous and precious.
I see paradise not as a promise of something to come, but right here, now, all around us at this very moment. We don’t need to invent the idea of a soul to experience it. What ever your circumstances, however hard or easy your life is, celebrate the miracle of your and everyone’s else’s lives, as our time is limited to only one short precious life. Enjoy it and help others to enjoy theirs.
And If people accept there is no afterlife, perhaps they wouldn't waste their life fighting wars just because some else tells them to.
