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Religion is often refuted on the grounds that
there is no credible evidence for the existence of a God.
But it is impossible to prove that there is no God if that supposed
God doesn't intervene in daily life in a way that is testable.
How can you prove that a god who does nothing that can be measured or
tested does not exist?
However, I believe it's possible to prove that a human soul is a meaningless concept; and if there is no soul, then there is no afterlife (or reincarnation), so what purpose can religion serve? (Religion once was the only explanation for the existence of the Earth and life, but that is now fully within the realm of science.) |
Suppose we have a soulFor the sake of examining the consequences of the idea, suppose for the present that we do have an immortal soul. Once it leaves the body, what would it be capable of?
The sensesScience has explained in great detail how our ears work in concert with our brains to allow us to perceive and interpret sounds. But our disembodied soul would have neither ears nor brain; it could not hear.In the case of our eyes, science has demonstrated how light is focussed by the cornea and lens to form an image on the retina, and how the cone and rod cells of the retina detect the light, convert it into nerve impulses and transmit them to the brain. The brain then interprets the innumerable nerve impulses, uses our experiences to decipher the areas of differing light intensity in the images, examines the differences between the images coming from each eye, and produces 'a picture in our heads' that is meaningful in terms of objects, movement, textures; things with which we are familiar. A soul of course, having no eyes, could not see. Very similar arguments can be made regarding the other senses: smell, taste, feel.
Therefore the soul could have no senses and would be incapable of
receiving any information about its surroundings; it would also be
incapable of communicating.
MemoryScientists, partly from studying victims of stroke and brain injuries, and by other studies, have thoroughly demonstrated that memory is a function of our brain. Memories can be lost due to brain damage, they can be invoked by electrical stimulation of selected areas of the brain.
A disembodied soul, having no brain, could remember nothing.
Personality, characterSimilarly, studies of victims of brain injuries have shown that damage to particular regions can have profound effects on personality and character. A person can become unrecognizable, by his/her behaviour, following serious brain damage, even when capable of otherwise living a normal life. Personality and character are therefore functions of our brains.
A disembodied soul would not have character or personality.
EmotionsFear is a function of the part of our brains called the amygdala, and greed is handled by an area called the nucleus accumbens. Even the irrational share-trading behaviour that was closely tied to the economic collapse of 2008/09 has been tied to a part of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Both the nucleus accumbens and the hypothalamus are involved in sex drive.
A disembodied soul would have no emotions.
ThoughtThought is a more tenuous and ill-defined concept. I don't think that it is yet possible to point to one part of the brain and say that here is where thinking happens, this would at least be partly because there are various activities that are all loosely called thinking. However, it is possible to demonstrate that components of thought are associated with areas of the brain; for example I believe that there is a small area named for Einstein, where higher mathematical thought processes take place.Brain damage from stroke, disease, or trauma can leave people incapable of problem solving, of considering the rational implications of arguments, of understanding what their senses are telling them; in short, of thought.
Without a brain, a disembodied soul would be incapable of thought.
In summaryIf there was an immortal soul it could have no sensory input, no memories, and could not think; it could have no personality or character, no emotions; it could not do anything that we would recognize as definitively human and could not carry anything recognizable from the human in which it originally resided. How then, given what science has shown us, could my soul carry the essential me?In science and philosophy one way of proving that a proposition is false is by following its logical consequences and showing that they lead to an absurd outcome. For example, if an arithmetical hypophysis leads to the conclusion that one equals two, it can be said to be proven on the principle of 'reductio ad absurdum' (reduction to absurdity), that the hypophysis is false. The above arguments prove, I believe, reductio ad absurdum, that the concept of a soul is meaningless and achieves nothing; it leads to the absurd outcome of a thing that has no properties and that could do nothing. Using the long-used scientific principle of Ockham's Razor one discards concepts that are meaningless and achieve nothing. The soul would have no abilities, no functions, no properties; so therefore if we are to behave rationally and reasonably we should discard the belief in an immortal soul. If the soul concept goes, there too goes most or all of the world's religions. |
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AfterwordWhen my body dies, my memories die, my thought processes die, all of me dies. All that remains, apart from my dead physical body, are my works and the memories that other people have of me.Death is a very natural thing, the end of life. An atheist has no reason to fear death. |