Science: Do our minds still function after our bodies are dead?

Last updated on: October 28, 2017 at 11:12 pm by Dan Peterson

Science: Do our minds still function after our bodies are dead? 2017-10-28T23:12:45-06:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It won’t be much to look forward to, if some scientists can be believed. But others are now suggesting a quite different view. (Wikimedia CC)

From one of my manuscripts:

Most of us have a feeling, deep inside, that this world isn’t all there is. That death will not be the end. The great English poet John Donne (d. 1631) summarized the long-standing view not only of Christendom but of the world of Islam and beyond when, in striking and memorable imagery, he wrote that

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated: God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.[1]

But is this mere self-deception? Nothing more than outdated superstition? Once, in Christian communities and very much similarly in religious communities around the globe, death was accepted, even welcomed, as the “happy harbour of the saints,” a rest and reward for the travails of life.[2] However, as God was “evicted from the world” under the powerful influence of naturalism and materialism, “the story of death took on new meaning, or rather it suggested the absence of meaning entirely. In time, dying signified leaving everything and arriving nowhere.”[3] (One thinks of the description of the atheist’s funeral: “All dressed up and nowhere to go.”) The early twentieth century Spanish and American philosopher George Santayana announced, simply, that “all doctrines which adult philosophy can entertain are more or less subterfuges and after-thoughts by which the observed fact of mortality and the native inconceivability of death are more or less clumsily reconciled.”[4] Thus, says the contemporary scholar Carol Zaleski, “the will to believe in immortality is easily reduced to a will to deceive oneself about death, and from this self-deception arises the whole fantastic panoply of compensatory paradises invented by the world’s religions.”[5]

[1] John Donne, Devotions, Meditation 17.

[2] The phrase is from an anonymous sixteenth century poem entitled “Hierusalem,” anthologized in Donald Davie, ed., The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 31.

[3] Arthur Krystal, Harper’s (February 2001).

[4] George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 2d ed. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942-51), 3:237.

[5] Carol Zaleski, The Life of the World to Come: Near-Death Experience and Christian Hope (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 12. It should be noted that Professor Zaleski does not, herself, accept such a reduction.

***

I’m eager to learn more about this study:

“When you die you KNOW you’re dead: Scientists discover the mind still works after the body shows no sign of life and reveal people have heard their own death announced by medics”

Posted from Jerusalem, Israel

Uncategorized

Previous Post

October 28, 2017

“A very important contribution to the study of Mormon theology. . . . marvelous”

Next Post

October 28, 2017 Ancient Arabia and the power of words

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does the Hebrew word 'Shekinah' mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

God’s Glory Everlasting Light Divine Presence Holy Fire