reasons for and against life after death

hey there,
I hope someone can help me - i think im being a bit dense about it, but i'm taking edexcel phil of rel and one of the questions is discuss reasons for and against believing in life after death. What do they mean exactly by this? especially when they say in relation to say resurrection and reincarnation. Do they want reasons why people DO believe in it, or evidence that supports it... i hope someone can help!x

Reply 1

TheWildChild

i'd just wack in anything and everything i could remember about reincarnation and ressurection, and then say how it provides support for the possibility of a post mortem existence. and also talk about the philosophical problems associated with them ideads.

Reply 2

koolgal01

Reasons against beliving in life after death include the problem of identity, (how do we know the person who survives death is the same person?? links to Hick's replica theory etc), and the other main problem is shown through the linguistic challenge (Flew. 'people survive death; = 'dead survivors' which is a contradiction and logically impossible.) x

Reply 3

User20906

lol this mite sound really stupid, but what exactly is personhood?

oh yes and wat do the different types of christianity/ roman catholics, protestants, believe about salvation?

Reply 4

lizzielightning

also reincarnation is hinduism and rebirth is buddism, but i dont think you need to know massive amounts on that

Reply 5

loopyloo243

hey, I dunno if you do this in your board (I'm OCR), but here's what I can offer:

reasons to believe in life after death:

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extinction is inconceivable; our earthly existence is too short - there must be something more to this life

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as god's creation we must be able to fulfil our potential in the next life

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kant - achieve summum bonum in afterlife

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balances moral law - good rewarded and evil punished in the afterlife. existence of a heaven/hell justifies behaviour of the good.

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or it may simply be a psychological device to comfort us (Ludwig Feuerbach)

reasons against:

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Hick - why not interpret heaven/hell in a less literal sense? hell could be interpreted as willingly turning away from god.

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problems with the balancing moral law argument - what about arbitrary suffering and natural evil? some may argue that the scale of suffering is not worth the prize of heaven.

Personhood, from what I understand, is basically what we mean by personal identity. Some believe that the body is all we need to establish personal identity, some believe it's the mind/brain/memory etc etc. So within reincarnation, if you are reborn with a different body and can't remember a thing about your past life - how can you be sure it's you?

That's all I can remember for now, really need to start learning and revising for my RS. Only revised 3 topics out of everything so far! Looks like a busy night...

Reply 6

TheWildChild

omg, i was just looking at this question earlier and it is a mean question. considering with exexcel we dont really look at reasons for and agaist lfuie after death more the different forms and critiques of them. i guess you wouldnt get good marks if you just spoke about the forms. :eek:

it was a 2001 question so hopefully theyve changed the questions now. there was one in 2004 asking a similar thing but in relation to reincarnation, im of soul, ressurection and the rest so that is slightly nicer.

Reply 7

sarah12345

some reasons for life after death
-Plato's argument from cycle of opposites-death comes from life so life must come from death
-evidence such as near death experiences
-things pass out of existence by disintergration of parts. the real me (soul/mind) is non material and not made of parts so cannot disintergrate hence must continue to exist
-Kant's moral argument-assuming the universe is fair there must be life after death to ensure summum bonnum is achievable (ought--> can)

-if god exists then it is reasonable to assume that he is powerful and can give us life after death
-sacred scriptures e.g. the apostle's creed clearly states the christian belife in life after death
-life is too short there must be an oppertunity for us to achieve something