Death is the departure of the soul, or is it?

My mother once defined death as that moment when the soul is ready to depart this world.

There are probably millions who would agree with this, but do you know how ridiculous that idea is? Let's run down the top 10 causes of death (in the U.S.):

1. Diseases of heart.
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer, tumors, growths).
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases.
4. Cerebrovascular diseases (limited or no blood flow to the brain, such as a stroke).
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries).
6. Alzheimer’s disease.
7. Diabetes mellitus.
8. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (disorders of the kidneys).
9. Influenza and pneumonia.
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide).

This is from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), published January 11, 2012 of the 2010 National Vital Statistics Reports.

Do you notice a pattern? In all instances of death, to explain it very broadly, there is a dysfunction or cessation of a biological process. If these biological causes are in fact results from the soul choosing to "meet its Maker", then why are not all the causes the same? Wouldn't it make more sense that only one cause would happen, over and over? But I think it would make the most sense that there were no biological causes at all, and death was spontaneous, random and without an external effect. What care would the soul have if it left the body because of heart disease, or because of kidney failure? There is no purpose for a spiritual entity to have any concern with a biological cause of death. That would be like my houseplant caring about what kind of car I drove!

If death is a result of the soul leaving the body, then we can easily conclude that the soul or its departure has some kind of connection to biological processes, since 100% of the time, a biological process failure also occurs at death. The goal then becomes to establish the connection between the soul and the body. How does one do that? This is where we find the problem. There is no evidence, no footprint, residue or trace elements left behind to examine. The soul can't be touched, smelled, seen, tasted or heard. It can't be examined, tested, observed. Why? Because we cannot find it! It is nowhere. It is invisible, intangible, inaudible. There is no essence or substance that we can grab onto. We are assured very much of its existence, but we have to take it on faith. Conveniently, the only experience we will have with being just a soul won't happen until after we die, after we are gone, and only when it is no longer possible to communicate with those still living a physical existence.

Theists don't see this as a problem. Of course the soul is intangible and invisible! The spiritual plane is a separate (but parallel) universe to our visible, physical plane. Just like God. We have to take it on faith that all these claims are true, because the tradition of the religion, the church elders and doctrines, and the religious texts say so--human expressions, all of them. If God and the soul are these invisible puppeteers behind the scenes, how can I possibly distinguish between their completely invisible/intangible/inaudible existence, and their non-existence? I can't! There's no possible way, except for "faith". Faith is poetically defined as hope in things unseen, but I define it as belief in things without any reason.

If you are a reader of this blog, you know where I am going with this. If I can't distinguish between a thing's non-existence and a thing's invisible/intangible/inaudible existence, then that thing is completely meaningless. It is completely pointless. It is a belief that exists only in our heads--oh, it's not? Show me. I don't insist on physical proof because I am short-sighted. I insist on physical proof because it is the only measure of reality that we have.

Physical proof is the only thing that is logical. If you want to believe in things that you understand are illogical, that's fine, but don't insist that anyone else do so, don't judge them if they don't, and don't have a double standard. If you believe in illogical, unproved things in one aspect of your life, be open to illogical, unproven things in all aspects of your life. Why don't you believe in the tooth fairy, Santa Clause, leprechauns, paganism, buddhism, Zeus, or whatever it is you don't believe? What is your process for determining what's correct, and what's not? What idea wins out over another and why? How? How did you establish the reality of one, and the fantasy of another? Why are Christians wrong, and Muslims right?

And why, oh why, does God (whoever he is) not come down from the heavens, right now, in modern times with video cameras, Facebook, Twitter and instant photography, and prove to us all that he is real and what [insert religion] teaches is true? It would be a bit like this scene from the tv show called V (2009), in this clip, where Anna turns the sky red over the entire earth and her spaceships are seen all over the world. She communicates with earthlings in all their languages, everyone can see (and visit!) the spaceships, and it is covered on the news. And guess what! Not a single person earth can ever deny the existence of aliens.

Again, if we are to rely on faith, or believe things solely because of faith, how can you compare and contrast two faiths (or more) against one another? If you cannot demonstrate that one is more correct than the other, how can you demonstrate that one is correct at all? There is nothing to hold onto, to show, to illustrate, to compare.

The soul, in any definition, is a nice idea, but one that has no substance. We are but temporal, temporary beings, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is still morality and immorality, justice and injustice--but all the battles are fought here. All of love, laughter, learning and exploration happens here and now. Enjoy this life! If there is an afterlife--and there could be--we have to be honest and accept that there is no evidence for it, and stop fighting each other, insisting that our story is true, and everyone else has it wrong.

--BadSec

2012 so far & some reflections on death and the future

Life has been kicking my butt this year. I've had some high points, and some very, very low points. I wrote about this before, but my grandmother passed away in January. That has been hard, but it has been a normal, peaceful process of grieving as she was in her 90s and we had known for years that any day would be her last. I was lucky to be able to say goodbye to her before her mind was completely gone, and spent her subsequent years loving and appreciating her, and knowing she did not suffer is enormously comforting. But what has devastated me deeply is the death of my chocolate lab 10 days ago. This has hit me like a ton of painful bricks. It is still so fresh it is hard for me to talk about; he was my best friend, my child and my confidant. He went from perfectly fine to completely paralyzed in a week, and it was not pretty. He was in pain, was extremely anxious, and couldn't control any body function. When he was correctly diagnosed with a spinal tumor, we knew he was only going to get worse, and quickly. To date this has been the worst and most heart-wrenching experience of my life, far exceeding my divorce, the death of my human child in my old life, and near-complete ostracization from my family. I had to make the decision to put him down in order to spare further suffering, and though intellectually I know it was the best, emotionally I am racked with guilt. Fortunately I have friends who have been here, too, and their understanding and support is invaluable.

In the midst of all this pain, two things become very clear: 1) Life is precious, and 2) I have a much more personal understanding of why people believe in the comforting fairy tales of life after death.

I wish it were true, and I certainly hope it is, that we all go to some utopian place after death and are reunited in eternal bliss. The reality is that there is no real reason to believe that this is so. I would love to be wrong, and I hope I am, but I have to deal with reality on reality's terms. Well, I suppose I don't have to, but I chose to, rather than believe whatever marshmallowy fluff feels good. It would be easy to stick my head in the sand and believe something sweet and sugary; but it is such actions, such mental atrophy, that ultimately place barriers in our path to knowledge (see my recent post for specific reasons why). When you believe you have the answers, then a quest for attainable knowledge becomes completely meaningless. Curiosity becomes meaningless. Ambition to push the limits of our abilities becomes meaningless.

As it is, death is final. We don't yet know if there is anything beyond it, or any way to end it. I have hope that as we continue learning about the Universe and the origins of life, we will be amazed at the beauty and possibility that is out there. Maybe one day death will be optional--I sometimes see this in the future, with the advances in medical technology, especially witnessing the baby industry of lab-grown human organs. Maybe one day we will discover Earth-life planets that can sustain life, and we will have the ability to travel to and from there. Maybe one day we will meet intelligent, extraterrestrial life. Maybe one day humans will evolve to despise conflict of all kinds, and we will become a unified, kind species that loves knowledge and art. Maybe one day there will be no poverty, no politics, no suffering and no hate.

Maybe these are pipe dreams, but I believe that all those things are possible, at least in a small scale. Surely, though, none of it will happen if religion--and its pointless rules, and insistence on unsubstantiated dogma and invisible beings/places--continues to be considered a positive institution. Thankfully, this is changing. As knowledge increases, religion changes to an ever-more nebulous idea with a God whose only power is to fill in the gaps. From our primordial goo, humans--at least many of us--have evolved to think critically, to seek knowledge, and to respect each other and our fellow animals. I have hope that this can continue.

Even if we outbreed our planet's ability to nourish us, I have hope. If we don't change our behavior globally, we are certainly headed that way, but even so, Earth will survive and we humans will experience a great natural culling of our species. If that happens, maybe after the dust settles and we die off until we reach a sustainable population level, maybe then we will have learned our lesson. Humans are famous for making some really huge mistakes with horrendous consequences, but over time we generally do learn from them. Maybe, just maybe, we will finally learn that God isn't going to swoop down and care for us; we have to take care of ourselves. Maybe we will see that our choices are to choose to breed less, or breed carelessly and wait for a natural culling, wars, and mass excessive suffering.

Knowledge is the key, as is perseverance. Don't give up.

An Atheist Goes to Church!

That's right, folks. I've seen the light. I'm going to Mass tonight!

HAH.

Well, I am going to Mass, but it is for a funeral remembrance. My grandma passed away two and a half weeks ago, I am sad to say. Her funeral was out of state, but the Mass is today and it is local. Of course I went to the funeral. But I've debated on going to this or not, for a variety of reasons... in the end I decided to suck it up and go, for the sake of family unity. If you've read my posts before, you are probably somewhat acquainted with my familial situation (to sum it up, they are all hardcore Catholics and have essentially estranged me because a) I'm divorced b) I got a boyfriend before I had my annulment c) I am now living with said boyfriend and d) I'm... *gasp*... no longer Catholic. They didn't even wait around long enough to find out that I am an atheist, to boot, but surely they've picked up some hints over the past couple of years. Anyway. Since my grandma's passing they have been marginally better. I even got an apology from my brother! That is a huge deal--as big as if the earth started spinning backwards. Or Michael Jackson being black again. Or JFK being, y'know, not assassinated.

They are still pretty insane, especially my mother, but that's a whole 'nother can of beans.

There is a good possibility that I will get called out on my not receiving the eucharist by the priest. This is the priest who has baptized all 6 of the children, performed my uncle's last rights, did my grandma's confession/communion/confirmation, aaaaaand who married me. So I guess you could say he is the family priest. Oh, this is going to be so much fun.

Everything has been really crazy and stressful lately, and there are several things I have been wanting to talk about that I have not had time to post. This is the first time I have had an experience with death since becoming an atheist, and I want to write about what that was like, especially in contrast to the experience as a Catholic theist. Coming very soon.

--BadSec