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Personal Immortality: Arguments

Personal Immortality: Arguments. Socrates (470-399 BCE). Rene Descartes (1596-1650). Socrates/Descartes: unlike the body, the soul is simple, immaterial, & does not come apart Objection: death is not dissolution of material parts, only the end of bodily (brain) activity

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Personal Immortality: Arguments

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  1. Personal Immortality: Arguments Socrates (470-399 BCE) Rene Descartes (1596-1650) • Socrates/Descartes: unlike the body, the soul is simple, immaterial, & does not come apart • Objection: death is not dissolution of material parts, only the end of bodily (brain) activity • Peter van Inwagen: God re-creates our same body after we die • Objection: no re-creation would be identical (1942- )

  2. Personal Immortality:Arguments (continued) Kant • If there is a loving God, he would give us more than the brief span of our time on earth Objection: this assumes that there is such a God • Kant: morality requires that the injustices of this life be balanced in an afterlife Objection: morality does not require happiness to match virtue; so eternity is unnecessary

  3. Personal Immortality:Arguments (continued) • The fact that the belief in an afterlife is found almost universally argues in its favor Objection: this shows only widespread desire • Reports of “near death experiences” are too common, similar, and accurate to ignore Objection: such reports are explainable in purely psychological terms

  4. Personal Immortality:Arguments (continued) • Reports of reincarnation are also widespread Objections: why don’t babies remember their past lives? Furthermore, not enough people have lived in the past to account for everyone today • Reports of communication with the dead and “miracles” are likewise widespread Objection (Hume): these are due to wishful thinking and deception David Hume

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