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Dialogue Education Update 3 Life after Death THIS CD HAS BEEN PRODUCED FOR TEACHERS TO USE IN THE CLASSROOM. IT IS A CONDITION OF THE USE OF THIS CD THAT IT BE USED ONLY BY THE PEOPLE FROM SCHOOLS THAT HAVE PURCHASED THE CD ROM FROM DIALOGUE EDUCATION. (THIS DOES NOT PROHIBIT ITS USE ON A SCHOOL’S INTRANET).
Page 3 – Martin Luther King Speech • Pages 4 to 42 - Defining the Afterlife • Page 43 - Reincarnation • Page 46 - Ancient Egyptian concepts of afterlife. • Page 47 - Ancient Greek and Roman concepts of life after death. • Page 48 - Norse religion • Pages 49 - Afterlife in the Abrahamic Religions • Page 48 - Jewish Concepts of the Afterlife • Pages 51 to 60 - Christian Concepts of the Afterlife • Page 61 - Islamic Concepts of the Afterlife • Page 62 - Hindu Concepts of the Afterlife • Page 63 - Buddhist Concepts of the Afterlife • Page 64 - Sikh Concepts of the Afterlife • Pages 69 to 67 - Modern Sciences and concepts of the Afterlife • Pages 69-78 Harry Potter and Life and Death • Pages 79 - Video Presentation about a near death experience • Page 80 - Bibliography Contents
The Afterlife • There are effectively three possible approaches to the issue of life after death. They are • Dualism • Modified Dualism • Reincarnation
Dualism • The soul is a spiritual substance.
Dualism Problem: • Memory, character, and conscious thought reside in the brain and these traits have been mapped.
Modified Dualism • When the body dies the soul survives with a body in its ideal form. Thereby the Post-mortem self is the same as the Pre-mortem self.
Modified Dualism • Problems • Spacio-temporal continuity is essential to maintaining continuity between pre and post mortem self.
Reincarnation • Can mean various things including the idea that an individual can return either as a human being or a lower form of life.
Reincarnation • Problems • Problem of identity; What makes the reincarnated x the same person as the one who died?
Philosophy of After Life • Patrick Glynn, a former atheist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, argues in God: The Evidence. that new scientific discoveries in cosmology, psychology, and medicine add up "to a powerful--indeed, all-but-incontestable--case for ... the existence of soul, afterlife and God.
Philosophy of After Life • Glynn thinks the most plausible explanation of near-death experiences is that these experiences are genuine and give us a foretaste of the afterlife.
Philosophy of After Life • Some suggest that near-death experiences come from oxygen starvation of the brain. Glynn criticizes this view on the various grounds.
Philosophy of After Life • Kuebler-Ross attributes the children's accurate knowledge to factors that go beyond normal scientific explanation.
Philosophy of After Life • Researchers have been able to induce some of the elements of "near-death experiences" by electrical or chemical stimulation.
Philosophy of After Life • Raymond Moody's 1975 book LIFE AFTER LIFE started much of the current interest in near-death experiences.
Philosophy of After Life • Sabom reports that several of his patients had experiences in which they "floated outside their bodies" during a near-death operation and observed their own operations. They later described the details of their operation in clear and accurate terms.
Philosophy of After Life • Near-death experiences are universally positive and reassuring.
Philosophy of After Life • A near-death experience involves various common elements, although any given case may not have every element..
Philosophy of After Life • Some suggest that near-death experiences are hallucinations. Glynn criticizes this view on several grounds.
Philosophy of After Life • Most researchers after Moody who studied near-death experiences have remained skeptical that these give us genuine information about the afterlife.
Philosophy of After Life • Many near-death experiences involve a review of one's life in terms of how well one has loved other people.
Philosophy of After Life • Near-death experiences seem to be universal in all cultures and times.
Philosophy of After Life • Some conservative Christian groups were unhappy about research about near-death experiences.
Philosophy of After Life • Linda Badham raises objections to the afterlife.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham argues at length that science is damaging to Christian ideas of life after death.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham claims that reports about people's near-death experiences have no acceptable scientific explanation at the present time.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham hesitates to believe in the soul and the afterlife -- even though she admits that naturalistic science can't explain near-death experiences.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham argues that there's great difficulty in deciding which organisms have souls (and will have eternal life) and which do not.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham argues that dualism ignores the close connection between body chemistry (including the condition of our brain) and our thinking/feeling..
Philosophy of After Life • Badham argues that X and Y are "the same person" if both have the same body.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham attacks the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham takes bodily continuity to be the criterion of personal identity.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham argues that a clone isn't you, only a replica. So you don't continue to live after your death.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham argues that while discontinuity in ones conscious experience raises issues of “identity“, bodily continuity – does not.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham argues that it's unclear that this resurrected person would be the same person as you -- instead of being just an identical clone or replica.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham claims that the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body has serious problems if you'll get back the same body as you had before.
Philosophy of After Life • Badham, in considering the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body at the end of time, asks: "Where will all these people live?"
TED TALK • Jill Bolte • http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html • Peter Saul • http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_saul_let_s_talk_about_dying.html
The After Life • The afterlife (also: life after death and hereafter) is the proposed continued existence of the soul, spirit or mind of a being after physical death.
The Afterlife Reincarnation An afterlife concept that is found among Hindus, Rosicrucians, Spiritists, and Wiccans is reincarnation, as evolving humans life after life in the physical world, that is, acquiring a superior grade of consciousness and altruism by means of successive reincarnations.
The Afterlife Many Wiccans, though not all, profess a belief in an afterlife called the Summerland, a peaceful and sunny place where the souls of the newly dead are sent.
Ancient Egypt The afterlife played an important role in Ancient Egyptian religion, and its belief system is one of the earliest known.
Ancient Greek and Roman religion The Greek god Hades is known in Greek mythology as the king of the underworld, a bleak place in between the place of torment and the place of rest, where most souls live after death.
Norse religion The Poetic and Prose Eddas, the oldest sources for information on the Norse concept of the afterlife, vary in their description of the several realms. Valhalla, Ashodel and Nifhel
Afterlife in Abrahamic religions Judaism Resurrection Writing that would later be incorporated into the Hebrew Bible names Sheol as the afterlife, a non-descriptive place where all are destined to go after death.
Afterlife in Abrahamic religions • The Book of Enoch describes sheol as divided into four compartments for four types of the dead: the faithful saints who await resurrection in Paradise, the merely virtuous who await their reward, the wicked who await punishment, and the wicked who have already been punished and will not be resurrected on Judgment Day.
Christianity In Scripture When questioned by the Sadducees about the resurrection, Jesus made it clear that the resurrected are like angels in heaven.