Henceforth, this is how we learn

The Student:

Recently, I became overwhelmed with the notion that the universe is terribly simple. You live, you die, nothing more. Logic would dictate that this is correct, there is no reason for an afterlife. Maybe the reason is to comfort ourselves and our expanding intellectual faculties, to rationalize death and life at the same time. If we truly accepted that there is no afterlife, what would existence be like? We are governed by natural, complex societal and emotive laws. If we reverted back to simple natural order, we would destroy ourselves seeking pleasure and comfort.

Understanding the faiths currently practiced, the predominant three, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity all require the believer to accept a certain level of theology on faith. I applaud those who are able to achieve this feat, for skepticism and religious fervor are both really the same thing, belief in or against something. However, faith cannot withstand rational challenges. When asked how gravity works or electrons flow through a metal wire, beliefs and emotions have little to do with a proper answer. Therefore, human logic dictates that there should be no afterlife and human emotion believes that existence is eternal, for after all, we have always existed in our conscious. Here, in this contradiction can skeptics and believers be united.

Those who are faith must understand that there exists not a single rational argument for their actions. One can point to the Torah, Bible, and Koran and say this is the foundation for all faith. However, if someone points to it and imposes their will on another human, they have violated a simple human principle: only the individual can accept or reject a faith. Those who remain skeptical must admit there also does not exist a rational argument against something that is inherently irrational. When someone asks how you feel, they do not care about the current chemical balance within your brain, but how you are experiencing your current day. Therefore, I came to a personal conclusion that in this inherent flaw within human intellect, the apparent two-face of emotions and logic, the possibility for an afterlife exists. Contradictions are unnatural and usually removed, so why has this single contradiction flourished?

Just a rant,

My Response:

First, rants are for political podiums, YouTube, and your significant other, not philosophical discussion. So, let's try resigning ourselves to arguments--the cognitive kind. You know, the kind you never see on TV.

Second, about your remark of religions in practice, those are only the predominate theistic religions. There are other religions that are quite dominant--Hinduism for starters.

Second, I don't think I understand much of what you are saying; but let's pretend that I do.

Allow me to address some of what you said on a point-by-point basis.

You say:"I became overwhelmed with the notion that the universe is simple."

This is vague. First, you may be overwhelmed by the notion, but that is a psychological fact about yourself, not the properties of the universe. Being overwhelmed by some notion is not a compelling reason to suggest the truth of that notion (unless the notion just is that you are overwhelmed); that is, you may feel overwhelmed by a sense of simplicity, but that is no reason to think that, indeed, the universe is simple. In fact, that you are overwhelmed is itself a feature of the universe that is complex and greater in scope than merely living and dying. Precisely what does it mean for the universe to be simple? What counts as simplicity? Ultimate simplicity, if there is such a thing, might possibly be cognitively closed to us. That we live and then die is a poor description of simplicity; in fact, the processes by which life and death occur (and those by which agents, such as yourself, become overwhelmed) are replete with numerous complex notions, many of which we are incapable of describing as simple aspects of the universe.

You say: " Logic would dictate that this is correct, there is no reason for an afterlife."

I don't see how simplicity formally dictates this to be the case, nor how this entails there is no afterlife. Logic providing reasons for thinking there is no afterlife is different from logic providing an argument that there is no afterlife. (Besides talking as if 'logic' were doing anything just is goofy.)You need to spell out the way in which simplicity entails no reasons for an afterlife. one way of doing this is to show that the afterlife could never be a member of the set of simple universes. But good luck with that. Granted that there are numerous thinkers who both have argued for some conception of simplicity (usually the nature of God) as the ground of being. (Typically among theistic philosophers--Judaism, Christianity, Islam--but also classical Indian and Hindu thought as well.) Also, Buddhism has an ultimate conception of simplicity, although without the notion of God), and that these people often argue for some model of the afterlife (e.g., disembodied existence, resurrection body, soul perpetuity, etc.), it is not obvious that simplicity necessarily excludes the possibility of an afterlife, nor results in there being no reason to think there is an afterlife. This claim of yours is a conflation of the epistemic features of our belief formation with the ontological commitment of a metaphysical reality. In short, many thinkers have thought that the concept of simplicity is logically compatible with the concept of an afterlife. Perhaps you could give your argument in which you demonstrate how your conception of simplicity dictates that there are no reasons for thinking there is an afterlife. But this is different than giving an argument showing that there is no afterlife. The former notion is parasitic on the latter.

You say: "Understanding the faiths...all require the believer to accept a level of theology on faith"

You must state what you mean by "faith". Faith can be construed evidentially, non-evidentially, or anti-evidentially. Evidentialists think faith requires evidence. Fideists hold the opposite view; and then there are those who think evidence has no bearing either way: they neither askew the compatibility of faith and evidence, nor profess it as irrelevant. You imply that faith is somehow belief without evidence or reasons. But this is problematic. This amounts to ( seemingly) claiming that one can choose to believe something apart from any reasons to believe (no matter of what kind). But to claim that belief formation is voluntary seems just plainly false. This is called "doxastic voluntarism", and it's even more dead than Cartesian dualism. (Which, as an aside, is making a strong comeback in a big way. You can kiss eliminativism goodby. It's going the way of logical positivism's verifiablility principle. Even property dualism is taking a nose-dive.)

Take the following simple test. Choose to believe that the following is true:

"The number of stars is even."

Similarly, choose to believe:

"The number of stars is odd."

Now, you can say that you are now believing, but you are not--you can't. You are psychologically constrained such that you do not have the cognitive ability to dictate, by a mere act of your will, the contents of your beliefs. You fail to believe either is true because you have no reasons (since there is no evidence suggesting otherwise) to think either is true. But one of them must be true. It is necessarily the case that either the number of stars is even or odd. But we don't believe either way when pressed at this moment to choose. (You may already believe one way or another, but that is different than presently choosing to believe.) Take a more palpable example. The next time you are walking near a road, in which an oncoming truck is approaching, choose to believe that if you step in front of it, you will not be hit. I suggest that you are incapable of believing such a thing. In fact, people who do believe such things--they actually believe that if they step in front of an oncoming truck they will not be hit--are typically the mentally insane. It is your conception of evidence that constrains you, not your will. I suggest, then, that whether you are religious or a skeptic, you cannot choose to believe what is true, since your belief is determined by what you take to be a reason for belief. No religious person can choose to believe anything if there are no reasons to believe. Any given belief, therefore, is based on a reason or set of reasons; the concept of belief requires an object and that object would imply a reason for that belief. Consider the following scheme: p but I lack the evidence that p ("It is raining, but I lack the evidence that it is raining"). All our ordinary beliefs are grounded in reasons: e.g., that you are yourself and not the guy next door, that Jack and Jill copulate on occasions, that Trix are for kids, and so forth). I see no reason (bad pun intended. Is that a pun? No, I think it's just stupidity) why putatively extraordinary claims should be any different. Why is it that we don't dismiss claims that, say, retail stores close early on federal holidays, yet not that God answers prayers? Well, people have this absurd notion that "ordinary" stuff requires evidence but "extraordinary" stuff does not. (This, of course, says nothing about those who think they have evidence that God has answered their prayers. One's conception of evidence can be very poor indeed; moreover, the flipside of evidence, even really good evidence, is its inferential strength to that of other bits of evidence. This, even more so than the concept of evidence, also admits of degrees, and is poorly understood, if at all, by religious persons and various types of dogmatists.) I'm assuming you think it is extraordinary that God would speak to people, of course.

Skepticism and religious fervor, furthermore, are not the same: skepticism, roughly, is belief suspended because one has no reason to believe that outweighs any other reason to believe; religious fervor, however, clearly is zealous about reasons, that is precisely why they have fervor. No one who has a maximum number of suspended beliefs is fervently committed to anything. Skepticism is not belief against a view, but a lack of belief toward that view.

You say: "Therefore, human logic dictates that there be no afterlife and human emotion believes that existence is eternal, for we have always existed in our conscious."[sic]

First, "human logic". Is there any other kind? Well, you could invoke God here, so let's do just that. Even if God exists, God does not have or use logic, since God would not think in propositions because propositions are temporal objects, and, classically, God is outside the bounds of time. Furthermore, logic concerns arguments, and arguments, be they deductive or inductive, always have premises that purport to support a conclusion. On a classical conception of God, there are no premises that eventually lead to some kind of knowledge, there is only knowledge. To say otherwise is to commit God to the infelicitous position of initially lacking knowledge of the conclusion to which the premises eventually lead Him to comprehend. On this view, God is not omniscient, but comes to knowledge just as we do. Arguments, therefore, would further illuminate God's understanding, but this implies that at some point God was lacking in knowledge. If you're a good little theist, then, as Dr. Phil says, " That dawg don't hunt."

Again, it is unclear how you are supporting this claim that logic dictates that there is no afterlife. Logic never dictates anything. It is the inferential link between premises and conclusion that dictates the validity or cogency of an argument. For that reason, one can have a valid argument whose conclusion is that there is an afterlife, and one can have a valid argument whose conclusion is that there is not an afterlife. Validity, however, does not constitute soundness; that is, you may have a formally correct argument, but that doesn't mean the premises or conclusion are true. Likewise for the probability of inductive arguments: you may have a structurally cogent argument, but that doesn't mean that the inferential connection is highly probable. This all says nothing about the further problem of the truth or falsity of the premises.

You say, "human emotion believes that...".

First, emotions have no capacity for belief; emotions are noncognitive. This does not mean, however, that they play no role in belief formation, it is just to say that emotions are not agents of belief--this is a category mistake: an ascription of function to a faculty outside the scope of such a capacity. Many people have given arguments--from logical reasoning as you say--that existence is eternal. They have argued for this claim, not emoted for this claim. Emotions do not make claims about what is true or false, such concepts do not even apply. You imply that emotion believes that existence is eternal because we have always existed in our consciousness. I don't even know what that means; but I can say that it does not follow that even if one believes that existence is eternal, that somehow that is connected to the claim that we have always existed in our consciousness. One has no necessary bearing on the other.

You say: "in this contradiction"

A contradiction has the following form: P & ~P. You have not shown a contradiction. You've given no argument demonstrating that any concept in question is a contradiction of any other in question; nor is it clear what you are claiming is contradictory. Are you claiming that it is a contradiction for the universe to be simple and there to be an afterlife? Or that logic dictates that there is no afterlife but people believe existence is eternal anyway? You fail to have a command of your language here, and if that's the case (and it is), then you fail to have a command of the concepts you are using. Insofar as those concepts are necessary for your argument, then proportionately your argument becomes unintelligible.

You say: "must understand that there exists not a single rational argument for their actions"

It is unclear what you take a rational argument to be. Arguments are rational whether they are good or bad, valid or invalid, cogent or weak, sound or unsound, probable or improbable. An argument just is rational because it consists of claims, some of which are offered as reasons for the truth of a conclusion. The conclusion may be irrational in a colloquial sense, but not in a logical sense. Rationality is a normative notion, not a logical one. Thus, arguments are not the proper objects of rationality; that is, arguments-sets of statements, some of which are premises and at least one of which is a conclusion-are not rational. They are valid and sound, or cogent or weak (or there antithetical counterparts, respectively). People may be rational or not, but not arguments.

You say: "there does not exist a rational argument against something inherently irrational."

(As a preface, recall that I think it is superfluous to speak of 'rational' arguments.) This is much like the above analysis, but with the following addendum: If there were something that is inherently irrational, one would have to have a rational argument to identify this inherent irrationality. But this would require a rational argument. But you claimed that there is no rational argument for one's action; that is, the action of arguing that there is no rational argument for something that is inherently irrational. But this is a contradiction, since to make such an argument just is a rational argument identifying this inherent irrationality. Thus, your claim is self-stultifying.