* Id: AfterlifeBelief * Revision: 1 * State: submitted * * Log: * Revision 1 1999/10/14 Roel van der Meulen * Initial submitted version. Return-path: Received: from pop.argonet.co.uk by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.0.5) for mrs@localhost (single-drop); Thu, 14 Oct 1999 20:26:45 +0100 (BST) Received: from (silk.spiders.net) [206.24.0.7] by golden.argonet.co.uk with smtp (Exim 1.82 #3) id 11bp6q-0001G7-00; Thu, 14 Oct 1999 18:56:12 +0100 Received: (qmail 10151 invoked by uid 2590); 14 Oct 1999 17:56:11 -0000 Delivered-To: cleggp-megadodo-mark@megadodo.com Received: (qmail 10148 invoked by uid 2590); 14 Oct 1999 17:56:11 -0000 Delivered-To: cleggp-megadodo-submit@megadodo.com Received: (qmail 10145 invoked from network); 14 Oct 1999 17:56:06 -0000 Received: from strw.strw.leidenuniv.nl (132.229.214.2) by silk.spiders.net with SMTP; 14 Oct 1999 17:56:06 -0000 Received: from beerze.LeidenUniv.nl (beerze [132.229.214.9]) by strw.strw.LeidenUniv.nl (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id TAA04481 for ; Thu, 14 Oct 1999 19:55:59 +0200 (MET DST) Received: by beerze.LeidenUniv.nl (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id TAA09159; Thu, 14 Oct 1999 19:55:58 +0200 Message-Id: <199910141755.TAA09159@beerze.LeidenUniv.nl> X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Subject: New article: Afterlife From: vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl (Roel van der Meulen) To: submit@megadodo.com Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 19:55:58 +0200 Envelope-to: mseaborn@argonet.co.uk Delivery-date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 18:56:14 +0100 Hi Mark, I decided to submit this one. No humor, but I think it could be interesting and informative to people who think about these issues. ARTICLE IN PROGRESS: Afterlife, Believing In An

Unfinished article for PGG

This article is meant to appear in Project Galactic Guide some time, but is not finished yet. It probably lacks a lot of information, or otherwise has old or outdated ideas, so this article is at the moment not my official opinion, and should not be treated as such. However, if you have comments or suggestions that might help me make this article into a better one, please mail them to vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl

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%t Afterlife, Believing In An
%n R
%s It's Okay
%a Roel van der Meulen  (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl)
%d 19991008
%i
%x Afterlife
%x Life After Death
%x Seize The Day
%x Classification Of Religions
%k
%e
The majority of people on Earth believe, with varying intensity, in one of
many religions.  What most of these religions have in common are that the
human body is thought to contain something intangible, sometimes called a
soul, that doesn't die along with the body.  This soul lives on, on another
level of reality, or it gets a new body to live in, or something like that.  

Why people believe this, is unclear.  It is known that people have relied on
myths and beliefs since the beginning of man, possibly to give comfort and
tackle a world that is not always very nice for individuals.  Or maybe it is
correct because one or several of those deities actually exist!  Fact is
that experiments to find out how magnetic fields influence the brain (which
works through the transport of electric currents along neurons) have shown
that when certain parts of the brain are stimulated, the human guinea-pigs
experience a mystical feeling.

This comfort is of course lost on people who do not believe in supernatural
powers.  Believing that with death the person as a single entity ceases to
exist can of course stimulate to live life to the fullest, which is a good 
thing.  However, it _can_ be quite unsettling, when dealing with death.

There is a solution to this, as long as you are prepared to not be too
strict for yourself in your atheism.  When, maybe due to a religious
upbringing, thoughts involving the classic idea of an existence after death
(pretty much the same as the one here, and you meet all your old friends who
have passed away before) form in your mind, don't dismiss them.  You see,
there is nothing wrong with _hoping_ that it may be so.

The advantage of doing this, is that you actually _create_ a life after 
death.  Many people believe that after death you at least live on in the
thoughts and actions of others.  In your life you have `touched' many
people, so some of the ideas that they sometimes have will have come from
you.

If you use the classical idea of an afterlife to conjure up images of your
old friends, who then talk and interact with you in your thoughts, they _do_
live on.  If I limit the definition of "belief" to "hope", then belief in an
afterlife actually creates one.  And it's okay.
%e
*EOA*