The starting point for each of the following arguments is sound and credible. The way in which each argument then unfolds is logical and difficult to challenge. The fundamental problem is that the inevitable conclusions are universally unacceptable and would rouse widespread hostility towards anyone claiming them to be true; but if they are not true, then where in the chain of each argument has the error occurred?
Please take careful note that everything herein is factual, shorn of any personal opinions.
Please do not waste time trying to challenge “the way I think” about this subject, since it is totally irrelevant as far as I am concerned. Please focus on the facts themselves. Thank you.
Animal species other than Homo Sapiens are only interested in surviving, eating, drinking, resting, socialising and propagating. They lack the mental ability to think more widely. (It follows that battery hens do not feel that they are missing out on anything available to free-range hens). For thousands of years, we Homo Sapiens have always been intelligent enough to be the only exception. We all wanted to know:
This puzzlement and quest for an explanation was solved in all societies thousands of years ago by reasoning that there must be a Creator (a God or Gods or Deity or Allah or Jehovah) somewhere, who had created Planet Earth and all of the plant and animal species on it. This was completely logical, and it was accepted world-wide without argument.
For thousands of years there has been a quite logical belief that we must display our gratitude to God for having created us, resulting in religions springing up in all societies. In some cases they were altruistic, but in other cases they were clearly an excuse for dictatorship; in the UK in the days of Shakespeare and Marlowe, for example, atheism was a capital offence. It would be very challenging for any of them to attract and retain adherents without promising them a tangible benefit, and the most obvious one, which often remains today, is the assurance of a happy afterlife for all who follow their doctrine to the letter, historically on occasions even suggesting an eternity in hell for disbelievers. This promise of an afterlife is an easy one to make since it requires no proof.
Each different religion has a slightly different definition of the exact doctrine to be followed, which is obviously necessary to retain adherents and stop them straying. Each religion is convinced that all other religions have got it either slightly or very wrong. How can any of the many specific religions or belief systems convincingly prove to the world that theirs is the only faith to have got it exactly right, and the rest of them haven't, when the rest of them form the overwhelming majority? The most obvious likelihood, surely, is that there is no such proof, and that none of them have got it right. You will not like this conclusion, but it is difficult to challenge based on logic or on any irrefutable evidence. It can only be challenged by your own minority religion's beliefs.
We now understand evolution since we now know beyond any doubt that each successive generation of any species of plant or animal life, including we ourselves, have very minute genetic mutations. Those mutations making their survival more likely in the slowly changing environment they find themselves in, encourage their future propagation, and thus the exceedingly slow evolution from early species to later species. This is wholly factual and has world-wide agreement beyond argument. It was first realised and explained by Charles Darwin in his book "On the Origin of Species", published in 1859, and it has since been conclusively proven by examining and dating the fossilised remains of many long-deceased animal species. The supporting evidence featured strongly in the television series presented by Sir David Attenborugh, without any public outcry at all, because it is universally accepted.
We also understand how evolution created the stars and planets long after the Big Bang, together with all of our Planet Earth’s complex geology.
Evolution, therefore, conclusively proves that the First Argument, (insisting that there must have been a God to have created everything in the universe), is unnecessary, since there is obviously no need for one at all. There is nothing that happens to the universe or to the many species of plant and animal life that doesn’t happen quite naturally without the involvement of any God. This does NOT mean that there is no God, merely that the historical justification for that belief needs to be replaced by an explanation that is more readily acceptable worldwide.
The principal challenge to this conclusion is probably that prayer to God has sometimes had significantly positive benefits, which I accept. However, those making such claims might not be taking into account ‘mental causation’. Let me explain. There was a period in my teenage years when I experienced regular attacks of migraine. On one occasion when I was completely free of migraine, I let my mind wander, thinking about the several symptoms, and in just a couple of minutes they all manifested themselves. That set me thinking. I asked an old friend to phone me at work at some unspecified time in the next couple of weeks or so and just mention the word migraine. He did so, and I immediately thought about the symptoms, and in just a few minutes they all manifested themselves. That was the very last migraine episode I ever experienced. Mental causation! It must surely work in the reverse direction, as well, healing and preventing illnesses as well as causing them. I proved this to my own personal satisfaction by going over 50 years without ever taking or needing any medications or inoculations, other than legally mandatory ones. This drug evasion only changed when COVID-19 inoculations were insisted on before joining booked oceanic cruises or obtaining travel insurance for them.
The evolution of all animal life takes place extremely slowly, taking many hundreds of millions of years for any significant changes to take place, as you can see by comparing statues of Romans carved 2,000 years ago with how we look today, proving that there are no obvious evolutionary changes in merely 2,000 years. However, moving from not having an afterlife to having one is an abrupt step change. There are three possibilities:
The First possibility is that we are the only species with an afterlife.
Our evolution from our very early ancestors, long before even Neanderthals, took place exceedingly slowly, taking many thousands of millions of years. The problem is that if our very early ancestors had no afterlife, but we now do, then an abrupt step change must have taken place to suddenly create an afterlife. Did it take place at the same instant in time for all members of the evolving species? When did it take place? Why did it take place? How did it take place? How did it know which evolving species to choose? Who or what had the power to enforce it?
The Second possibility is that we are not the only species with an afterlife.
If we are not the only species with an afterlife, what other species have them? Apes? Gorillas? Monkeys? Tigers? Cattle? Cats? Snakes? Garden Slugs?
The Third possibility is that there is no afterlife.
Since the first two of these three possibilities do not stand up to close examination, the existence of an afterlife is surely just wishful thinking, promoted by religions out of necessity to ensure their survival and success.
What is claimed for an afterlife has varied through the centuries. In most doctrines, it is delightfully vague, since nobody knows anything about what 'life' is like in the 'afterlife', (which is a grammatical contradiction, anyway). The most colourful version is probably the Viking’s Valhalla, upon which Richard Wagner’s operatic ‘Ring Cycle’ of the following four operas are based: “Das Rheingold”, “Die Walküre”, “Siegfried”, and “Götterdämmerung”.
Up to the instant you die you are generally unaware that you are about to die.
Unless someone can positively prove otherwise, (which is impossible), the instant you die you are unaware that you have died, since there is no longer anything in existence that is capable of knowing anything; no afterlife and therefore no existing soul, spirit, or mentality, nothing capable of knowing anything. No afterlife!
This obviously means that death is not to be feared on any grounds, since the deceased no longer mentally exists to know that it has happened. Once life is no longer worth living, it should therefore be made legally possible to charitably terminate it, to draw pain and misery to a close. Please reflect on this obvious truism. Those enduring terminal misery in care homes would most certainly benefit.
It also means that the only reasons to attend a funeral are either political or to support any of your personal friends who are the bereaved close relatives of the deceased. But surely, it also challenges the need for a funeral at all, and graveyards serve no practical purpose.
If there was indeed a God with the very considerable power needed to have created Planet Earth, Homo Sapiens, all plant and animal life and our global environment, then God would certainly possess the very much lesser power needed to prevent warfare and planetary destruction due to global warming and climate change. Religions only address the way we think about these serious issues, (which is irrelevant), they have never been able to address the issues themselves, (which is what we need). What does prayer achieve? Anything? What does an "all-knowing" God need to be told?
You undoubtedly cannot accept these conclusions. The challenge you need to address is explaining (and proving) where a flaw exists in the above chain of logical arguments. Over to you.
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