Things Christians say, part 30: Life after death

A weekly series of responses to the things Christians say to atheists, based on the video reproduced here on 30th January 2012.  The aim is to tackle one every weekend, to give both a moderate, polite response to each question ('Piano'), followed by a more forceful rebuttal of the same question ('Forte'). 

I can't stand the idea of there being no life after death. That's why I believe in god.

Piano

The idea of life after death is one that seems common in most cultures.  Some would claim that this observation reinforces the evidence that it is true.

The main flaw with this argument is that there really is no evidence for the claim at all, so reinforcing nothing gives you the same amount of nothing.

If your faith is mainly based on this then it is fragile indeed.

***

Forte

Just because you would like to believe something comforting, it does not make that something true.  Life after death is something that we can never disprove.  All sorts of urban myths about near death experiences fuel the fire, but there are good neurological explanations for the common experiences now, and they seem far more believable than the idea that the soul can somehow survive without a brain.

Honestly!  Just because ancient peasants who knew virtually nothing about the explanation of the world around them wished to have an afterlife, why should anyone think it is true now?

In fact, I'm developing an idea that the only true atheists are the ones who do not expect to survive their own deaths, and in a day or two I will expand on the idea and link it from here.


Last week:  Why do you hate god?

Next week:   To be an atheist you would have to go everywhere in the universe and search for god and not find him to really be sure that there is no god.