LIFE AFTER DEATH
LIFE AFTER DEATH
Name of the student
Institution
Report submitted to:
Name of instructor
University Name
Date
Executive summary
Death is one of the most mysterious things that different people in the world believe in differently. The main reason for the mystery is the fact that no one has ever experienced death and had a chance to come back and explain the experience to people who have not yet experienced it. Different people have put across different arguments about the mystery surrounding death. However, one thing is clear to all people; that death means loss of life to the body. The body remains on earth but is helpless and of no use without life. However the main disparity comes on the destination of the soul that is the life of a human being that departs from his body when he dies. Some believe that one’s soul dies with the body while the rest believes of continued existence of the soul even after the death of the body. This report tries to unravel this mystery that death carries and about whether the soul exists or dies after a person has died.
Table of Contents
Title Page1
Executive summary2
Table of contents3
Introduction4
Death of the body4
Believers in faith and reincarnation …4
Proof of life after death……………………………………………………………………..…5
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….7
INTRODUCTION
The existences of many near death experiences and natural knowledge during birth which include common sense provide a convincing proof of life after death through human to human reincarnation. Although immortality of the soul cannot be proved to be true, it is far beyond the common truth that the soul of a human being must have existed before his existence in the physical form. This pre-existence of the soul can be translated to show that even after death, it continues to exist waiting to be transferred to the next person.
DEATH OF THE BODY
It is clear that there is a supernatural power that overlooks the human race. This is because of the balance between the deaths and births in the human race. This makes humans more of custodians of their soul while the invisible controller of them is the actual owner of the soul. However the body is more of human property since it is not useful after the soul has been taken away. Death of a human being does not mean death of a soul or something that is out of control to the gods watching over the humans, it simply means that the soul of one human has been taken and is being prepared for the next person. Due to the fact that the gods take a soul of a man only when they think it’s appropriate makes it an unrealistic thing to do for one to take his or her own life before the next recipient is prepared to receive the soul.
However, there is clear death of the body. The body dies and is left helpless without the soul, at least this can be confirmed from the physical form of death of the body
BELEIVERS IN FAITH AND REINCARNATION
Believers in faith and reincarnation never fear death. This is because all their life they do not gain pleasure over material and bodily things (Gallop, et. al 1996). They believe that in life, one cannot acquire all the answers he or she needs and hence death is the ultimate answer to all their questions. They anticipate death since they know that after death many of their questions will be answered. This is because during the transition, the soul will pass through stages of which it will end up being more understanding. They believe that it is only after death that they will come back as new humans who will be more knowledgeable and who will be able to tackle life with ease.
Despite the belief of soul continued existence even after person’s death, the challenging part is to prove one’s soul continued possession of knowledge even after death (Irvine et. al 2008). This is one of the facts that challenge the theory by that those who are born should possess the exact same knowledge that the predecessors possessed. This is however explained by the cyclical argument in Phaedo by Plato (70c-72e) where he explains that after death, things come in the opposite states, those who are bright and knowledgeable in the present life will come back as humans but in opposite form where they will be less knowledgeable. This is to balance the state to ensure that extreme conditions of either positive or negative forms do not occur. This is also supported by the fact that being alive and death are two opposite states. The two must happen for there to be a balance in human life. This further supports that the soul of the dead are given to those who are born.
PROOF OF LIFE AFTER DEATH
The argument from recollection acts as a proof of continued existence even after death. The argument brings out clearly that one can recollect answers to questions they did not have answers before they were asked. The one asking the question does not expect that on average the respondent could be having any information or idea about the answer but surprisingly they answer it. This occurs when a person see or hears a thing that is not necessarily something that he or she has perfect knowledge of, but which he or she could have some slight knowledge of a related topic(Gertz et. al 2011). Since there is no proof of prior knowledge of the same, it is assumed that the knowledge was acquired by the soul from past experience. Also the fact that things which appear equal are not uniform in quality gives a rough idea about prior knowledge. The fact that one can think of them being equal shows one is recollecting. Since there was no source of this knowledge, it might be termed as general but still the problem of general knowledge comes to existence. This means that general knowledge was acquired before one was born and hence this provides a more tangible proof that our souls actually existed long before we were born. The fact that they existed before we were born gives a general perception that if they existed before us then it is reasonable to conclude that even after our death, our souls will continue to exist.
Soul does not exist in a physical form. This is because soul comprehends things which exist but are not seen. Since the soul deals with greater things that our body can’t see, it means that the soul must be in the same form as these immaterial things. Since these things continue to exist even after death, the soul must also continue to exist the same way. This is directly opposite to the body which only deals with physical things. After death, the physical things cease to exist and so does the body. This shows that the body dies but the soul continue to exist.
There is also a possibility of a man to animal reincarnation. This only happens to the weak and impure souls. The invisible gods cannot let the wicked soul get back into human soul and hence most likely the souls of those people will become donkeys or similar animals. This is also a proof of life after death although in a different form. The soul which is divine and has been purified will make its way to the divine when it is separated from the body by death, Plato Phaedo (69e-84b)
Lack of connection between the body and the soul is another supporting evidence of a possibility of life after death. The independence of the two simply shows that each pre-existed on its own. Although the body without a soul would be dead, it is evident that even after a soul departs from a body after death, the body continues to exist although with no life. This means that the two can exist without each other though the body would have no life but the soul can stay on its own after departing from a dead body waiting to be assigned to the next person.
Conflicting body and soul is another proof of dissimilar source of the two. Mostly there will be a supremacy battle between the body and the soul in a living human being. Mostly the soul and the body are out of tune. The soul tries to rule over all components of the body dictating to them what to do which continues mostly all through a person’s life. The soul will inflict harsh and painful punishments to those body parts which go against it and the body will be subjected to fear and intimidation. This is clear on instances where people try to beat their breast to cool down their hearts and strengthen the heart to endure whatever they are going through. If both soul and the body had the same origin, this conflict would not exist since it mostly hurts the body showing there is variation between the two.
Continued existence of the soul even after body death cannot be convincing on itself. The storage place of the soul after a person dies up until judgment for religion believers and carnation for passage of soul believers leaves a vacuum on both the beliefs (Phaedo 1966). This is only solved by both believes admitting that there exist a supreme being who controls the existence of the soul even after death. They believe that there exists God who controls the souls of the dead. Religious believers believe that God holds the soul of the individuals before judgment while those who believe in carnation argue that God holds the souls of the dead before they are given to newborn people. This act as a proof on both sides that soul exists even after death although the body might be dead.
The uniform belief across all religions of life after death is also convincing of existence of life after death. Different religions believe that there is existence of life after death where souls will go to different places. Although most religions do not believe in reincarnation, they believe in resurrection of the soul after which the souls will have to get their judgment from a single supreme being. This is considered reasonable since it provides a basis to believe in punishment of the wicked souls here on earth and also rewarding of those who lead a righteous life. If there existed no life after death, it would mean that the wicked would get away with their wrongs while the righteous lead a holy-harsh life just for the sake.
This argument about life after death is however limited to human beings. There has been no proof of animals and other living things existing after death. However, there are religions which believe on a swap between human beings and animals. They believe that those who are wicked when they die they come back to life as animals with bad character such as hyena or snakes and those who lead a righteous life come back to earth as gentle animals such as doves. This has however yet to be proven to be true.
The theory of continued existence through carnation has however been challenged by the fact that each person soul must pass through judgment whether it was wicked or righteous. If the soul is continuously passed to next person, it means that one’s wrongs which he or she does will not be accounted for after death. This would beat logic as to why people would struggle to lead a righteous life if they know all will be lost after their death.CONCLUSION
In conclusion, there is enough evidence to show existence of life after death in human beings. This is because there has been no clear explanation to explain where the souls could probably go in case there was no life after death. However the theory is only limited to human beings as inclusion of animals would mean there is a swap of souls between human beings and animals. A swap of souls between the two would justify wrong-doings of people in life with claim that they came from animals.
References
Gallop, David 1996, Introduction Phaedo, Oxford, IN Oxford University Press.
Irvine, Andrew David 2008, Socrates on trial, Toronto, IN University of Toronto Press.
Gertz, Sebastian R. P 2011, Death and Immortality in Late Neoplatonism, Leiden, IN Brill.
Plato, Phaedo, Plato 1966 Plato in Twelve Volumes, London IN Harvard University Press
