I am the resurrection (1)

The greatest hope held out by most religions is the promise of eternal life, but before they can get to that point, they must first overcome the barrier called death. The most common solution settled on is resurrection.

Some ancient religions solved the problem through a belief in reincarnation
(re-incarnation, i.e. to "re-flesh"). This belief starts with the premise that there are two parts to a living being, namely the body, which is tangible, and consciousness which is intangible. Consciousness, according to this belief, is eternal, and merely occupies the material body for a relatively brief time. When that body dies, consciousness must seek another one.

Some religions, such as Hinduism, attribute a moral dimension to this journey of consciousness. Consciousness is seen as something which is aware of its own existence, and which is actually travelling on a path back to its origin in the divine. In order the complete this journey, consciousness, usually referred to as the soul, must undergo certain learning experiences within the material body. When all of these lessons have been learnt, the soul will once again achieve union with the divine, but until then, it must pass through a successive series of "lives" within various bodies.

Consciousness, or the soul, may be described as "that which looks through one's eyes". It is easy to see why early humans would conclude that consciousness must be something separate from the body. Consider a living woman and a recently deceased woman. There are certain similarities between the two - both have bodies, for example - but there is one fundamental difference between the living and the dead - the dead lack what may be called life-force, that is they lack consciousness. Where did it go?

Similarly, you could probably construct some form of body by using basic elements such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, along with the other trace elements found in all living organisms, but it is highly unlikely that the "thing" will then get up and look around. That type of outcome still only happens in science fiction. So, what is this life-force that so many ancient myths say is the final ingredient in the creation of life? Where can we get some of this "breath of life" so that we can make some living things?

Some scientists and atheists believe that it is only a matter of time before life can be created by humans. They believe that consciousness is simply the sum total of all of the chemical processes going on in the brain and central nervous system. Perhaps, but that still does not tell us what causes these processes to amount to self-awareness. One thing is for certain, though - the day that we succeed in synthesising life, there will no longer be any reason to believe in the existence of a divine being (or aliens, or whatever).

Anyway, back to the world of facts. Let us concede that this mysterious thing which we call consciousness struck our ancestors as being something distinct from the material world. How do we get from this point to the belief that consciousness continues to exist after the body has ceased to function?

The primary reason is our desire to live for ever. Most of us do not want to die. We want to continue living, and living, and living. We have one more game to play; we want to see our children's children grow up. We want to spend one more day with our loved one. Unless we have come to the stage where we are in severe pain, whether physical or mental, death is not a part of our plans. In fact, death is the main barrier to our plans. If only we could find a way to avoid death...but what if we could?

The next logical step, at least to my mind, is to believe that consciousness does not die when the body dies. After all, it cannot be seen, touched, nor understood, so who is to deny this possibility? We in our own time are aware of the deep impression which the memory of a recently lost loved one can have on us when we sit in their old room, or smell the same brand of perfume which that person used, or suddenly happen upon an old diary or album of theirs. Nowadays, we are a bit better informed, but for early man, experiences akin to these probably gave rise to the belief that the deceased still remained alive in some form. No wonder we have over the centuries developed such a fear of the dead.

We know that we will all die at some point, but the desire to live is so strong within our species - perhaps we should call it the desire to survive - that at some time in our past, the idea arose that there was no logical reason why we should not continue to live on. This conviction would have been reinforced by the strong belief that the our deceased loved ones seemed to leave some part of their being behind.

We now have the two halves to the solution. Early humans, faced with the instinctive desire to survive and convinced in their own minds that something or the other survived after the death of a loved one, arrived at the conclusion that some invisible aspect of the deceased survived the cessation of physical existence. This offered hope that everyone would undergo the same metamorphosis.

One would expect then that there would be some speculation as to the nature of those who had undergone this change. Where do they live? What do they do? Are they a threat to the rest of us, and if so, can we do anything to protect ourselves from them? What kind of powers do they have? Perhaps they can assume another body - maybe another species, maybe a newborn human. Along some such lines would have gone the early speculations about the nature of the soul. There is no need to rehash here the argument that the worship of many of the gods of various ethnic groups seems to have evolved from the worship of the spirits of deceased ancestors, except to say that what we have been reviewing here is not a new theory.

None of the above really explains a belief in resurrection. We have attempted to account for a belief in a soul, a belief in the possibility of the survival of the soul after the death of the body, and a belief in the possibility that the soul may occupy another body. to account for a belief in resurrection, we need to embark on yet another journey.

Honesty - it's such a lonely word

Hello, everyone! welcome to the Barbados Agnostic Society. Join us if

• You are an intellectually honest individual who is not satisfied with what so many "faith-based" organisations are passing off as "truth";


• You want to know more about the world in which you live;


• You are curious as to what exactly is an "agnostic".

The term "agnostic" was apparently coined by the famous scientist Thomas H Huxley during the 19th century. If we could draw a line graph to represent agnosticism on an imaginary line, it would look something like this:

ATHEIST______AGNOSTIC____DEIST_____LIBERAL THEIST_____FUNDAMENTALIST

Lets look at each one in turn.

An atheist says that there is no divine being. An atheist is really a materalist. A materialist holds that only what can be detected by the senses is real. Everything else is imaginary. For an atheist, the question "is there a God?" can only be answered in the negative. There is one thing on which all honest persons agree, irrespective of the philosophy which they hold - there is simply no empirical evidence for the existence of a divine being. The existence of God cannot be verified through experiment nor by observation.

Thus, for the atheist, there cannot be anything else out there beyond that which we can see, feel, smell, hear or touch.

Recently, we have seen the rise of what may be termed "militant atheism" in which atheists, via websites or other means set out to advocate their point of view. Many of us may have heard of the "There is probably no God..." bus ad campaign which has drawn the ire of several believers worldwide. Atheists argue, in response, that they are simply doing what some religious followers have been doing for centuries - proselytising - and that is surely their right.

We will skip "agnostic" for now and go on to Deist.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia) defines Deism as follows:

"Deism is a philosophical belief in the existence of a God on the basis of reason, and observation of the natural world alone. Deists generally reject the notion of supernatural revelation as a basis of truth and religious dogma. These views contrast with the dependence on divine revelation found in many Christian,[1] Islamic and Judaic teachings.

"Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God (or "The Supreme Architect") has a plan for the universe which that Architect does not alter either by intervening in the affairs of human life or suspending the natural laws of the universe. What organized religions see as divine revelation and holy books, most deists see as interpretations made by other humans, rather than as authoritative sources."

A Theist, on the other hand, according to Wikipedia, is as follows:

"Theism in the broadest sense is the belief in at least one deity.[1][2] In a more specific sense, theism refers to a particular doctrine concerning the nature of God and his relationship to the universe.[3] Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal and active in the governance and organization of the world and the universe. The use of the word theism as indicating a particular doctrine of monotheism arose in the wake of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to contrast with the then emerging deism which contended that God — though transcendent and supreme — did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.[4]"

Theism is a very broad term which would include all of those who believe in the existence of a god or gods and who also believe, unlike Deists, that the divine reveals itself to humanity through inspiration. This revelation is of knowledge which could not otherwise be obtained by the use of human reason alone. The revelation might come through prophetic utterances, which may or may not be written down, or it might come through a theophany, i.e. a dramatic inruption of the divine into the human realm, for example, in the form of an incarnation or an otherwise natural event which then takes on a new meaning (maybe a volcanic eruption).

The difference between liberal theism and fundamentalist theism relates to the extent to which the individual applies reason to belief in revelation. The more liberal-leaning a theist is, the more likely he or she is to balance reason with belief. The more fundamentalist-leaning a theist is, the less likely he or she is to apply reason to his or her belief. For the extreme fundamentalist, revelation, as interpreted by the leaders of that particular group, is supreme; to the extent that that person will reject any evidence which conflicts with his or her belief structure, no matter how sound that evidence is.

There is obviously a blurred division, if any, between the liberal theist, the deist, and the agnostic. All three, certainly, are willing to use reason in their deliberations. Perhaps the real threat to rational debate between persons of differing belief structures lies at the two extremes of atheist and fundamentalist theist. These two groups spend so much time screaming at each other that the more level-headed among us cannot be heard. We know that fundamentalist theists are fond of calling everybody else atheist, while the atheists have sometimes been known to paint deists, agnostics and liberal theists with the same brush.

Oftentimes, both atheists and fundamentalist theists have been guilty of the same error: oversimplifying the issues. Both groups also have a tendency to appeal more to emotion than reason. It might sound strange to hear someone accuse an atheist of appealing to emotion, but one only has to sample a large number of atheist websites to recognise that this is the case.

Lets examine how both atheists and fundamentalist theists miss the mark.

• They both attempt to hold others who may not share their point of view up to ridicule. Logic 101: ad hominem is not only a no-no, it is also a sign of an attemt to cover up a poorly constructed argument.
• They both ignore the basic rule of natural justice which says "hear the other side" and spend a lot of time attempting to rebut that of which they do not know.
• They both resort to false absolutes such as "there is no God", or "There is a God".
• They are both convinced that they have the final word on this or that issue, or that this issue was settled long ago by "Dr. so-and-so".

Fundamentalism by any other name is still fundamentalism. It is extremely difficult to have a rational debate with an extremist, whether he or she sits on the intellectual right or the intellectual left.

So what do agnostics propose?

• First, we must accept the fact that human knowledge, while increasing exponentially, is not absolute. Thus, we cannot claim to know everything absolutely. We can claim to know everything about some things, and we can claim to know some thing about everything, but to claim that we know everything about everything would be a false absolute.
• Once we recognise this simple fact, then we would be open to dialogue with other people who do not necessarily share our point of view, but who have something to add to the debate.
• We must recognise that when dialogue ceases, the growth of knowledge ceases. If we are honest in our commitment to the growth of knowledge, then we cannot assume fundamentalist positions and assume that we know all there is to know.

From time to time, as time permits, we will share our experiences with you, and we invite you to share yours with us. The purpose of this blog is to open a dialogue among all persons who want to learn and grow as our race ages, recognising that it is quite possible to age without either learning nor growing.