Dinesh D'Souza on life after death

Dinesh appeared on IssuesEtc radio promoting his book on life after death. I’ll summarise his arguments and italicize my responses.

The commentator (Todd Wilken) asks Dinesh why he wants to make the case for life after death without appeal to Biblical truth or revelation. Dinesh responds that, as atheists do not accept the authority of the Bible, he intends to use their own weapons of reason and scepticism (and evidence and science) against them instead. This is the best way to empower believers and challenge atheists. This is an effective way to reach the seekers and fence sitters. Christians are intimidated by modern biology because atheists have been using evolution as a battering ram against Christianity. Believers’ sons and daughters, having been to college, come back and ask questions which their parents, who can cite only scripture, cannot necessarily engage.

Reason and scepticism are not weapons. They are valuable attributes of open and inquiring minds. Yes, they empower those who practise them, enabling them to distinguish between plausible assertions and silly ones. The more reason and scepticism the better. And if reason and scepticism lead to a credible case for life after death, supported by verifiable evidence, then so be it. No honest seeker of truth need be intimidated by modern biology. Rather, I hope they would be fascinated by it, whether they learned it from their college-educated children or not. Arguments based on authority alone need not be taken seriously. That remains true whether the authority is ancient scripture or more recent proselytizing from the likes of Dinesh.

The atheist has no evidence for his belief that there is no afterlife. Richard Dawkins’ statements show ‘craziness’. A Christian believes in life after death because of biblical revelation. The atheist laughs at this because the Christian has no evidence. He has interviewed no dead people and has not been to the ‘other side of the curtain’. There is some validity to that. But the atheist would declare his confidence that there is no life after death, which is why Richard Dawkins is willing to go to his death with the tape recorder on. However, the atheist does not know either. He has not interviewed any dead people and has not been to the other side of the curtain. What information does the atheist have that the religious believer doesn’t have? It turns out that he has none at all. So the atheist position, like the believer’s position, is a guess in the dark. Both are taking a faith-based position, but whereas the theist is honest enough to admit that his stance is based only on faith, the atheist deludes himself into thinking his position is based on reason.

Firstly you have misrepresented Richard Dawkins. He has said clearly that the purpose of the tape recorder will be to prevent rumours of a deathbed conversion to theism. This has nothing to do with life after death. There may be an automatic connection between theism and life after death in your mind, but there is none in Dawkins's (I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong). Dawkins is a clear, logical thinker. You, sir, appear to be neither.

Rather than asserting that there is no afterlife, the atheist has no reason to believe in an afterlife. Furthermore, neither does the Christian. Dinesh is right insofar as the Christian’s belief in an afterlife is based on faith. But the burden of proof lies with the one making the claim. Suppose you are called as a witness at the trial of a man you have never seen. Imagine that the prosecuting counsel challenges you to produce evidence that this man is innocent of a crime. Never having seen the man, and knowing nothing of his actions or whereabouts at the time of the alleged crime, you protest that you can provide no evidence at all. “Aha!” shouts the prosecutor. “As no evidence against the prosecution’s claim can be offered, we are entitled to assume him guilty if we so wish.” No court worth its salt would tolerate such nonsense, and neither will we tolerate it from you, Dinesh.

The belief in life after death is near-universal, in every culture. The west is the only civilization in which life after death is denied. The atheists cite Freud’s wish-fulfilment theory. We all want to survive death so we make up a wonderful life that never ends. This explains belief in heaven, but it does not explain belief in hell so it is a bad theory. No-one would come up with the idea of hell through wish fulfilment.

Freud was right. The wish for life after death is universally popular. Those who sought to wield power over others in this life concocted the vile fiction of hell to frighten people – especially children – into doing as they were told. This has led to untold fear and misery among those convinced that their friends and loved ones have been roasting away for years, but I am getting off the point. Your wish-fulfilment argument is spectacularly weak, Dinesh.

Near-death experiences first came out in the 1970s and were anecdotal and hard to take seriously. We, however, haven’t had a near death experience, and there are thirty years of data showing great similarity and uniformity. Everybody goes through a tunnel, sees a bright light, encounters a celestial being etc. Atheists dismiss this as a dream similar to that caused by hallucinogenic drugs, but if a hundred people took LSD they would have a hundred different dreams, not similar ones. Other atheists say this is the brain breaking down, but the problem is that a dying brain does not recover the ability to perceive clearly. Near death experiences are among the most vivid experiences people have ever had. The atheist explanation is dubious, and on balance near death experiences do suggest that consciousness might outlive death. If the atheist is correct, near death experiences that point to an afterlife should be very rare or completely impossible. Even if only one of them is valid it is showing that some form on consciousness does survive death, although it doesn’t say for how long. Near death experiences constitute valuable empirical evidence because those experiencing them have gone right to the edge.

Read the first sentence of the last paragraph again. 1970s? There are no documented near-death experiences before then? So all the ‘data’ are recent and probably hugely cross-contaminated. As for uniformity, if you randomly select pebbles from a beach and keep only the grey, rounded ones between 3cm and 4cm long, you will, amazingly, end up with a very uniform set of pebbles. The same will happen if you collect stories from people who recall near-death experiences and select them according to a strict set of criteria (light, tunnel, undefined being etc.). As for the vividness of the experience, it is only the memory that is vivid, and the memory may be completely false. It is well known that brains temporarily starved of oxygen undergo weird experiences, often with intensified sensory perception. Dinesh, you simply assert without evidence that near-death experiences point to an afterlife. Moreover, what has all this to do with atheism or theism? Even if you proved that consciousness survives death – which of course you have not proved at all – that does not prove the existence of a deity. You are multiplying assumptions based on nothing. Occam’s Razor, please.

The physical laws that govern the universe have recently been rewritten by science, and Christians should find this very thrilling. Physics 200 years ago would have had nothing to say about life after death because heaven is outside of space and time, and we will have incorruptible material bodies. 200 years ago the atheists would have said the universe extends infinitely so we cannot get outside it, and matter breaks down so resurrected incorruptible bodies are impossible. But now scientists talk routinely about multiple universes and multiple dimensions where different laws apply. Scientists speak of dark matter and dark energy which is unlike any matter or energy that we know about and is completely undetectable by any scientific instrument. The dark matter adds up to 95% of the universe. So we should say to the atheist, “Sorry, pal, the matter you know about is only 5%!”

Physics today, like that of 200 years ago, has nothing to say about life after death. You seem to be saying, “Hey, we know more than we did 200 years ago, so things that we still know nothing about are therefore more likely!” That is a non-sequitur. There is no connection between multiple dimensions and immaterial bodies that survive death. Your reference to dark matter doesn’t help either. You’re saying that we’re ignorant about most of the universe. That’s true, but it means you’re ignorant too. You can’t fence off an ‘unknown’ part of the universe and then start making a set of specific claims about it, viz. supernatural deity, heaven, afterlife, immaterial eternal bodies etc. Grow up, man. You’re like child in the playground shouting, “Can’t tag me; I’m on den, ner nerny ner ner!”

The modern atheist denies consciousness – they say that the entire repertoire of our mental life; all the immaterial things that we experience directly are nothing more than the firing of neurones in our brain. But if thoughts and consciousness were just firing neurones we should be able to scan the brain’s neurones and say what someone is thinking. This cannot be done; in fact a brain scan cannot reveal whether someone is conscious or not. The only way a neuroscientist can tell whether or not you are conscious is to ask you. The mind cannot be reduced to the brain because the mind is in the non-physical, immaterial realm whereas the brain is just the physical operation of atoms and molecules.

Dinesh, I am holding in my hand a deck of 52 cards. You are welcome to examine them. You can note the sequence of the cards; the orientation of the deck and the height from the floor. You can measure the air currents in the room, the frictional characteristics of the floor tiles, etc. All that information should enable you to predict exactly where each card will land; which way up, etc. What do you mean, the problem is too complicated? Don’t be silly. You have all the available data. All you have to do is analyze it. After all, decks of cards aren’t part of the non-physical, immaterial realm, are they? They’re just atoms and molecules, surely. OK, sarcasm mode off. The brain contains some 100 billion neurones, interconnected by a net of amazing complexity. The world’s population is currently a mere 6 or 7 billion. Noting the current position and actions of every citizen of the world is about 15 times less complex than noting the state of every neurone in a single brain. Do you see that the problem is simply one of complexity, to coin a phrase?

There is a point that the atheist brain has not conceived of. The atheist says that the mind and brain are exactly the same thing, but here is an example. Think of your mind as software and your brain as hardware. The software requires the hardware in order to run. But it does not follow that the hardware is the cause of the software, or that the two are identical. The brain could be a transmitter or receiver for the mind. You require a CD player to play music but the sound waves are not caused by the CD player. The body may die but the immaterial part of us may live on, even though here on Earth the two go together.

A child’s brain, let alone an atheist brain, could easily conceive of this amateur science fiction without really trying. But what reason do we have to suppose additional, unseen entities? Every human death has involved the brain ceasing to function. Thinking of the mind as a piece of software is a neat analogy but there is no evidence whatsoever that the software can exist without the hardware of the brain. The mind may live on, or it may disappear up the ring around Uranus. The evidence in favour of both contingencies – and infinite others – is equal, and zero.

The book Life After Death is a stunning confirmation of religious faith. Schopenhauer makes a claim about life after death that has never been refuted. Like the transition from the caterpillar to the butterfly, life after death is a factual question.

Yes, the question of life after death is a factual one. So is the question of life before birth. Your recollection of that is…?

We are like detectives who have come upon a crime scene with no witnesses. Each clue by itself does not make the case but all the arguments collectively constitute an overwhelming case. That is very good news for believers and for anyone truly open to the evidence.

Overwhelming case? Then why is life after death not an established fact taught in school science classes? Dinesh, there is no case at all. A few anecdotes, probably either fabricated or imagined, do not constitute a case. Don’t take my word for it. Take me to a law court and prove your overwhelming case.

Wilken: we have the testimony of Christ who experienced death for each and every one of us. Because death cannot hold him he returned victorious after three days, incorruptible and unable to be touched by death again. Because of his sacrifice for us, we too will be like him.

Todd, I hope that ‘us’ and ‘we’ refer only to a specific group of people whose permission you have already sought to be included in your statement. Don’t you dare include me in your obscene claims of vicarious redemption, through the scapegoat of a filthy human sacrifice, for crimes allegedly committed thousands of years before I was born. Keep your fantasy stories to yourself and other consenting adults. You may recognise Christopher Hitchens’ words in this paragraph. I cannot put it any better than he has.

Accommodationism is patronising, misleading and hypocritical

Michael Shermer seems a tad confused. At least, that's the impression some of his recent writings give me. He's confusing ideas with people. On the one hand, he presents science as a set of facts and explanations whose acceptance is essential to a true understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. On the other hand, he sees religious people as belonging to a 'type' whom we must not antagonise if we are successfully to spread the word.

Let's try reversing this asymmetry. What if scientists were to claim that their science is an indelible part of their make-up which must not be questioned lest they take offence and leave the room? Would theists start to accommodate science as a means of spreading their beliefs to a more sympathetic audience? How insufferably patronising that would be. If I felt I was being humoured by someone who thought my scientific world view was wrong but pretended to go along with it so that I'd go on listening, I'd be the first to head for the door.

Whether or not people believe in the fact of evolution depends on whether or not they are prepared to consider the evidence, which is available to anyone. Exactly the same applies to whether or not people believe in sky gods. People deserve courtesy and respect during discourse. Their crackpot beliefs deserve neither.

Christopher Hitchens has pointed out that belief in the supernatural is now optional, private and irrelevant. As far as I'm concerned, theists can believe whatever the hell they like as long as their beliefs adversely affect no-one but them. If it makes them feel better to imagine that they will survive death and be reunited with loved ones, let them believe that, provided their belief does not cause them to act in a way detrimental to others. But the moment they start to assert their beliefs, they must expect to have those assertions questioned. The onus is upon the assertor to substantiate his assertion or to stop making it. There is no reason whatever that we should tiptoe respectfully around ludicrous assertions based on no evidence at all.

Craven accommodationism, disguised as it may be behind the mask of well-intentioned liberalism, simply postpones the day when professed belief in god will attract the same well-deserved ridicule as professed belief that one is Napoleon.

Labelling children with the religion of their parents

Power to the new ad campaign, aimed at raising consciousness. Raising consciousness means making people aware of something they don't know they are doing, and should perhaps stop doing. It has long been unquestioned, automatic practice to label children at birth with the religion of their parents. Richard Dawkins has pointed out that this is just as inappropriate as labelling the children of sportspeople with their sport (e.g. a cricketing child, or a figure-skating child) or politican's children with their party (e.g. a Liberal Democrat child). In the last example it is clearly silly to attribute a complex socio-political ideology to a newborn infant. But why is it any more sensible, or desirable, to attribute a specific set of beliefs about the universe to someone not yet able to understand language?

This consciousness-raising will drag a whole host of issues into the public spotlight and facilitate a great deal of very valuable discourse. Assumptions that have remained unquestioned and unchallenged for far too long will be subjected to rational inquiry. Even theists like Jeremy Vine, Joanna Bogle and Ruth Gledhill, who miss the point entirely, raise related issues onto the stage of public awareness. For instance, it is obvious to any rational thinker that the principal reason for the survival throughout centuries of unsupported sky-god myths is that they are taught to children at an age when they are highly credulous. Although this point is not raised directly by the 'Don't label me' campaign, it is a closely related point and one that will surely arise many, many times. The assertions of different religions are incompatible with one another, and most religious adherents follow the same religion as their parents. Therefore, childhood labelling and childhood indoctrination ensure that the divisiveness of religious tribalism will persist down the generations. Moreover, the teachings of the world's major faiths cannot all be correct, so at least most of them must be wrong. This simple fact alone places an enormous responsibility on parents. Ought they to teach 'absolute truth' to their children, when they themselves cannot be sure that what they are teaching is absolutely true? And if they are sure, where does their faith fit in? It seems that faith develops later in life, following the inculcation of fixed ideas which are learned as undeniably true. Only later, when the growing child confronts doubt, does it learn to use the crutch of faith to shore up the rubbish it learned at its parents' knees.

My solution? Continued, rigorous questioning of the right to label children at birth, coupled with thorough education in comparative religion, whatever the denomination of the parents. Add plenty of encouragement to think rationally, and to question teachings that are based on assertion alone.

Here's to the future.

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Michael's R-useless outpourings

Michael Ruse has written this appalling piece of tripe on the Guardian 'Comment is Free' site. I think my response is a bit too wordy for the site so here it is on my blog.

‘Is there an atheist schism?’ asks Michael Ruse. I think the question as posed is meaningless. Is there an a-Zeusist schism? Have the non-followers of Quetzalcoatl split into multiple factions? Has there been a schism among those who doubt that vitamin supplements are good for you?

Michael Ruse opens by reminding us that he is a professional philosopher. I am a professional teacher but I don’t expect to begin each one of my lessons by stating same. I hope my daily work makes it obvious. But I can see why that’s not the case for Michael, having read his pitiable offering.

I absolutely and utterly believe that there is no god. That is the same as saying that I believe there is no god. It is the same as saying that I do not believe there is a god. However, were any credible evidence for god’s existence to come to light, I would be only too happy to change my stance.

Religion’s big problem is not that it is ‘evil and corrupting’, although much of the time it is both of those things. The major issue is that religion is all about spreading ideas that are patently false, and protecting those ideas by means of threats ranging from being offended to blowing up those who disagree with them.
Michael claims that religion motivated the abolitionists to oppose slavery. Yet slavery was abolished only a couple of hundred years ago, whereas Christianity claims to be twenty centuries old, and other religions are much older. Why did the divine message take so long to make a difference? Oh, I almost forgot – Michael is an atheist. How silly of me. He can see that the beliefs of the religious are false, but they can’t see that for themselves so let’s protect their belief system despite the complete lack of evidence in its favour. If this is not an insufferably arrogant and condescending stance, then arrogance and condescension have no place in reality.

The September 11th hijackers were almost exclusively Saudis, groomed and trained by Osama bin Laden. Michael, have you been to Saudi Arabia? I lived and worked in bin Laden’s home city for twelve years. Believe me, neither desperation nor poverty features large in the experience of the typical Saudi male aged 18 to 35. Five-times-daily indoctrination in the necessity of jihad, and the paradise that awaits the martyr, are right at the forefront of their consciousness, however. Put from your mind any picture of desperate, heroic young men seeking valiantly to redress the imbalance of western imperialism. Without their mediaeval belief system none of them would have been motivated to act as they did. My evidence? The complete absence of secular hijackers from among the nineteen, and the declamations of bin Laden himself in gloating over the attacks while describing the eternal virgin-soaked bliss which he believes his footsoldiers are now enjoying.

As for the Irish troubles, if all the children could have been Pied-Pipered away at the height of the conflict, and brought up free from sectarian labels, then old wounds would have likely been forgotten within a generation. Segregated schooling, according to parental religion, was largely responsible for dragging the troubles on and on and on.

If everything needs a cause, then so does god. If not, not, and uncaused things can happen. There is no profound truth here. There is no insight that requires years of study and meditation. The emperor’s equipment dangles freely in the wind. If god is necessarily uncaused, provide explanatory proof. Do not simply say that because some fools take silly things seriously the rest of us should too. Baseless twaddle is nothing but baseless twaddle.

Mary Midgley was either too lazy to read, or too stupid to understand, Dawkins’s point about selfish genes. Either way she was just plain wrong. Like Dawkins I would be indignant if I had written a carefully researched, ground breaking book, and had it dismissed by someone who clearly either hadn’t read it or hadn’t understood even the title.

If beliefs are wrong then they are wrong. It doesn’t matter how bright or how educated the holders are. Michael appears to be saying that wrong beliefs deserve respect simply because people hold them. That is utter rubbish. No belief deserves so much as an ounce of respect unless it can be defended on reasonable grounds. If someone wishes to believe fantastic things privately then so be it. The rest of us need never know. But as soon as those beliefs start affecting – or shortening – other people’s lives, they become public business, and open to public debate, no punches pulled.

The truth, Michael, is ever so simple. God very probably does not exist, and anyone who claims otherwise needs to back up their claim with evidence if they wish to be taken seriously. If you don’t like that, bad luck. Live with it.