Philosophy OF Death

[mal4mac]

I don't think the idea that we are 'reconstructed' is so daft.

Maybe 'daft' was a bit strong. It's quite a nice fantasy story, and Philip Jose Farmer has written it: "To your scattered Bodies Go", after John Donne:

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go.

But being sceptical, I'd need to see a convincing resurrection before I believe in life after death, or a convincing rebirth, or a convincing "spirit form", or whatever fantasy is the actuality, if any. Meanwhile I'll continue to "go by appearances", go by my "gut feeling", and be very happy in holding that I don't live after death.

[russellb]

if 500 hundred witnesses had seen a man walk about who had been known to have been executed that would be pretty convincing. The only problem with this account in the bible is that we can't be sure if there really were 500 people who saw a man walk round, apparently resurrected. This seems to relate to ideas as to whether we should believe in miracles. I think Hume said something, didn't he, to the effect that the amount of evidence required to be justified in believing in a miracle, would basically mean it reflected a law of nature and then, paradoxically, it could not be regarded as miraculous. As an afterthought they do say 'seeing is believing' perhaps a sceptic is just a person who hasn't been mugged by a dead person, or something like that...