The LIE Well, a lie is a KNOWN untruth, so if X is FALSE but someone BELIEVES that X is TRUE and TELLS you it is true then it is not a lie? The problem arises when X really IS FALSE but someone believes so strongly that X is TRUE that they will try to FORCE you to ALSO believe that X is TRUE - instead of letting you make up your OWN mind. In THIS if nothing else, Christianity is no different from ISLAM. This is of course what happens in many religions. Muslims are in general totally and completely convinced that Muhammed really DID have a visit from "GOD" on a mountain and that "Allah" really HAS commanded them to spread belief in him over the entire world - by brutal force, murder, rape and enslavement if necessary. In past centuries people calling themselves Christians believed so totally in their "GOD" that they ALSO felt entitled to murder anyone who denied him. So Christianity and ISLAM are as bad as each other? NO, THEy ARE NOT. The difference between Christianity and ISLAM is that the representative of the latter's "GOD" really DID command disciples to murder, rape and enslave "infidels", whereas the messenger of Chistianity's "GOD" did NOT command that but instead told his followers to "love thy neighbour as thyself". Those who burned witches and "heretics" for denying Christianity were NOT following the command of Jesus, whereas those who did likewise for ISLAM WERE doing EXACTLY what Muhammed (and therefore Allah) commanded them to. But unfortunately there WAS an UNTRUTH if not LIE at the heart of WHS - that there is a GOD. There is, sadly, no evidence whatsoever that would stand up in court of WHY then was "Nisi Dominus Vanum" the school motto? We can no longer ask John Smitherman, but in general, the reason for anyone believing in "God" is very sad. FACT: EVERYTHING LIVING DIES. We know this from a young age. Having a pet as a child is a good way to understand and perhaps accommodate oneself to the concept of death. But there is no getting away from it: though Death is 100% NORMAL it is still HORRIBLE - both in thought and fact. One understands and even "accepts" this but that does not change the fact that WE WOULD PREFER IT OTHERWISE: not perhaps even principally for ourselves but for loved ones, and even those one never knew but "loved" nonetheless, and whose death brings sadness. I have a long list of people whose death many centuries ago and/or whom I never knew personally saddens me. EUPHEMISMS? These PROVE that we find death horrible. In social media and elsewhere one usually sees references to people "passing", not dying. "Passing" somehow seems softer, as if they pass to somewhere else. But they do NOT. They no longer exist. They can only "pass" into the ground and rot - or be incinerated into ashes and kept on the mantlepiece or thrown into the sea or air. Then of course is often written "R.I.P"., but in truth those who die are not resting: they simply cease to exist. A belief in a God avoids the need to face the existentialist facts. Some faiths are so dominant that they eliminate the need to think about death completely - or EVEN how to think about leading one's life. ISLAM, for example, prescribes the entire way of life that a devotee must follow. Any FEAR of death is thus totally avoided. In theory there is no HARM in this if it brings spiritual tranquillity, but it all depends on the nature of the CREED that is followed. The messages of Jesus Christ and Muhammed are complete opposites for start. The Amish so beautifully portrayed in "Witness" believe totally in "God", but their communities and way of life are full of peace and community spirit - certainly compared to many other societies and religions. ANIMALS are interesting. Some mammals share over 90% of the DNA of humans. Do THEY go to "Heaven" when they die? I think not, so why should humans? What is so special about us? What is staggering is the GALACTIC sum of misery that religion has caused: from sacrifice to an Aztec Sun God in South America to the burning of heretics at the stake by so-called Christians or the mass-murder of those refusing to convert to ISLAM. ALL BASED ON UTTER FANTASY and COWARDICE. COWARDICE? Yes, because it takes courage to accept that DEATH is the utter and final end of our existence, that there IS no afterlife, no SOUL. BELIEVING in the latter is a spiritual tranquillizer - but it is fundamentally dishonest. Nobody at WHS ever clearly talked about this. Jim Hyde once confided in me that he did not believe in God, but the consequences of that belief were left unsaid - perhaps they were obvious? But sometimes the obvious needs to be spelled out anyway, because what may be obvious to me may not be to you, and of course vice versa. "Do we survive death?" - Essay by Bertrand Russell (1936)
"All the evidence goes to show that what we regard as our mental life is bound up with brain structure and organized bodily energy. Therefore it is rational to suppose that mental life ceases when bodily life ceases. "All that constitutes a person is a series of experiences connected by memory and by certain similarities of the sort we call habit. If, therefore, we are to believe that a person survives death, we must believe that the memories and habits which constitute the person will continue to be exhibited in a new set of occurrences. No one can prove that this will not happen. But it is easy to see that it is very unlikely.
Our memories and habits are bound up with the structure of the brain, in much the same way in which a river is connected with the river-bed. The water in the river is always changing, but it keeps to the same course because previous rains have worn a channel. In like manner, previous events have worn a channel in the brain, and our thoughts flow along this channel. This is the cause of memory and mental habits. But the brain, as a structure, is dissolved at death, and memory therefore may be expected to be also dissolved. There is no more reason to think otherwise than to expect a river to persist in its old course after an earthquake has raised a mountain where a valley used to be.
Of this physical world, uninteresting in itself, Man is a part. His body, like other matter, is composed of electrons and protons, which, so far as we know, obey the same laws as those not forming part of animals or plants. There are some who maintain that physiology can never be reduced to physics, but their arguments are not very convincing and it seems prudent to suppose that they are mistaken.
What we call our ‘thoughts’ seem to depend upon the organisation of tracks in the brain in the same sort of way in which journeys depend upon roads and railways. The energy used in thinking seems to have a chemical origin; for instance, a deficiency of iodine will turn a clever man into an idiot. Mental phenomena seem to be bound up with material structure.
If this be so, we cannot suppose that a solitary electron or proton can ‘think’; we might as well expect a solitary individual to play a football match. We also cannot suppose that an individual’s thinking survives bodily death, since that destroys the organization of the brain, and dissipates the energy which utilized the brain tracks.
All the evidence goes to show that what we regard as our mental life is bound up with brain structure and organized bodily energy. Therefore it is rational to suppose that mental life ceases when bodily life ceases."
FOOTNOTE: The essay "Do We Survive Death?" by Bertrand Russell was published in 1936 in a book entitled "The Mysteries of Life and Death; Great Subjects Discussed by Great Authorities." The essays "What I Believe" (1925) and "Do We Survive Death?" (1936) along with the highly popular "Why I Am Not a Christian" (1927) rank for many as articulate examples of Russell's thoughts. The ideas contained within were and still often are, considered controversial, contentious and - to some of the religious - blasphemous.
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