Aristotle has a monist approach to the soul, unlike Plato he says that the soul cannot exist without the body. The soul is not a body but something that belongs in a body, comparable to the brain; it is necessary and is within all humans and it gives us reason, intellect and an innate sense of justice. This therefore can make his theory more convincing than Plato’s as the soul isn’t ‘immortal’ and dies along with the body, thereby eliminating the theory of reincarnation which is hard for anyone who isn’t Hindu to believe as it is contradictory to their religious views. Aristotle states that all reason is associated with the pure thought of the Prime Mover and the soul is what gives the body its shape and form; he argued that the soul is not a substance but the reason and shape behind the matter. Best described by using the example of a marble statue, as the marble stature is essentially a block of marble but it has a shape and form and like the body the soul, the shape and form cannot be removed from what the statue is, in the same way the body cannot be separated from the soul.
A strength of his argument is that it allows for mental continuity between life and the afterlife because the soul as well as the body interacts with the brain. Many people accept this view because they like the idea that you are aware of yourself in the afterlife even without your body. However Gilbert Ryle rejects Descartes’ theory, as he believes that the workings of the mind are not distinct from the workings of the body, known as a category error. He argues that people lose the concept of the soul for example asking where the spirit was in a cricket game, as if it was a material object. With that said it can be argued that this is not true because a large amount of people know that the soul is immaterial rather than a contingent object.
Critically assess Dawkins’ claim that since life is no more than DNA reproducing itself, there can be no life after death. Richard Dawkins strongly rejects the notion that there is a life after death, and similarly that humans have no ‘soul’ – as in the traditional sense of a soul being a spiritual object which is distinct from our bodies. He argues that we are purely a product of our own genes, and all that our genes are concerned about is surviving and reproducing, meaning that we are no different from a plant or an animal. Personally, in my opinion, it seems realistic that Dawkins’ claim is true, because of the evidence of neuroscience, as well as the fact that it provides the most scientific explanation. Those that would argue against Dawkins’ ideas may consider themselves dualists; the most famous dualist would be Plato.
Therefore, which of these two concepts is more logically coherent? Some would say that reincarnation is entirely more logical than resurrection. As Descartes suggests, if body and soul divide into two categories the body is admittedly perishable and this idea is therefore constant as we have evidence that corpses remain on earth. The possibility of a separate soul is also plausible and difficult to dispute therefore the soul is constant and as Plato suggests a direct link to the form of life, suggesting that the soul must live eternally in some form, as it is unable to die. This is more possible than the idea of resurrection because the souls is not dependent on the body, the theory of reincarnation is logical in saying that the soul passes consistently through this world, entering a different flesh form.
Swinburne counted this by claiming that the order in the universe does require an explanation. As some is not even necessary for human survival. Just because we are there to observe it does not make it less unlikely. However Charles Darwin formulated the theory of natural selection which provided an alternative explanation for the design of the world, without reference to creation by God. ‘Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for this existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind’ Richard Dawkins supports Darwinian evolution and rejects God.
Hence why, natural laws such as gravity and motion assist in forming the basis for the cause and effect that fills the discussion of hard determinism. However, James Lovelock argued that according to GAIA theory the world changes, adapts and amends itself in order to survive and the human race is of little significance. Humans do not control nature, nature is in control. Philosophical determinism, like all forms of hard determinism, is based on the theory of Universal Causation. This is the belief that everything in the universe including all human actions and choices has a cause.
“The British socail anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer and the French historian Phillippe Aries are recognised as early proponents of the idea of the existence of death-denying societies” (Walter, 1991). With the help of Medicine Death is no longer a daily encounter for most on a personal level because of this it can be seen that some may want to aovid the subject at all costs. Death is not very much present today. “If the bereaved person finds others embarrassed, crossing to the other side of the street, I suspect it is not so much because they dare not, cannot, confront death, but because they have had little practice at it, do not know what to do, are scared of saying the wrong thing”. (Walter, 1990, p.33).
Dawkins is a materialist, and a monist, meaning that he believes that the soul and the body are inseparable entities. . This would put him in agreement with the statement that death is no more than wishful thinking, because we cannot physically prove it, and because he believes that the soul cannot be separated from the body. This would slightly point towards him believing that there is no life after death, however he does believe in the concept of us carrying on our lives through children, memories, photos, and such like. Dawkins pokes holes in the Christian argument for the concept of afterlife, because there is little mention of life after death in the Old Testament of the bible.
The fact that religion and philosophy are distinct does not mean that they are entirely separate, because they both address many of the same issues. The questions discussed in both religion and philosophy tends to be very much alike, which is why there has always been an ongoing dispute as to whether Daoism is a philosophy or
)ﻌReviving Religion) ﻌThomas Paine promoted the doctrines of Deism. Deists relied on science rather than the Bible and they denied the divinity of Christ. They did believe in a Supreme Being who had created a universe and endowed human beings with a capacity for moral behavior. ﻌUnitarianism spun off of Deism. Unitarians believed that God existed in only one person.