Death and the Afterlife

Death and the Afterlife
Author: Clifford A. Pickover
Publisher: Union Square + ORM
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2015-10-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 145491727X

The acclaimed science author’s illustrated exploration of death from ancient burial practices to the latest theories of immortality, resurrection and more. Throughout history, the nature and mystery of death has captivated artists, scientists, philosophers, physicians, and theologians. This eerie chronology ventures right to the borderlines of science and sheds light into the darkness. Here, topics as wide ranging as the Maya death gods, golems, and séances sit side by side with entries on zombies and quantum immortality. With the turn of every page, readers will encounter beautiful artwork, along with unexpected insights about death and what may lie beyond.

Death and the Afterlife

Death and the Afterlife
Author: Samuel Scheffler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2013-09-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019998252X

Suppose you knew that, though you yourself would live your life to its natural end, the earth and all its inhabitants would be destroyed thirty days after your death. To what extent would you remain committed to your current projects and plans? Would scientists still search for a cure for cancer? Would couples still want children? In Death and the Afterlife, philosopher Samuel Scheffler poses this thought experiment in order to show that the continued life of the human race after our deaths--the "afterlife" of the title--matters to us to an astonishing and previously neglected degree. Indeed, Scheffler shows that, in certain important respects, the future existence of people who are as yet unborn matters more to us than our own continued existence and the continued existence of those we love. Without the expectation that humanity has a future, many of the things that now matter to us would cease to do so. By contrast, the prospect of our own deaths does little to undermine our confidence in the value of our activities. Despite the terror we may feel when contemplating our deaths, the prospect of humanity's imminent extinction would pose a far greater threat to our ability to lead lives of wholehearted engagement. Scheffler further demonstrates that, although we are not unreasonable to fear death, personal immortality, like the imminent extinction of humanity, would also undermine our confidence in the values we hold dear. His arresting conclusion is that, in order for us to lead value-laden lives, what is necessary is that we ourselves should die and that others should live. Death and the Afterlife concludes with commentary by four distinguished philosophers--Harry Frankfurt, Niko Kolodny, Seana Shiffrin, and Susan Wolf--who discuss Scheffler's ideas with insight and imagination. Scheffler adds a final reply.

Life After Death

Life After Death
Author: Farnaz Masumian
Publisher: Oneworld Publications Limited
Total Pages: 153
Release: 1995
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781851680740

This volume looks in detail at the life-after-death doctrines of seven world religions and asks many questions such as: are there important parallels between the many accounts of near-death experiences, and what happens to us when we actually die?; is there a part of us that conquers death?; If so, will that entity have a personal or universal encounter with it's creator at some point? The author draws out many corresponding features in reported near-death experiences, and demonstrates the unity of all religions in their approach to death and the afterlife.

Death and Afterlife

Death and Afterlife
Author: Hiroshi Obayashi
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 246
Release: 1992
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN:

Examines the subject of death and immortality in Africa, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece. Also from the point of view of the Old Testament, New Testament, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Tibetan Trantric and Chinese religions.

Life After Death

Life After Death
Author: Alan Segal
Publisher: Image
Total Pages: 882
Release: 2010-06-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307874737

A magisterial work of social history, Life After Death illuminates the many different ways ancient civilizations grappled with the question of what exactly happens to us after we die. In a masterful exploration of how Western civilizations have defined the afterlife, Alan F. Segal weaves together biblical and literary scholarship, sociology, history, and philosophy. A renowned scholar, Segal examines the maps of the afterlife found in Western religious texts and reveals not only what various cultures believed but how their notions reflected their societies’ realities and ideals, and why those beliefs changed over time. He maintains that the afterlife is the mirror in which a society arranges its concept of the self. The composition process for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam begins in grief and ends in the victory of the self over death. Arguing that in every religious tradition the afterlife represents the ultimate reward for the good, Segal combines historical and anthropological data with insights gleaned from religious and philosophical writings to explain the following mysteries: why the Egyptians insisted on an afterlife in heaven, while the body was embalmed in a tomb on earth; why the Babylonians viewed the dead as living in underground prisons; why the Hebrews remained silent about life after death during the period of the First Temple, yet embraced it in the Second Temple period (534 B.C.E. –70 C.E.); and why Christianity placed the afterlife in the center of its belief system. He discusses the inner dialogues and arguments within Judaism and Christianity, showing the underlying dynamic behind them, as well as the ideas that mark the differences between the two religions. In a thoughtful examination of the influence of biblical views of heaven and martyrdom on Islamic beliefs, he offers a fascinating perspective on the current troubling rise of Islamic fundamentalism. In tracing the organic, historical relationships between sacred texts and communities of belief and comparing the visions of life after death that have emerged throughout history, Segal sheds a bright, revealing light on the intimate connections between notions of the afterlife, the societies that produced them, and the individual’s search for the ultimate meaning of life on earth.

How Different Religions View Death & Afterlife

How Different Religions View Death & Afterlife
Author: Christopher Jay Johnson
Publisher: Charles Press Pubs(PA)
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1998
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 9780914783855

This new second edition presents a clear, concise and comparative overview of the teachings and the death beliefs of the largest and fastest-growing religions in North America. Unlike many books on the subject of religious beliefs, the discourse here is refreshingly objective and nonproselytizing. Furthermore, each chapter is written by a different expert or scholar who is internationally recognized as an authority on a particular faith. - Back cover.

My Son and the Afterlife

My Son and the Afterlife
Author: Elisa Medhus
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2013-10
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1582704619

After her son, Erik, committed suicide at age twenty, a physician, who had always placed her faith in science, finds her skepticism of life after death turning into belief when Erik begins communicating with her from the other side.

The Myth of an Afterlife

The Myth of an Afterlife
Author: Michael Martin
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 709
Release: 2015-03-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0810886782

Because every single one of us will die, most of us would like to know what—if anything—awaits us afterward, not to mention the fate of lost loved ones. Given the nearly universal vested interest in deciding this question in favor of an afterlife, it is no surprise that the vast majority of books on the topic affirm the reality of life after death without a backward glance. But the evidence of our senses and the ever-gaining strength of scientific evidence strongly suggest otherwise. In The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death, Michael Martin and Keith Augustine collect a series of contributions that redress this imbalance in the literature by providing a strong, comprehensive, and up-to-date casebook of the chief arguments against an afterlife. Divided into four separate sections, this collection opens with a broad overview of the issues, as contributors consider the strongest evidence of whether or not we survive death—in particular the biological basis of all mental states and their grounding in brain activity that ceases to function at death. Next, contributors consider a host of conceptual and empirical difficulties that confront the various ways of “surviving” death—from bodiless minds to bodily resurrection to any form of posthumous survival. Then essayists turn to internal inconsistencies between traditional theological conceptions of an afterlife—heaven, hell, karmic rebirth—and widely held ethical principles central to the belief systems supporting those notions. In the final section, authors offer critical evaluations of the main types of evidence for an afterlife. Fully interdisciplinary, The Myth of an Afterlife: The Case against Life after Death brings together a variety of fields of research to make that case, including cognitiveneuroscience, philosophy of mind, personal identity, philosophy of religion, moralphilosophy, psychical research, and anomalistic psychology. As the definitive casebookof arguments against life after death, this collection is required reading for anyinstructor, researcher, and student of philosophy, religious studies, or theology. It issure to raise provocative issues new to readers, regardless of background, from thosewho believe fervently in the reality of an afterlife to those who do not or are undecidedon the matter.

Death and the Afterlife

Death and the Afterlife
Author: Brian Innes
Publisher:
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1999
Genre: Death
ISBN: 9780713727791

A comprehensive look at one of the most fundamental questions of human existence: what is death and what happens to us after we are dead? In the process, the volume presents the arguments for and against life after death, and discusses the afterlife as it is envisioned in countries around the world and across the ages, from Mexico's Day of the Dead to Victorian funeral customs; from the tombs of the pharaohs to cryogenics; and from the Tibetan Book of the Dead to the visions of heaven and hell found in the Bible.