To: Greg or e who wrote (9991 ) 3/29/2001 1:50:41 PM From: Solon Respond to of 82486 but Jesus said that when those who only have a cursory faith come before Him He will say to them "I never knew you" with that they will be ushered to judgement. LOL! What a way to treat your kids! Have you ever felt the consequences of a reduced blood flow to the brain such as when fainting? The following essay offers very compelling evidence on the thesis of extinction. Myths notwithstanding, there simply don't appear to be any credible reasons for believing that individual identity or consciousness survive death.infidels.org A small excerpt:"...From the fact that all of the mental states we have a good understanding of depend on the brain we can reasonably extrapolate (as neuroscientists do) that all mental states depend on the brain. Where we are largely ignorant of the way the brain generates certain mental states due to the enormous complexity of the processes involved, such as high-level psychological phenomena as elusive to physiology as self-awareness, there is always room for a sort of "soul of the gaps" argument to the effect that such phenomena can exist independently of the brain. But legitimate physiological research is unambiguously going in the opposite direction. Such an argument from ignorance, aside from offering no actual positive support for the existence of brain-independent mental states (allowing only the mere possibility that they are independent), would not apply to mental states we know are brain-dependent, such as memory and personality traits, both of which are essential for any form of personal survival after death. Given that point, I can see no way in which Beloff or anyone else can refute the evidence from the dependence of consciousness on the brain against survival, and again we are left with the simple choice: What are we to trust, the findings of well-established science or those of controversial and inconclusive parapsychology? What I have tried to show in The Scientific Case Against Immortality is that the state of the evidence--strong evidence for extinction and no good evidence for survival--when taken as a whole not only paints a picture that is completely consistent with extinction but also that the best explanation for the state of the evidence is that the mind ceases to exist at death."