Notes and Contents by James R. Martin, Ph.D., CMA
Professor Emeritus, University of South Florida
Churches, God and
Religion Main | Political Issues Main
Foreword: On the Origin of Afterlife Beliefs by Means of Memetic Selection - Steve Stewart-Williams
Where did the idea of the afterlife come from?
A plethora of theories:
Wishful Thinking - Religious beliefs are molly-coddling illusions.
Social Glue - Religious beliefs hold societies together.
Social Control - Religious beliefs are tools of social manipulation.
Primitive Science - Religious beliefs are a failed attempt by primitive people to understand the world.
Preface. xxvii
1. Introduction. 1. Keith Augustine
Part I: Empirical Arguments for Annihilation. 49.
2. Dead as a Doornail: Souls, Brains, and Survival. 49. Matt McCormick
3. Explaining Personality: Soul Theory versus Behavior Genetics 69. Jean Mercer.
4. Dissolution into Death: The Mind's Last Symptoms Indicate Annihilation. 83. David Weisman.
5. The Argument from Brain Damage Vindicated. 105. Rocco J. Gennaro and Yonatan I. Fishman.
6. No Mental Life After Brain Death: The Argument from the Neural Localization of Mental Functions. 135. Gualtiero Piccinini and Sonya Bahar.
7. The Neural Substrate of Emotions and Emotional Processing. 171. Calos J. Alvarez.
8. Brain, Language, and Survival after Death. 183. Terence Hines.
9. The Brain that Doesn't Know Itself: Persons Oblivious to their Neurological Deficits. 195. Jamie Horder.
10. The Dualist's Dilemma: The High Cost of Reconciling Neuroscience with a Soul. 203. Keith Augustine and Yonatan I. Fishman.
Part II: Conceptual and Empirical Difficulties for Survival. 293.
11. Why Survival is Metaphysically Impossible. 297. Raymond D. Bradley.
12. Conceptual Problems Confronting a Totally Disembodied Afterlife. 329. Theodore M. Drange.
13. What Could Pair a Nonphysical Soul to a Physical Body? 335. Jaegwon Kim.
14. Nonphysical Souls Would Violate Physical Laws. 349. David L. Wilson.
15. There is No Trace of Any Soul Linked to the Body. 369. David Papineau.
16. Since Physical Formulas are not Violated, No Soul Controls the Body. 377. Leonard Angel.
17. The Implausibility of Astral Bodies and Astral Worlds. 393. Susan Blackmore.
18. The Pluralizability Objection to a New-body Afterlife. 405. Theodore M. Drange.
19. Life After Death and the Devastation of the Grave. 409. Eric T. Olson.
Part III. Problematic Models of the Afterlife. 425.
20. Problems with Heaven. 427. Michael Martin.
21. Can God Condemn One for an Afterlife in Hell? 441. Raymond D. Bradley.
22. Objections to Karma and Rebirth: An Introduction. 473. Ingrid Hansen Smythe.
Part IV: Dubious Evidence for Survival. 499.
23. Giving Up the Ghost to Psychology. 503. Rense Lange and James Houran.
24. Out-of-Body Experiences are not Evidence for Survival. 519. Susan Blackmore.
25. Near-Death Experiences are Hallucinations. 529. Keith Augustine.
26. A Critique of Ian Stevenson's Rebirth Research. 571. Champe Ransom.
27. Is There Adequate Empirical Evidence for Reincarnation?: An Analysis of Ian Stevenson's Work. 575. Leonard Angel.
28. Conjecturing Up Spirits in the Improvisations of Mediums. 585. Claus Flodin Larsen.
29. Madness in the Method: Fatal Flaws in Recent Mediumship Experiments. 615. Christian Battista, Nicolas Gauvrit, and Etienne Lebel.
30. Is There Life After Death?: A Review of the Supporting Evidence. 631. David Lester.
Index. 651
About the Contributors. 669.
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For a review article about this book see Dieguez, S. Not dated. Heaven is not for real. Skeptic. heaven-is-not-for-real/
Related summaries:
Dawkins, R. 2008. The God Delusion. A Mariner Book, Houghton Mifflin Company. (Summary).
Hornsey, M. J. and K. S. Fielding. 2017. Attitude roots and Jiu Jitsu persuasion: Understanding and overcoming the motivated rejection of science. American Psychologist 72(5): 459-473. (Summary).
Kenrick, D. T., A. B. Cohen, S. L. Neuberg and R. B. Cialdini. 2018. The science of antiscience thinking. Scientific American (July): 36-41. (Summary).
Martin, J. R. Not dated. Religious Affiliations Surveys 1972-2018 (Summary).
Paine, T. 2006. The Age of Reason. The Echo Library. (Rebuff of church dogma originally published in 1796. Summary).
Prothero, S. 2007. Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - And Doesn't. Harper San Francisco. (Summary).