Illusion of Immortality

This book absolutely changed my life... for better or worse, I am still unsure... but I feel liberated nonetheless. My Father has died since and I felt the real sorrow of actually feeling like I am not to ever see him again... just because of this book. I read it a couple of years ago & I am just now starting to get over the shock and sorrow of what Corliss Lamont pointed out. I am not sorry I read it I suppose... afterall I cannot be angry at the truth. Yet on the other hand, is not the "mirage" of afterlife a false sense of happiness that we sorely need through this life? Once a believer actually comes to the end, they'll never really know if the afterlife was a big lie... because they'll be dead... and thus, unaware of their mistaken prediction. Meanwhile with blind "faith", they can at least wear a smile on their face until the end. So one might make the argument that the faithful are indeed better off... even if they are completely wrong. Afterall, they chase this "mirage" with delusional glee as I sit with the horrific realization that it isn't water at all. Sometimes I wish I were more gullible. Ignorance may very well be bliss.

"_The Illusion of Immortality_ is the only book I know of which details the often ignored scientific evidence against life after death (though a few articles can be found on the subject), but with its first edition published in 1935, the evidence cited is a bit dated. Lamont first outlines different historical views of immortality, from the ancient Greek belief that everyone enters a faded and deteroriating existence in Hades when they die, through the early Hebrew belief that death ends with the annihilation of consciousness, to modern astral body views. Lamont should be credited for pointing out that the notion of immortality does not presuppose that an existence after death will necessarily be a worthwhile immortality--an idea often not considered those who believe in an afterlife--as the ancient Greek notion of Hades illustrates. In addition to addressing different kinds of survival of bodily death and the evidence against it, Lamont considers the problem of what an afterlife environment could possibly be like and arguments that immortality must be guaranteed by the benevolence of God. There is some confusion in Lamont's argument for a kind of reductionist materialism, for in arguing that the mind is a function of the brain, he proposes the existence of "nonphysical ideas"--so it appears that he is actually arguing that the mind is a product of the brain (epiphenomenalism) as opposed to arguing that the mind is identical to the brain (reductionist materialism). Lamont concludes by considering the motivations for belief in life after death and coping with living a finite existence. As a whole, _The Illusion of Immortality_ is a very good introduction to the some of the philosophical issues and scientific evidence against life after death."