Do you have a soul?

jay74 · January 6, 2006

This is a great article I came across.

http://home.att.net/~meditation/soul.html

Do you have a soul?

To know truth you must have a deep desire to see it, and a willingness to let go of the old lies.

--

When I was a child I was an atheist and only believed in what I could see and touch. By age 19 I started to believe in the existence of souls and reincarnation as a result of my exposure to a number of famous Indian yogis and the majestic J. Krishnamurti (see photo), who once claimed to have remembered all of his past lives. At age 21 my belief in soul was dramatically reinforced by explosive experiences with Acharya Rajneesh, later known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Osho. I never believed in any "God," but for 35 years I lived under the shadow of the great meditation masters and was fairly certain that we all possessed souls that would survive our physical death.

Unlike Hindus and Christians, most Buddhists believe in some mysterious and poorly defined personal karma that survives death. I never believed in the Buddhist concept of immortal personal karma without soul, because when you reject soul you lose the vehicle for the transference of karma from one life to the next. To my mind, if soul goes so does any possibility of immortal personal karma and reincarnation.

When I met Acharya Rajneesh in 1970 he not only spoke of souls and reincarnation, but also claimed to have the power of astral projection. I believed his claim because of what I thought were authentic experiences I had with this "Master" astrally projecting himself, not just into my room, but into my body while he was physically several miles away. After reading Matthew Alper's excellent book, The "God" Part of the Brain, I wonder if those amazing experiences were really what I had thought they were. Alper's book summarizes the latest scientific research into how the human brain functions while having religious experiences. In this essay I have added my own personal experiences, observations, and theories to several of the main points of Alper's book, which I consider one of the most important I have ever read.

Medical research has shown that if you stimulate certain areas of the brain with a small electric current, you can give people the experience of spiritual visitation. You may feel that Christ is touching your heart or that the soul of a dead relative is near you. There is no evidence to support a belief in authentic astral projection, however, as all studies indicate that consciousness exists only in the brain cells that create it. You cannot remove consciousness from the physical body because consciousness is a physical phenomena created by chemistry, just as a firefly's light is created by chemical reactions. That is why you can turn consciousness on or off by injecting a person with drugs to wake them up or to put them to sleep.

Near-death experiences and even certain drugs, such as Ketamine and Sodium Pentothal, can give you the feeling of being outside of your body, but researchers say that is just an illusion of the holographic nature of the brain. When neural communications between the body and brain are reduced, the brain is free to project our sense of self anywhere it chooses, and this can happen while under partial anesthesia, while partially asleep, or even during the preliminary (and reversible) stages of death. Prolonged fasting and isolation can produce hallucinations and distortions of reality as well, and such extreme ascetic practices are a major source of the Eastern myths of astral projection.

While true astral projection may be impossible, there is credible scientific theory to suggest that telepathic communication is possible in human beings. The human brain is an organic electrochemical computer so complex that to match it with current silicon technology you would need a computer the size of a small city. Think of all the things your relatively simple cell phone can do. There is plenty of computer power in the human brain for us to imagine that some portion of it could be allocated to broadcasting and receiving messages from other human brains. This telepathic ability may be the reason disciples feel the presence of their spiritual teachers so strongly. [Note - Meditation is fast becoming a real science, not just an intuitive art. See scans prove meditation alters the brain.]

The brain is the most metabolically active human organ and requires a steady supply of oxygen and glucose as fuel. Although the brain represents less than 2% of the body's mass, it utilizes 20% of the body's oxygen consumption and 15% of its cardiac output. Thus the brain produces an extraordinary amount of energy in the form of electrical wattage in relationship to the rest of the body. The entire human body uses chemical reactions to produce both mechanical movements and electrical currents that flows through all our living cells. The brain is an analog computer, but amazingly the DNA code that creates it is digital. The average human brain contains approximately 100 billion neurons connected by approximately 50 trillion synapses. It is therefore not difficult to imagine that this fantastically complex device, the human brain-body, could have mysterious communication abilities beyond our current understanding.

Perhaps what I thought was astral projection was simply Rajneesh concentrating on me, sending me his supermental energy long distance. That powerful jolt of energy may have caused my brain to supply the added illusion of personal visitation on top of the strong telepathic transmission. Rajneesh had tremendous mental powers, no doubt, but was that power really supernatural or just a product of his unique brain structure and meditative skill?

If you inject any human being with enough sedative, enlightened or not, they will become unconsciousness. If you damage certain areas of the brain you can drastically alter human behavior. You can turn a conservative bank president into a garbage-eating bum just by killing off some of the brain cells that contain the biocomputer program for his personality. If you damage other areas of the brain, you can erase all memory.

If consciousness, personality, and memory are all physical phenomena of brain cells, then when the brain dies there is nothing left of your individual identity. Your permanent identity of time-energy-space continues unharmed (see The TES Hypothesis), but there is no soul, no reincarnation, and no Buddhist transference of personal karma. If this is true it means that Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Christianity, and Islam are all wrong. It also means that we all achieve "moksha" (liberation) at the time of death, because there is no personal cycle of birth and death to escape from and no magical afterlife. You are born once and you die once and you will never come back!

One theory states that we have personal souls and/or karma, which transmigrates from one life to the next, and another theory states that nothing survives death and only DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and the will of the living determines the future of our species. Which theory is correct? I once believed in reincarnation with a high level of certainty. After many years of seeing the rampant corruption of gurus, "enlightened" or not, the idiocy of disciples, cults, and organized religion, and with the new scientific evidence in hand, I find the soul-reincarnation-karma theory far less plausible.

You do not have to believe in anything supernatural to believe in cosmic consciousness (satori). Anyone can take the drug psilocybin and get a cheap, but dramatic, imitation of the natural religious experience. Clinical research shows that our brains are built to have religious experiences. As time-energy-space is one singular phenomena, it is only natural that we occasionally experience the grand cosmic unity. I personally suspect that even animals have satoris, though they apparently have no ability to give it a name or understand its implications.

One of the most interesting concepts of Matthew Alper's book concerns the rise of self-consciousness in human animals and how knowledge of our impending death has affected our brains and even our DNA. If you put a dog in front of a mirror he will never figure out that he is looking at his own reflection. If you put a higher primate in front of a mirror, such as a chimpanzee or a human child, the higher primate will use the mirror for grooming purposes because he recognizes himself in the reflection. Because man's self-consciousness is so highly developed, humans have come to realize that our life expectancy is short and our personal demise inevitable.

Animals, like human children, fear death, danger, and pain, but they have no real understanding of time and the inevitability of their own destruction. The time-death equation that adult humans understand becomes a constant source of anguish. A strong survival instinct is built into our DNA code from our long evolutionary journey from bacteria to man. When that survival instinct collides with self-conscious knowledge of our impending death, the brain itself needs both a neurological and psychological barrier to block the conflict and tension. That barrier we call religious belief and "the God part of the brain." The theory states that man has invented myths of God, soul, reincarnation, karma, and afterlife as a way to provide the brain with mental opium, a buffer to the constant ticking clock inside our heads that tells us our inevitable doom is getting closer every day.

The psychological need for a feeling of immortality is so great that our religious tendencies have become part of our very DNA code. Humans who believe in the supernatural religions tend to be calmer, healthier, and thus live longer than the nonreligious. Believers also tend to show more bravery when courage is needed to protect their tribe. Genetic tendencies to have religious feelings are fortified over thousands of years of evolution through survival of the religiously fittest.

If your religious beliefs feel exactly right to you, it may be because your subconscious mind wants you to believe in them so that you will have a better chance for health and a long lifespan. If you intuitively sense that you have been alive here on planet earth before, perhaps that feeling of déja vu comes from your DNA code, not from a reincarnating soul, because DNA has been active on planet earth for at least 3.8 billion years and we are all created and united by its existence.

Science knows that there is only one real life-form on planet earth, and that is DNA itself. DNA is like a giant vine that has taken over planet earth. Through the never ending chain of DNA code, we are not only closely related to other mammals, but also intimately related to insects, plants, and even bacteria and viruses. Many times in our past the higher life-forms on earth have been wiped out by impacts of asteroids and comets, yet the surviving bacteria have always evolved upward into more complex plants and animals. DNA is not just a helpful chemical substance inside us. DNA is our biological level identity, our three dimensional physical 'soul,' if you will.

All over the world, wherever you find man you will find supernatural religions promising some kind of life after death. Moslem extremists gladly kill themselves in the name of their religion. American war heroes have died fighting Japanese and Germans in the name of Christ, and no doubt many felt they were going to heaven for their heroic efforts. God is a pretty handy device when your tribe is in trouble. Almost all of us, atheist and theist alike, instinctively call out to God for help when we are in grave personal danger.

Man's philosophical beliefs have also been shaped by a survival contest of world religions to see which religion can most completely satisfy our emotional needs for a feeling of comfort and safety. Organized religion is a business and must have money and public support to survive. If your spouse or child dies, you want a priest, rabbi, monk, or swami to tell you that your loved one's soul is going to a better place. Can you imagine a funeral where a holy man bluntly states that the deceased has no soul and is gone forever? That would seem cruel, and any religion that provided such a funeral service would not last long in the religious marketplace.

Why do so many enlightened teachers believe in souls and karma? It has been my observation that even the enlightened are affected by cultural conditioning and have a tendency to pass on the religious teachings of those who came before them with only minor modifications. For example, the famous enlightened teachers from meat-eating societies in Tibet, China, and Japan also ate meat, while the great sages from strictly vegetarian India claim that eating meat is a horrible unspiritual practice. So I ask, did Rajneesh and J. Krishnamurti believe in souls because of some direct experience or because they both grew up in soul-oriented India? Rajneesh once stated that even plants have souls, and that if an enlightened man (Rajneesh himself) sat next to a plant, that plant would be so graced that in its next incarnation it might be born as a human being. I find that grandiose and self-serving statement difficult to believe, and I suspect a significant amount of the time Rajneesh was simply shooting his mouth off without even thinking about what he was saying.

On another occasion Rajneesh stated that we are attracted to beautiful people because their outer beauty represents the inner beauty of their souls, because it is the soul which creates the physical body and mind. Science has proven conclusively that DNA creates the body and brain, not any mysterious, immaterial "soul." Outward beauty does not always mean inward beauty, or even a sane mind. The infamous serial killer Ted Bundy was quite handsome outwardly, yet he is estimated to have murdered between 35 and 50 women just for the thrill of it (see photographs of Ted Bundy). If Rajneesh could be mistaken about something this basic, then couldn't he be wrong about anything?

The "Master" Rajneesh presented many idiotic theories about life right here and now, so why should anyone believe his theories about souls and reincarnation? It is only because of his great presence that his disciples refrained from laughing out loud at some of his ridiculous ideas (see The Ridiculous Teachings of Wrong Way Rajneesh). Rajneesh was living proof that enlightenment, intelligence, and honesty are separate phenomena. You can be a fool, liar, and a criminal and also become a great energy channeler (enlightened) if that is your predisposition and desire. Freedom means free choice to be good or bad, and you have that choice no matter how powerful your meditation skills have become. George Gurdjieff (see photo), the famous Greek-Armenian mystic, was an alcoholic. Rajneesh (see photo) became a drug addict, yet both men could channel great cosmic presence that inspired thousands of spiritual seekers.

Rajneesh's use of drugs, especially nitrous oxide, Valium, and LSD, also casts doubt on his soul theory of enlightenment. In his last years Rajneesh declared that from his own experience, LSD could produce the same consciousness as a Buddha. During his younger, sober days he stated that LSD produced a "false samadhi" and that consciousness was the product of "soul," not just physical chemistry. Rajneesh changed his teaching to rationalize his drug use by stating that "you are nothing but chemistry." He thus implied that it is OK to use chemicals to alter consciousness because you are chemicals bonded together in an organic biological machine. One could ask that if Rajneesh really had the ability to leave his body and fly around the world at will, wouldn't that be more entertaining than getting cheap thrills from LSD and nitrous oxide?

Rajneesh claimed to be as enlightened as the historic Buddha, and I believe that he was, but why does a Buddha need to take hallucinogenic drugs? My answer is that Rajneesh became bored with the Void because the Void can only provide peacefulness long term, but not an eternal buzz of blissfulness. Judging from my own meditative practice and reading of science, the buzz and bliss of meditation comes from a build-up of excess neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine in the brain (see "Increased dopamine tone during meditation-induced change of consciousness."). When you meditate in formal sessions you are conserving the chemical energy of your brain by not wasting it on thoughts and sensory distraction. Thus you become blissful and may experience nonsexual orgasms during meditation sessions, but that ecstasy gradually dissipates after you return to your normal work routine. The feeling of spaciousness and peacefulness continue, but the buzz settles down to a feeling of neutrality and quiet emptiness. There is no eternal orgasm-ecstasy-bliss-buzz possible because any human feeling that has a beginning must have an end due to the inherent chemical nature of the brain.

The Buddha is reported to have said that there is "no bliss." Rajneesh at times admitted that he himself felt "no energy," though those around him felt awash in his energy. U.G. Krishnamurti has stated that there is "no bliss." When I meditate in formal sessions I feel bliss and non-sexual orgasms felt in the hara (belly center), the heart center, the forehead center, and in the center of the head directly behind the eyes. The problem is, the orgasmic feelings never lasts. I have to go back to my meditation room and sit to regain the neurochemical energy that dissipates during the daily routine of work. Using my brain for utilitarian proposes eats up those neurotransmitters rather quickly. It may also be that the brain itself wants to bring us back to a state of neutrality because a neutral brain has the greatest ability to ensure our physical survival. A man distracted with a blissed-out brain is likely to be the first member of the tribe eaten by the lion, not the last. Meditation and enlightenment may be a neuro-chemical experience, not a magical soul experience outside the laws of brain chemistry and physics.

Rajneesh changed his name to "Osho" and ended his life in a state of dementia due to illness and drug addiction. J. Krishnamurti avoided major scandals, stayed sober, and is still highly revered long after his death. But was J. Krishnamurti really a saint and somehow better ethically than any normal human being? I know many people who lead virtuous lives and who don't meditate at all. What made J. Krishnamurti different was not how he lived, which was ordinary, but his tremendous presence of being. You stood next to him and felt flooded in cosmic energy which pushed you high into the sky and destroyed all feelings of limitation. Was J. Krishnamurti's grand presence the result of many past lifetimes of spiritual effort, or was it the result of modest effort in meditation in this life combined with a genetic gift for cosmic consciousness?

Matthew Alper points out in his book that some forms of epilepsy (see temporal lobe epilepsy) cause hyper-religiousness and mystical experiences. J. Krishnamurti's mother was an epileptic and we know epilepsy can be a genetically transferred disease. J. Krishnamurti never had fits, but he often mysteriously passed out, giving those near him warning that he was about to lose consciousness (see pictures of an intense Krishnamurti as a young boy). George Gurdjieff and the Indian sage Ramakrishna are reported to have had fits in which they thrashed on the ground uncontrollably. The universally revered Ramana Maharshi claimed that his emotional heart center was located in the "right side" of his chest, which I suspect represents a brain abnormality, as in normal human beings the emotional heart center is felt in the exact center of the chest.

Is it possible that natural variations in our genetic code could produce in each century a handful of people with brains perfectly adapted for enlightenment, thus making meditative practice so easy that they reach the goal with little effort? Ramana Maharshi is reported to have achieved "God consciousness" at the tender age of 17! Rajneesh claims to have become enlightened at age 21. J. Krishnamurti was in his early twenties when people around him started to feel that he was fully enlightened. Ramakrishna was reported to have been "born enlightened," as was the ancient Chinese mystic, Lao-Tse.

Are the spiritually gifted among us the rare but naturally occurring result of genetic variation? Of the 20,000 to 25,000 genes that make up a human being, roughly half are suspected of being devoted to blueprinting our central nervous system. Thus, with 10,000 to 12,500 individual genes controlling the formation of our brain and spinal cord, the potential for major variations in the level of human consciousness is enormous. For example, scientists have found that changes in just a few human genes can have a dramatically positive effect on human intelligence. Is it therefore logical that human gene combinations exist that control the amount of raw consciousness we possess as well.

Few have the artistic talent of a Michelangelo or the scientific genius of Einstein. If there is a natural genetic "bell curve" for intelligence, then why not a natural genetically driven bell curve for spiritual power as well? [see The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray] Research has shown that identical twins tend to have the same level of interest in religion and/or mystical experience. This suggests that there is a strong genetic component to our personal meditative potential. If DNA can explain the vast differences between a mosquito and a human being, then why can't genetic variations in human DNA also explain the mental differences between a Hitler and a Buddha?

Are the enlightened simply those few individuals at the extreme forward edge of the bell curve, with the masses of the world population stuck near the middle? If there are child prodigy pianists, artists, and even astounding child prodigy golfers like Tiger Woods, then why not child prodigy meditators as well? The Asian cultures may have simply mistaken naturally occurring genetic variations in the human brain for evidence of a romanticized past life history that does not exist in fact. The group conditioning became so strong that the myths of reincarnation fooled even the enlightened ones. History shows that the easiest explanation for a phenomena that has the most supporting evidence is usually correct. Grand claims require grand evidence to justify a belief in them, and there is currently no scientifically valid evidence of reincarnation or a magical transference of personal karma.

If the spiritual bell curve theory is true, it could help explain the obvious corruption of gurus. Rajneesh was a convicted felon and a proven liar of historic proportions. George Gurdjieff was a chronic liar and a loud and often rude alcoholic. The genetics-based view of enlightenment also helps explain why there are so few enlightened ones at any given time. If every soul has multiple chances to improve its meditation skills over lifetimes of effort, then surely the world would produce more than the meager handful of enlightened sages that are born each century. Since at least the dawn of Hinduism (about 1500 BC), long before the historic Buddha was born (about 563 BC), millions of human beings have been making sincere effort at meditation, yet where are the results of these heroic lifetimes of effort? The mathematics and logistics of the soul-karma theory do not add up any way to look at it.

The argument for souls and/or immortal karma is that enlightenment is a process that takes many lifetimes of effort, and the fruition of our long journey through time is the eventual payoff of moksha, infinite ecstasy, and liberation from all suffering. This highly romantic idea appeals because it brings a sense of warmth and justice into a cold and often pointlessly cruel world. It intuitively seems fair that right action is eventually rewarded with positive results. But this belief in inevitable karma has also caused negative results. In Tibet it produced a kind of fatalistic inaction which aided the Communist Chinese in their military takeover in 1950. To quote Drupon Samten Rinpoche, "They can be taking this life, but they cannot take the next life." This feeling of immortality has brought Tibetan Buddhists a great sense of peace and compassion in the face of invasion and genocide, but is it based or truth or wishful thinking?

Belief in souls and immortal karma has had many negative effects in India, where the theory of reincarnation helped establish the ancient Hindu caste system. The caste system was abolished by law in 1949 but lives on as an unfair social class structure, considerably worse than the traditional class snobbery practiced in Europe. The lower class, the sudras, are considered inferior while the outcasts, the "untouchables," are looked down upon as being spiritually unworthy due to past life sins rather than just being poor and uneducated human beings. Skin diseases like leprosy are considered signs of punishment for evil deeds in past lives, though medical science recognizes leprosy as a disease anyone can contract given sufficient exposure to the bacillus: Mycobacterium leprae. Even the great Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh promoted the antiscientific and inhumane karmic explanation for leprosy.

Reincarnation and immortal karma were a way ancient peoples could explain the inherent inequities of life, death, disease, riches, and poverty in religious terms that often had no basis in fact. All the major world religions are relics of the prescientific era and all have negative biases woven into their teachings. I therefore suggest that now is the time to create a new pro-science religion that does not promote the irrational belief in magic and the supernatural, things which exists only in our imagination, not in fact (see The TES Hypothesis).

Rejecting the soul theory negates any need to answer such impossible questions as where souls come from and why they exist at all. The rebellious sage U.G. Krishnamurti has been saying for decades that "there is no such thing as enlightenment" and that his state of continuous cosmic consciousness was without cause, or "acausal." Could it be that the real cause of enlightenment is rarefied DNA combined with modest effort? Perhaps the ancient Hindus and Buddhists invented myths of souls and immortal karma simply because they had no science and were thus uneducated observers of the phenomena around them and inside them. Siddhartha Gautama never knew about neurons or DNA, so how could he be expected come up with any explanations for life that were not based on the imagined supernatural?

I dismiss claims of past life memories because of the projective nature of the human brain. The brain can project any image or feeling, and it is exactly the same neurological mechanism that projects fantasies of the subconscious that also projects authentic memories stored in brain cells. What comes out of that one singular projector may be real memory or real fantasy, but no one can tell the difference with certainty, not even the late J. Krishnamurti or the Dalai Lama.

False memories are a common occurrence in courtrooms and have sent many innocent men to their deaths for crimes they never committed. Just imagine a monk walking into a courtroom claiming to remember all of his past lives. Then imagine the monk being grilled under cross-examination and he cannot even remember what he had for lunch just a few days before. Even the enlightened sages have memory problems and need to write down important dates and facts so they won't forget.

If a high Tibetan lama or Hindu yogi enters a medical laboratory full of skeptical scientists and proves through testing that he can transfer his consciousness out of his body, then belief in soul and reincarnation would be easier for everyone. To date that has not happened, and hospital tests designed to prove out of the body episodes during near-death experiences have yielded no positive results. As far as scientifically valid evidence of soul is concerned, the well is completely dry. Human beings exist as footprints in the sand. One day the footprint will be erased and only the sand will be left behind. There is no reincarnation and there is no personal continuity of karma.

Until fairly recently I had dismissed U.G. Krishnamurti's claim that there is no enlightenment, no soul, and no reincarnation as just his negative way of teaching. Perhaps, however, he is just trying to tell the truth no matter how shocking that truth may be. Instead of becoming attached to the small personal identity of a soul, it is apparent that one must become attached to nothing less than infinity itself. All of the great religions of the world may be wrong and just a product of our own fear of dying. That idea is electrically shocking to me, but it may well be true.

A summary of the main issues

1) There is no positive proof for the existence of souls, immortal karma, reincarnation, or any spiritual afterlife. It is interesting to note that in their last years even Osho and J. Krishnamurti reversed themselves and stated that there was no reincarnation and thus, presumably, no soul. If there is no reincarnation and no heaven or hell, then the question of soul is moot.

2) There are legitimate science-based alternate explanations for phenomena attributed to souls and immortal karma. The enlightened teachers seem to confuse the effects of DNA for the effects of soul. For example, people with higher intelligence and a more finely articulated DNA code are perceived by them as being older and higher souls.

3) There are obvious profit and political power motives for those who promote belief in the supernatural. How many gurus have made fortunes off the idea of souls and reincarnation? How many monasteries, ashrams, churches, mosques, and synagogues would go out of business if people found out there is no soul or immortal karma? How can governments and the religious hierarchies control the masses if word leaks out that we all end up in the same state of eternal unconsciousness when we die, no matter how we behave while we are alive? Would there be a Vatican City or Tibetan Portola Palace without a belief in souls and/or immortal karma? The idea of soul has historically been as much a matter of politics as it has been an issue of personal religious belief.

4) It is highly probable that human animals have a built-in genetic predisposition to avoid the inevitable fact of our future death in order to reduce fear and stress. Our brains create myths of God, soul, immortal karma, reincarnation, and afterlife as a buffer against the hurtful knowledge of the inevitable demise of ourselves and everyone we know and love. By inventing myths of afterlife and/or reincarnation the brain can exist comfortably without the highly charged survival instinct electrically connecting to the newfound knowledge of the inevitability of our future death. The supernatural myths thus act as a resistive electrical shunt, blocking a dangerous short circuit between two parts of the brain.

5) Life on earth was created through the nonhuman laws of chemistry, physics, and probability. Strands of chemicals (DNA) were created by sheer accident and replicated themselves faster than they could be destroyed. By further accident, some DNA strands became encased in protective shells which increased their survivability dramatically, creating the first bacteria. From simple bacteria more complexity was added until a myriad of multi-cell creatures were produced. Through this slow process of evolution over billions of years there was never any need for soul, except as a myth to help human animals deal with their growing consciousness of the inevitable time-death equation. Scientists have produced real living viruses from their base chemical components, and they did so without concocting any "soul."

The logistical mathematics of the soul theory do not add up. Does every new bacteria, seed, egg, minnow, spider, or cockroach that appears in the world demand a soul to go along with its already sufficient DNA code? We know that humans evolved from bacteria. Where did soul come into the picture and why? Is there a printing press somewhere stamping out trillions of new souls every day to keep up with the demand? The soul theory lacks logical credibility and science has shown us that the universe is extremely logical in its structure, formation, and evolution.

6) The famous film director Alfred Hitchcock often added a ploy to his movies called a "MacGuffin." The MacGuffin distracted the audience long enough that suspense could be created and the plot could develop without giving away the true course of the story. In the end the MacGuffin had no meaning in itself. Likewise, Hindus and Buddhists have invented complicated myths of reincarnation and/or immortal karma, declaring that we are all trapped in a cycle of birth and death and that only our eventual enlightenment can free us. The Eastern traditions have created a highly sophisticated myth structure, but the underlying function of their myths is identical to the more childlike myths of Christianity, with its almighty God, angels, and heaven. The belief in immortal karma and reincarnation is the MacGuffin that keeps our minds diverted from the inevitability and finality of our own death.

No one can honestly say that it is impossible that human beings have souls or immortal karma. You cannot prove an absolute negative against such a big and complex issue. One can only say that given the evidence the possibility is unlikely. The burden of proof is on those who believe in the supernatural and there are currently no facts to back up their case. A more realistic and scientifically valid way to view the big issues of life and death is detailed in The TES Hypothesis.

Christopher Calder - E-mail - my home page

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