Customer Reviews

The Atheist Afterlife: The odds of an afterlife - Reasonable. The odds of meeting God there - Nil

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"At first, I was a bit frightened by the title of this book. After all, I was born and raised in a traditional Catholic home. A home where beliefs in an afterlife were based on Heaven and Hell. This book bases an afterlife on reason.
It gives insight to some propositions I knew very little of. The concept of Dualism and the Inside-Out Theory were well explained with the excellent use of analogies. Major points were discussed in detail and were brought back together in a reader friendly method throughout various points in the book.
For myself, this was an entirely different look at the possibility of an afterlife. An afterlife without any religion or God. An afterlife of reason. One book that is worth the read...though at moments I thought my
head was going to explode! Well, it didn't .... as for the title of the
book, no need to be frightened."


Richard,
Dallas, TX
USA

"The Atheist Afterlife" rests upon something David Staume refers to as his "Inside-Out Theory", where our currently known form of consciousness is but one in a 4 stage process of reincarnation. How he justifiably arrived at 4 is a little beyond me, saying only that it seems like we have 3 kinds of thoughts that make up our consciousness(emotion and concrete thought, abstract thought, and intuition), and so therefore, the only logical conclusion, that is we go through phases of each turning ourselves "inside-out", first living and dying as a live consciousness as we know it, then progressively externalizing the other 3 in a process of reincarnations until we're completely "inside-out", and then the reverse till we're reincarnated in a new physical body, starting the cycle anew.

This conclusion, especially the insistence on cyclical reincarnation, never mind the rather arbitrary insistence on it being a 4 stage process, is entirely unsupported by the rest of the book, which lays out the speculative ground work for consciousness simply persisting after the death of the physical body. He just jumps right into it saying, "obviously, life after death means reincarnation". There's nothing obvious about it.

My second major objection comes earlier in the book, where Staume is first laying the groundwork for admitting the possibility of consciousness persisting after death by referring to the Law of Conservation of Energy, comparing consciousness to energy to say it never actually disappears, it just transitions to a different type. To me at least, this sounds more like an argument *against* posthumous consciousness rather than for. If consciousness is energy in a manner analogous to how kinetic force is energy, then the comparison demands that just as kinetic energy transforms into heat energy (namely, it is no longer kinetic), then cessation of consciousness as we know it would result in the "consciousness energy" would transition into energy that is no longer consciousness. This is the standard rebuttal to the "consciousness as energy" argument, and Staume makes no attempt to address it, treating the argument using the Law of Conservation of Energy as though it were a new one.

While there are other, smaller issues that I could nitpick, these two I considered to be the most glaring that prevent "The Atheist Afterlife" from being a genuinely thought providing text but rather a series of either previously rebutted or easily rebuttable arguments that conclude in a non-sequitur.

On 10 January this year, David Staume gave Sydney Atheists a talk based on this book. I was there but wasn't entirely convinced. I thought if he couldn't convince me the slightest in an hour, he didn't have a point. Sadly after 164 pages, my position still holds. This book is entirely speculative. Staume made it clear the book was about 'if there is an afterlife, this is how it is.' Throughout the book he used hypothetical words such as 'could' and 'if it were true'. That is fair enough. However, he also jumps to conclusions based on assumptions. As much as my atheist mind thinks the religious afterlife false, Staume's reasoning doesn't cut it. He reveals his shaky position with the following steps
1. if my theory is true... ramifications
2. if my theory is true... ramifications
3. if my theory is true... ramifications

Then on another page, he says 'my theory proves...'

Some of the arguments used are themselves hypothetical, for example string theories' (note the plural as there are lots of strong theories) additional dimensions. I love string theory as a whole, having read four books on it. But I find his confidence disproportional to what current evidence suggests. I especially dislike the line 'Trust me. I am a philosopher.' which he used in the book.

Having personally met Staume, I find it embarrassing to be brutal. Therefore I'll leave this conclusion. In a nutshell, this book is speculative and disappointing in equal parts.

Is there an afterlife?

If you're an atheist like me, your standard answer will be something like "no - we just rot" or "it's just like it was before you were born."

And dualism - mind and brain separate? Puhlease...

So, I have to admit I was initially a touch skeptical about this book but decided to get it after reading Sam Harris (see below); and by the first chapter I was into it! The Atheist Afterlife is a great little read.

Some of the most profound experiences in your life happen when you are challenged on what seems to be a basic assumption. In this case, that if there (probably) are no gods, then the concept of afterlife is a fraud. Not possible. Hot buttered toast. But Not...So...Fast.

Sam Harris, in "The End of Faith"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason says, "The idea that brains produce consciuosness is little more than an article of faith among scientists at the moment...(yet) nothing about a brain..declares it to be a bearer of the peculiar, interior dimension that each of us experiences as consciousness in his own case."

In the Atheist Afterlife (the odds of an afterlife:reasonable. The odds of meeting God there:Nil.), David Staume wedges his foot in the door Harris opens and gives us a glimpse of what might, just might, be out there after (and before) death.

The Atheiest Afterlife is a fun essay which gradually unweaves a plausible case for an afterlife which has absoltuely nothing whatsoever to do with the existence of gods.

Pleasingly, Staume never claims his theory as fact, or even claims that it's probable. And there are more than enough nods to science - Staume is like Dan Dennet, a philosopher who knows his bounds. By the end of the first half of the book, he has teased us with the possibility of having a testable theory of life after death.

By the end of the second half, your head spins a bit with the implications and what we might expect. This is where the Staume hits his stride and the read becomes great entertainment as well as stimulating.

This is a great read for anyone wondering what an afterlife might be like and how it might work. And for anyone who just wants a dose of assumption-shaking.

On the theory itself, I can't say I'm convinced quite yet (I'd like to know what Steven Pinker thinks)How the Mind Works But this great read has made me rethink my assumptions about what consciousness is, or might be - and without any need for supernatural sky-daddies or fairies.

All that said, I expect deists and theists would also find this a great read as it is not at all a "hardcore" atheist work as such and I have a feeling there would be some interesting threads that would connect back to anyone's personal theological views. There was an Anglican Bishop in town this week who doesn't believe in God - he should read this, for a start!

For the intellectual challenge and the fun read in one, I'll give this one 5 stars. I'll admit it might be 4 stars if you don't enjoy your philosophy delivered in a conversational, fun way but anywaty I'd recommend you give this book a go.

I'll be interested to see what other readers think as it sure ain't the usual weekend read!

When I first got this book, I was so excited to open it up and tear through the pages. I thought that it would open up an entirely new way of thinking about life and death. That even as an atheist, it could be reasoned that there is an afterlife. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. This book is extremely interesting, but it seems more speculative than factual. It has a great many analogies for what an afterlife may be without a god, and some of the ideas that Staume puts out there are very imaginative. However, I couldn't agree with where a lot of the ideas go. I was hoping for a better argument for mind-body dualism, but there were no arguments here that were satisfying, at least for myself.

If you already agree with the principle of mind-body dualism, then some of the ideas may not see so far off. For me, it seemed to contain a lot of unsupported assertions such as our dreams are weird, so maybe they actually happen in multiple dimensions that we can't comprehend in our 3 dimensional waking lives, our our conscious selves and our physical brain interact like a TV and a TV station. Maybe I couldn't connect because my dreams are not as far out there as some of the things described in the book.

This book makes for good science fiction, or even as a way of provoking ideas about the afterlife, but most of it is the author making claims of what if. To be fair, I don't think he claims that this is the absolute truth, only a mere possibility, but I consider this to be a quite unlikely possibility. A lot of the claims seemed heavy on analogy and weak on testability or real world examples. I wanted this book to be a mind-opening tome that would change the way I looked at the world, but instead, it was an interesting, yet unsatisfying read.

I bought this book a while back. I must say that it as interesting read. It suited me, because I'm not a very religious person. While it doesn't have a lot of science in it exactly, it tries to explain the idea of an after life with reasoning. Since nobody knows what happens to us when we die, what is contained in the book is somewhat speculative -- but the speculation makes you think and makes you consider various possibilities. The majority of the book hinges on the idea that our perception of reality changes when we pass on. We can go on into an after life, but in a way that is vastly different from what is taught by religion. This is an interesting read for sure, especially if you are into philosophy.

If you are on the lookout for a book that crackles with ideas, The Atheist Afterlife is for you. Using hard science and speculative philosophy, Tasmanian philosopher David Staume has produced a real page-turner.

The crux of the idea in The Atheist Afterlife is to demonstrate that a life beyond this earthly existence is not possible, but probable. Secondly Staume seeks to show that God - usually intertwined with the idea of an afterlife - is unlikely to exist. For this (okay, I admit, religious) reader, Staume's arguments for the first proposition are tantalizingly persuasive. For the second, they are less so.

The Atheist Afterlife argues that humans are made of two related but different types of `stuff': matter (think `brain') and non-matter (think `mind'). Because the mind (thoughts, feelings, subjective experience) is independent of the body, it may exist outside the body after we die. Indeed, Staume argues, it must: the first law of thermodynamics states that energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore, the likelihood is that the energy which animates each of us - which we call consciousness - shifts from this, our present experience, to another dimension of space and time.

There are a number of really great things about this book. First is Staume's intellectual energy, coupled with a rare ability among philosophers (trust me on this!) to communicate. I love the fact that David Staume is courageous enough to engage in philosophical speculation. A limitation of an exclusively `hard science' approach is that science will only reach a conclusion after its hypothesis has been tested and re-tested: as we can see with climate change, once science has resolved the question beyond all doubt, we'll all be dead - a bit of a `lose, lose' outcome. Philosophy, on the other hand, permits acceptance of a proposition provided it has been tested by reason and experience. So if I were dictator of the universe, I'd make everybody do a philosophy course with David Staume, who has the knack of making fascinating-but-complicated ideas fascinating and accessible.

What I am less keen on is Staume's insistence in having to `knock off' God along with the exploration of a possible afterlife. I agree that his model is not dependent on God, but it does not exclude God, either. Puzzling over this, it seems that David Staume (and famous atheists such as Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens) pre-suppose that moral teachings of the great religions are invented and imposed by a conspiracy of malign clerics. The Great Unwashed accept because said malign clerics represent God - the `god of the gaps' - ignorant of science, we rely on this god.

Staume says "the concept of God only begins to make sense as the definition of God approaches `the laws of physics' ", as though this idea defines God out of existence. As a theologian I have no trouble at all in including the laws of physics in any definition of the Creator, so long as we do not reduce God to the laws of physics. Having worked so hard to successfully demonstrate that our `inner reality' is real and universal - just as physics is real and universal, Staume wants to claim that the human experience of consciousness is entirely self-created. In fact consciousness operates according to knowable laws, some neurological, some psychological and others moral and ethical. What theology has always known is that consciousness is more than awareness, feelings, thoughts and other subjectivities: consciousness is connected to conscience. That's why there's considerable agreement amongst the various religious traditions on moral and ethical `truths'. God is the Creator of both the physical laws and moral/ethical laws.

Even science is coming to this particular party. Prof. Harc Hauser, an evolutionary biologist and professor of psychology at Harvard University has recently claimed that all human beings `are endowed with a gift from nature, a biological code for living a moral life' (Sydney Morning Herald, Spectrum p.12, Nov 28-29 2009). Basic morality is hard-wired into the human brain. This is why theology has always insisted on the primacy of conscience, rather than blind obedience (certain Thugs-in-Frocks and other Elect Vessels frequently forget this, admittedly.)

Nonetheless The Atheist Afterlife is well worth reading. The great Jewish philosopher, Maimonides (1135-1204) proposed that human beings are most `in the image and likeness' of God due to our capacity for `intellectual apprehension'. Maimonides meant the ability to reason, to reflect back upon ourselves and to make meaning out of experience, which is what David Staume has done with one of our biggest questions: `what happens when I die?'

I hope, then, it will not offend to say that David Staume's Atheist Afterlife is a popular philosophy of rigour, intelligence and wit, and as such is thoroughly in accord with God's purpose for humankind.

For too long, it has been virtually impossible to have a rational discussion about the possibility of an afterlife. On the one hand, you get the same old platitudes that we've had for millennia from the religious folks--about how wonderful the afterlife will be if only you believe the right things (and how horrible it will be if you don't). On the other hand, you can expect nothing but ridicule if you raise the question with metaphysical naturalists. Those of us who are open-minded and interested in a serious conversation without saccharine appeals to faith and hope or withering displays of sarcasm have had little or nothing to talk about. That's why Staume's book is so important. Finally, someone has had the courage to step forward and propose a rational system for the afterlife. In a logical, straightforward, and concise treatment of the subject, Staume lays out his views on the nature of human consciousness and his reasons for believing that it may be possible for us to survive death. He doesn't try to befuddle readers with complex arguments, belittle them with his own moral or intellectual superiority, and (most importantly) he doesn't threaten them in the least if they disagree with him.

Simply teasing apart the concept of God from the concept of an afterlife is an important step in the right direction. We have all been so culturally conditioned to view the two as one and the same that any conversation about the afterlife inevitably leads right to God. This is frustrating, because if (as Staume proposes) the afterlife is simply a natural phenomenon controlled and mediated by the laws of physics, we don't need God to explain the afterlife any more than we need him to explain the weather.

Our understanding of consciousness is so limited that people will grasp at straws in their attempt to make themselves feel better about their mortality. And for all of recorded human history, God has been the only straw for people to grasp for. It's God or nothing if you want to believe in an afterlife. What Staume offers is a strikingly different view--rather than grasping at the same old faith straws, we can actually have a conversation and discuss our ideas about a possible afterlife rationally, like adults. Many will find Staume's ideas convincing. Others will not. What is important is that here is an individual who has the courage to open the debate--and that's what we need. More conversation and fewer threats and mockery.