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To a large degree I’ve stopped talking with people about my beliefs. It’s both safer and more interesting to hear them talk about theirs. But when I was younger I often would have candid conversations with people. Something I often heard was “If you don’t believe in an afterlife, what keeps you from doing whatever you want?”. This usually meant, I assume, “why don’t you do ‘bad’ things”. I’ve seen this same question in current public debates, and I can only assume that fear of punishment is how some believers think they enforce their personal behavior. I don’t believe that that’s how they really think on a day to day basis. Still, I’ve not been able to figure out how to explore the believer’s real decision process without perturbing the explanation. Once someone starts talking about how God fearing they are, they want you to know that happens for every moment of their life.

Let me explain what I think happens.

Everyone is tempted by illicit opportunities. I believe I’m pretty typical of atheists, and that I have as strong a motivation to rise above temptation as the pious.

Imagine receiving too much change from a checkout clerk. I (and I suspect all of you) have reacted both ways during my life, sometimes keeping the money, and sometimes returning it.

When I don’t correct the error I feel bad. I feel I’ve lessened myself and missed an opportunity to build integrity. I hope that over time I’ve made the strengthening decision more often than the other, The thought of Godly punishment never enters my mind.

I suspect that believers go through exactly the same process. It’s more of a “this isn’t who I am” rather than “God will punish me for this.” Now they can add something along the lines of “it’s not Christian behavior” but I don’t think that changes the decision process. Most of them believe if they succumbed that they could get forgiveness, just as I believe I can recover from my mistakes and trend better. Apparently victimless crimes, like cheating on taxes, and major crimes like murder have secular threats that are much more immediate than the afterlife. Crimes with a victim cause guilt for both the believer and non-believer, unless you’re a psychopath (or have somehow convinced yourself the victim is less than human or deserves this). And my observation is that believers are as suspectible to rationalization or psychopathy as anyone else. And they know there’s that forgiveness token on the table. Unless they get blown away during a big sin, they assume they can find atonement. In fact, many assume they’re in a perpetual state of sin and can only get into heaven as a sort of karmic charity case.

I want to be a person of integrity. I have no afterlife to work towards, and my personal strength and progress is important to my view of myself. I have as strong a motivation in every case to behave, and in at least one case, stronger.

I was discussing capital punishment with a fundamentalist. (I’m not personally opposed to the death penalty for murder) Before the recent spate of DNA evidence proving that some of those convicted were actually innocent I’d been comfortable with our justice system (naive me). Afterwards I became convinced we were executing some unnacceptable percentage of innocent people. I further think that it’s better for thousands of actual murders to live in prison than for one innocent person to be killed. After discussion this fundamentalist agreed that we were likely killing innocent people, but thought that ok because “if they are innocent God will sort it out.”

I think that this is condoning state sponsored murder. If we only get one shot at this life gig I think it’s horrendous to take someone’s turn away.

So a belief in the afterlife makes some people less moral than atheists.

I’ve been curious about why people, and apparently most people, want to believe humans have a soul. Even more interesting is the (large) subset of those who don’t believe animals have a soul. What’s the basis for this soul idea and the human/animal distinction? What draws the line? Complexity? Does the frozen embryo have a soul? Even if its just a few cells? That embryo is a lot less complicated structure than a mouse or a dog.

Is the basis perhaps genetic? Many primate’s are almost identical to us genetically. Some people accepting the existence of souls also believe it’s ok to torture and vivisect animals including non-human primates. They must believe other primates have no soul. Maybe there’s some genetic line where non-human primates are on one side and homo sapiens is on the other. Did then Neanderthals have a soul? They were likely very, very similar to humans. We may find out how much so soon. There’s some evidence they could interbreed with humans. What of the soulfulness of their offspring? I imagine the very idea of evolution muddies the waters for the soul enthusiast. How could you draw the line in the face of changing genotypes? At some later point I’ll talk about the idea I’ve heard of “kinds” as a way of managing genetic categories and avoiding evolution.

What if we created a human/animal chimera? Would it have a soul? Are the complications this raises the reason fundamentalists want to outlaw this sort of experiment? And what of separated human cells? Do kidney cells in a dish have a soul? If not, when did they lose it?

Perhaps this soul is mind based? That seems to exclude the embryo and humans who never had a mind, like hydroencephalics. What of people who once had a mind and lost it, like stroke victims, Alzheimer victims or perhaps Terry Schiavo? I suspect most believes assume their soul is intact and associated with their bodies until they die.. Does that exclude a mind based connection to souls? Otherwise when would the souls of these unfortunates be “released” from their body? When the self awareness goes? When their EEG is flat? When every cell that was once part of that body dies? Sentience or self awareness are criteria I’ve also heard used as the basis to get a soul, but to me these seem to just be a subset of “mind based”.

And there’s the old question about identical twins. When do they get their soul? At fertilization? Then they must share one soul. If not then, then when? And what of the “soul state” of embryo’s before that point?

If you believe all of the above have a soul, and that soul then goes to an afterlife, what’s the state of the individual in the afterlife? Does the Alzheimer’s victim have memory restored? What of those who never had a mind? Do they receive their first life in the afterlife? Or do they hum along as a happy mindless creature with their ticket to heaven punched by their DNA?

Me? I think my mind is based in the meat computer in my skull. When that meat ceases functioning, my mind ceases to exist. When my mind ceases to exist, there isn’t any meta mind to recreate my mind in some other plane of existence. I just blink out and go away. Emotionally I don’t understand why that’s so threatening to some people.

I think people who want to invest frozen embryo’s with humanity are avoiding understanding what they believe. And those who want to outlaw studies in human genetics are trying to keep this from getting more complicated. I dare say that few who want to believe in a soul would be able to put together a coherent and consistent set of answers to questions about one. The only consistent viewpoints I can imagine are “nothing has a soul” or “every living cell has a soul” (perhaps the Buddist skandha fits here). Many soul believers I’ve encountered revert to themselves as the final authority. What I think has a soul has a soul. Or they punt the question to God and refuse to think about whatever it is they believe.

Maybe this is one reason why the “Young Earth” people cling so tenaciously to their world view. It’s easier if Neanderthals didn’t exist. But I predict even without answers on the nature of the soul that many will be happy to attack anyone for having “soulless” world view.