‘Modern idealism, if it asserts any general conclusion about the universe at all, asserts that it is spiritual … For my own part I wish it to be clearly understood that I do not suppose that anything I shall say has the smallest tendency to prove that reality is not spiritual: I do not believe it possible to refute a single one of the many important propositions contained in the assertion that it is so. Reality may be spiritual, for all I know; and I sincerely hope it is.’ G E Moore
The above paragraph is my favourite extract written by an academic philosopher. The reason I like it so much is because it is profoundly true, simple as that.
Essentially what Moore (1873-1958) is saying
in this introduction to On the Refutation of Idealism, is that though the work which is to follow is an argument for not accepting the truth of idealism, or in layman’s terms, the
truth there is life after death, he wants to make it clear that though it is
correct to challenge those who say there is life after death, it does not mean
they are definitely wrong and there is not perhaps life after death.
He states that the assertion of
idealism is an ‘important proposition’ and I agree with him, because everything
you want is important and to say you don’t want life after death in some shape or form is
simply not telling the truth. The extract ends perfectly too, because Moore
states he ‘sincerely hopes’ there is life after death, which is the embracing
of honesty on the subject.
One of my favourite TV programmes is Room 101 where people choose a pet hate they want to dispel forever and for me this has to be people's
incorrect opinions about death, not only in terms of what is believed to happen, but also in terms
of what is hoped happens too.
For
me the answer to these questions is simply a matter of truthfulness and
it is clear there is only one truthful answer for each of the questions. To help explain what I mean by this, please consider the following questions and table of answers:
On
the matter of death, what do you believe in and what do you hope for
out of non-reincarnation/resurrection, reincarnation, resurrection, or any imaginable
number/combination of the above, depending upon, or not depending upon
your morality?
The standard atheist position on the matter of death i.e. materialism
|
The standard pantheist position on the matter of death e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism.
|
The standard monotheist position on the matter of death e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Islam
|
The truthful
position on the matter of death i.e. being philosophical
|
|
On the matter of
death what do you believe in…
|
Non-reincarnation/resurrection, whatever your morality
|
Reincarnation, the quality depending upon your judged individual morality
|
Resurrection, the quality depending upon your judged individual morality
|
The
truth cannot be known and never will be known i.e. scientific / non-prophetic / humble
|
On the matter of
death what do you hope for…
|
There
is no hope of anything other than non-reincarnation/resurrection i.e. non-spiritual / non-religious
|
Non-reincarnation/resurrection, because of your judged individual morality
|
Resurrection into a non-evolutionary Heaven.
(Consider: Can you imagine this being better than the box to the right?) |
Reincarnation onto an evolutionary Earth of unanimous non-poverty and democracy i.e. depending upon our non-judged and specific collective morality
|
I
believe the vast majority of people would put themselves in what I
consider are the untruthful non-bold categories above and this I find thoroughly
annoying, because the established truths are not widely understood and emphasised.
I would suggest thinking about death truth can be equated to thinking about arithmetic truth.
What I mean is, consider how annoyed you'd be if when you asked what 7 x 8 equals, the only answers you got were 55, 57 or 58 i.e. the standard positions above. Would this ignorance not drive you to try and spread the word that 7 x 8 equals 56 i.e. the truthful position above? It might also motivate you to put the correct answer in a table on a website named www.arithmetictruth.net or entitled something else equally appropriate!
It can also be agreed that this striving to emphasise arithmetic truth would be a teaching and not preaching and equivalently I would suggest the truth about death is a teaching and not preaching too. Also, just like arithmetic truth, I believe the truth about death is not particularly difficult to understand, yet is not understood by anyone until examined.
I hope the works that follow serve as this examination and that the reader will in the end agree, if they do not already do so, that what is contained in bold in the above table is the truth on the matter.
