Chapter 7: Belief in the Afterlife Summary and Analysis

Shermer is a monist or a scientist who believes that mind and brain are one. Those experts who believe that the brain and the mind are two separate entities are referred to as dualists. To some, the soul is the unique identifier of a person. If the person dies, the monist believes the soul dies as well. Memories and traits are recorded in DNA and when the DNA dies that recorded data is gone: no brain, no mind, no body, no soul. The dualist believes that the soul outlives the body and lives again in an ethereal sense.

There are scientific reasons for belief in an afterlife. These reasons do no prove there is an afterlife, they only provide evidence why the mind is fertile ground for such belief. There are six specific...