Q&A: What do you think happens to consciousness/the soul after death?
What do you think happens to consciousness/the soul after death?
Question
This is a question that occupies me every day, and probably one that everyone has asked themselves.
Logic says that after death you will feel what you felt before you were born—nothing, an eternal sleep—but that would be on condition that consciousness is produced by the brain, which still has not been proven with certainty.
Jews only began to believe in life after death during the 2nd century CE, after the Christians. And even today, every rabbi you ask this question will give you a different answer; in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) nothing is written about life after death.
What rational reason is there to believe that consciousness is not erased after death?
Answer
I know as much about this as you do: nothing.
Discussion on Answer
Indeed, I am a dualist. So what? Does that mean I know what happens after death? I see no point at all in dealing with all this.
Rabbi Michi, after all, you are a dualist; you hold that there is a spiritual, immaterial component. So how would the death of the biological organism “erase” the “immaterial” part?