"Heavens on Earth"

(The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia)
-by michael shermer
2018
How can a skeptic have anything to say about the afterlife, that most discrete leap of faith? Our species, so irrepressibly clever, devises ever-more-preposterous ways to measure smallness, largeness, and beyond...we extrapolate, deduce, and "prove" realities unseen...yet no telescope, microscope, or algorithm offers one shred of evidence for an afterlife.
The short answer? He can't. But he'll provide statistical, anthropological, and psychological insight into the whys and wherefores of afterlifeism, before delving into those other topics. He'll explore altered states of consciousness, and debunk psychic charlatans and near-death experiences. He'll explore cryonics, anti-aging theories, computer mind uploading, and the evolutionary psychology of those who think civilization is in decline despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He'll show why utopian experiments have always led to dystopian nightmares. From the letters of executed prisoners, he'll show what we focus on when death is near (hint: it ain't esoteric speculation). In a burst of hope for those unfortunate souls living in Iran or Texas, he'll show that as many as half of all humyns don't believe in an afterlife.
And he'll save the best for last. His most delightful and resonant prose comes in the final chapter, where he talks about meaning in a "meaningless" world, and how the awe that comes with even partial understanding of the wonders of the universe can lead to a life immensely more motivated and creative and caring than a worldview based upon scriptures from the recesses and backwaters of our intellectually and morally stunted past.
Nicely done, michael.