Belief in immortality

“ The question of immortality is a fundamental problem of natural theology in the wider sense.
Hence if we are to explain the deification of dead men, we must first explain the widespread belief in immortality; [pg 26] we must answer the question, how does it happen that men in all countries and at all stages of ignorance or knowledge so commonly suppose that when they die their consciousness will still persist for an indefinite time after the decay of the body? ”

“ I believe in the immortality of the soul. I believe in the religion of humanity. Yes, on the far away rim of eternity, Faith seeks a beckoning hand and the human heart pulses anew with inspiration and unfaltering belief in the immortality of the soul. Let us believe there are songs sung and harps touched and kisses given and greetings exchanged in that other world. It is better that all other words should turn to ashes upon the lips of man rather than the word immortality. ”

“ But over and above these secular motives, the belief in immortality extends its powerful influence through life, and culminates at the last hour, when, setting aside the very evidence of their senses, the mourners smile through their tears, and say it is not death but life. ”

“ Yet, for these and similar reasons applied to himself, man thinks that immortality is his due.
In doing so, he does but pursue, to a rather injudicious extent, that instinct for the ornamentation and embellishment of the facts of life which I spoke of to begin with. For whether it be well-founded or not, a belief in immortality gives ornament to existence. ”

“ Of what moment are the ills of life here, with this glorious vista before us? Who, having seen this light, need be cast down by any earthly trouble? In the face of it are not all the experiences which wring our hearts and drain us of our tears mere fictions or illusions?
[Pg 208]
“Since Death is dead, what is there to affright or distress us? Though to-day be lost, to-morrow is ours. Though our dear ones pass out of sight there is neither separation nor bereavement. Scientific knowledge makes it plain that immortality is not dependent upon belief; but is a fact in nature. ”

“ And when he came to die, he gave this reason of his belief of immortality; "I cannot," said he, "persuade myself to think that the soul of man, after having sustained itself in a mortal body, should perish when delivered out of it, for want of it;" ”

“ Talk as we will of immortality, there is an obstinate feeling that we cannot master, that we end in death; and that may be felt together with the firmest belief of a resurrection. Brethren, our faith tells us one thing, and our sensations tell us another. When we die, we are surrendering in truth all that with which we have associated existence. ”

“ And this belief in the existence of disembodied spirits seemed to explain the occurrence of the unusual, the extraordinary, the infrequent, and the inexplicable.
The primitive doctrine of survival after death was not necessarily a belief in immortality. Beings who could not count over twenty could hardly conceive of infinity and eternity ”

“ If one believes that he is naturally immortal, while the plan of salvation is intended and adapted to save mortal men and bless them ultimately with immortality, he will not be in a position to believe in that plan; because his belief must, necessarily, nullify it. For how can one properly believe in and appreciate an offer of immortality if he is persuaded that he is already in possession of it? ”

“ Now whether other men from a simple contemplation of their own nature, quite apart from reasoning, know or believe themselves intuitively to be immortal, I cannot say; but I can say with some confidence that for myself I have no such intuition whatever of my own immortality, and that if I am left to the resources of my natural faculties alone, I can as little affirm the certain or probable existence of my personality after death as I can affirm the certain or probable existence of a personal God. ”

“ Yet even the savages who firmly believe in man's natural immortality are obliged sorrowfully to admit that, as things are at the present day, men do frequently die, whatever explanation we may give of so unexpected and unnatural an occurrence. Accordingly they are hard put to it to reconcile their theory of immortality with the practice of mortality. ”

“ They all imply a belief that death is not a necessary part of the order of nature, but that it originated in a pure mistake or misdeed of some sort on somebody's part, and that we should all have lived happy and immortal if it had not been for that disastrous blunder or crime. Thus the tales reflect the same frame of mind which I illustrated in the last lecture, when I shewed that many savages still to this day believe all men to be naturally immortal and death to be nothing but an effect of sorcery. ”

“ And if the belief in the immortality of the soul has been unable to find vindication in rational empiricism, neither is it satisfied with pantheism. To say that everything is God, and that when we die we return to God, or, more accurately, continue in Him, avails our longing nothing; for if this indeed be so, then we were in God before we were born, and if when we die we return to where we were before being born, then the human soul, the individual consciousness, is perishable. ”

“ When I first began to think about these things, my mind was strongly prepossessed in favour of immortality, and consequently this instinct soon developed itself from its passive unconsciousness into active consciousness, and I held fast to the idea of immortality when everything else, save belief in a deity, had gone. It was not till after more than three years of thoughtfulness and study, that I learnt that my desire for immortality was only a synonym for my selfishness, and, having learnt this, I began to see, too, the complete needlessness, though as complete naturalness, of that desire. ”

“ AN ESSAY ON THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY. Considering that under the existing conditions of humanity, disease, and decay, and death abound on every side, it is surprising that the word "immortality" obtained a place in systems of philosophy, the authors of which must be supposed to have been unacquainted with divine revelation. It is not surprising that in the absence of such aid the belief of immortality should not have been firmly held, or that by some philosophers it should have been expressly disavowed. ”

“ It would also seem that a belief in the resurrection of the body, in the exact condition in which it leaves the world, is one of the causes that induce, in many instances, a desire for death in the vigour of manhood, rather than in the decrepitude of old age ”

“ The historical argument.—The popular belief of all nations and ages shows that the idea of immortality is natural to the human mind. It is not sufficient to say that this indicates only such desire for continued earthly existence as is necessary to self-preservation; for multitudes expect a life beyond death without desiring it, and multitudes desire a heavenly life without caring for the earthly. This testimony of man's nature to immortality may be regarded as the testimony of the God who made the nature. ”

“ But it is noteworthy that although the Christian idea of immortality is dissociated from that of the survival of the individual in the race, as well as independent of the belief in the transmigration and reincarnation of spirit in ways other than by the transmission of personality from parents to their children, it is by no means antagonistic to, but rather comprehensive of, all these ideas of the continuity of being. ”

“ We gain immortality through the footsteps of science that reveal Truth, Life, and Love, to our understanding, in which we learn there are no physical laws, no necessary fulfillment of material conditions, no sin, sickness, or death, in Life that is Soul. That death is a step towards Life, is error that begets mortality; for belief fulfills the conditions of a belief, and therefore will continue to die until the falsehood and error of Life or death in matter, is destroyed. Death is but the stepping stone to other mortal conditions of belief ”

“ To many, the reasoning of the 'Spiritualists,' like that of the ancient, amounts to "It is quite possible that human beings are immortal;" and that is all. Many a man and woman are dying daily deaths from the fearful doubts that constantly arise as to the truth of the Immortality of the Soul ”

“ I have heard that death takes us away from ill things, not from good. I have heard that when we pronounce the name of man, we pronounce the belief of immortality. ”

“ But do you not think this should strengthen one’s faith in the soul’s immortality? Are we not spirits living in material bodies? And when the material body dies, if our spirits are immortal, why should not they seek to manifest themselves to their friends on earth? ”

“ It was truly very good reason that we should be beholden to God only, and to the favour of his grace, for the truth of so noble a belief, since from his sole bounty we receive the fruit of immortality, which consists in the enjoyment of eternal beatitude. ”

“ A belief fulfils the illusive conditions of belief. Sickness, sin, and death seem as real to human belief as do Life, Truth, and Love. As a cloud hides the sun it cannot extinguish, so belief may seem to silence the voice of immutable harmony, but cannot destroy its Science.
If Soul is immortal it cannot be finite. By losing the finite sense of being we gain the eternal unfolding of Life, and this is immortality. Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun is not affected by the revolution of the earth. ”

“ While it is clear from the testimonies given that man is mortal and absolutely destitute of immortality, and that in death he is dead and therefore unconscious, our hope of immortality must be through the resurrection, and immortality is therefore a matter of hope for the righteous only, and not an inherent possession of saint and sinner alike. Immortality is Gods nature. ”

“ Death is the great argument for immortality. We cannot believe that the living, loving soul has ceased to be. We cannot believe that all those treasures of mind and heart are squandered in empty air. We will not believe it. When once we understand the meaning of the spiritual, we see the absolute certainty of eternal life; we need no arguments for the persistence of being. ”

“ Being ignorant of God's knowledge they ran into the most absurd speculations. They thought that immortality was a sort of ghost inside of a man that went to the fields of Elysium when death dissolved its union with the body. ”

“ A man's assertion that he is immortal no more proves him to be so, than the opposite assertion, that he is mortal, would prove immortality a lie. Nor is the case improved when a returned spirit teaches immortality. At the very best, on its own theories, Spiritualism can only prove that certain individuals have a continued existence after death, and maintain their affiliation with mortal flesh; but Spiritualism affords no certainty of a life that shall last forever. Life, Love, and Truth are the only evidences of immortality. ”

“ How is the word Immortality emphasized to our hearts by the perpetual spectacle of death! The joy and suggestion of it could, indeed, never visit us, had not this momentary loud denial been uttered in our ears. Such, therefore, as have learned to interpret these oppositions in Nature, hear in the jarring note of Death only a jubilant proclamation of life eternal; while all are thus taught the longing for immortality, though only by their fear of the contrary. ”

“ Now, then, as life, serene and happy life, is better than non-existence, so immortality is better than perpetual death. God must know that, wish that, will that, and so bring that about. Man, therefore, must be immortal. ”