The mind brain connection

[solja247]

It used to be thought that we had an immaterial essence independent of our material bodies. The so called soul of substance dualism. We now know that this is false and the mind (a term which seems to have replaced the soul) is infact hardwired to our bodies, that is we cannot exist without the material hardware of the brain. This is best seen in the advances of modern medical science. There are many unfortunate cases of people suffering brain injury and their personality changing. Clearly if we had an immaterial essence this would be untroubled by brain injury. So two problems for Christians : 1) what part of us survives death, 2) god is envisaged as an immaterial mind which there is evidence against.

The idea that our soul goes to some sought of after life is based on pagan understanding what happens when you die. What you will see throughout the entire Ot and NT is that the Jews either believed that nothing happened when you died (Sadducces) or that there was an afterlife (Pharisees). For Hebrew theology a body + breath of life, created a LIVING soul (Genesis 2:7). If you dont have a body, you have no soul. It was only until Christianity lost its Jewish roots and became pagan that the idea of ones soul going to an afterlife became mainstream in Christianity.

I persoanally believe that when one dies they are dead, or sleeping, untill Jesus returns.
Through out the NT the early Christians rarely wrote about heaven. Their wait and anticipation was based on the second coming of Jesus, the resurrection.
Note: Revelation does not describe heaven either, only the new Earth. (Revelation 21)