Abstract
Issue: Some of the great, unanswered questions of our time are: “How did it all begin? Is there an afterlife ? Why do we exist?” Was the notion of God a creation of man, a product of our idea that everything must have a beginning and an end? Did God come from divine invention, a quirk of wiring of the brain, or is God an invention of ancient man? And why do most of the people in the world believe he (or she) exists in reality or in spirit? In the spirit of counterfactual analysis , answering these unanswered questions open paths to new beliefs, understanding, and meaning.
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- 1.
This paragraph is partially based on: Michael Shermer, “Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World.” Scientific American, June 1, 2009. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/skeptic-agenticity/. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
- 2.
Quote attributed to Mark Twain in Atheist Empire. “Great Mind Quotes.” http://atheistempire.com/greatminds/quotes.php?author=8. Retrieved February 12, 2018.
- 3.
The brilliant entrepreneur, Elon Musk , and others have theorized that we are pawns in some advanced computer simulation; see: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/simulated-world-elon-musk-the-matrix.
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Gordon, T.J., Todorova, M. (2019). The Beginning and Hereafter. In: Future Studies and Counterfactual Analysis . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18437-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18437-7_5
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