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there is no God, but if some day you discover God, hypotheses can be changed.
Socrates does not say that life survives after death. He says, "I will have to wait and see. When I die, only then can I see whether life survives after death or not, because nobody has come back from death and told us that life survives."
And never forget that this was twenty-five centuries ago. This man had such courage that when poison was given to him, he gathered all his disciples and said, "You have always been asking about whether life survives or not. This is a good chance, a great opportunity. If I had died an ordinary death then there would have been no opportunity. But now poison will be given to me" -- and poison kills very slowly -- "so I will report to you to the very last moment, till my tongue also becomes numb and I cannot say anything."
And as the poison is given he starts saying with closed eyes, "My legs up to the knees are dead. I don't feel them; even by touching them I don't feel them. Life has gone out of them. But one thing is to be remembered: I am still feeling as whole as I was always. So the death of the legs has not affected my consciousness."
Then he says, "Half of my body, the lower half, is dead, but I am completely whole; half of my consciousness is not dead." Then he says, "My hands are becoming numb, my eyes are drooping, and I can feel that my tongue will stop any moment, so this is perhaps the last statement I have to make to you -- that life survives after death, because I can see death happening. Parts of my body are dead and I am fully alive. Nothing is missing. So I am certain that when my tongue stops, my eyes close, and my heart stops, it is not going to matter. But don't believe me; it is just a hypothesis for you. When you die, try it." Such a scientific spirit!
I feel immensely happy to be here.
I have loved Socrates much more than anyone else -- for his humbleness, for his scientific enquiry, for not creating a religion, not creating a theology, not creating a following, not becoming a prophet... which he was capable of, far more capable than Jesus or Moses or Mohammed. These people were all illiterate.
Socrates
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