I already did this as an essay a while ago xd
Critically asses Dawkin's claim that since life is no more than DNA reproducing itself, there can be no life after death?
Richard Dawkin, born in 1941, was famous for his writings such as "The God delusions". Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The selfish gene, which popularised the gene centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982, he introduced into evolutionary biology an influential concept, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. (1) Richard Dawkin is an athiest, and believes that life if is just DNA reproducing and evolving. He goes against other famous philosophers such as plato.
For Dawkins, the human body is nothing but cells and streems of DNA built up in form and nothing but digital information. Dawkins believed that among evolutionary psychologists, religious faith is nothing but an evolutionary artifact, a predilection that evolved because shared belief increased group solidarity and other traits that contribute to survival and reproduction. (2) Dawkins self identifies himself as an atheist and states in the opening chapter of "The God Delusion". "God is a delusion. ... Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand." (3)
His views are supported by the fact that attributes that we associate with the soul, can be explained by neoroscience and can be located in the brain which is physical. (4) The idea that the brains functions can explain everything that we attribute with the soul such as our feelings, when we are sad we feel it, but the brain can induce chemical reactions to make us feel this way inside, so a soul is not neccessary.
Though on the other hand, many argued with dawkins beliefs such as Plato and his dualism theory. Probably the earliest systematic concept of mind and body stems from the philosophy of the Greek philosopher Plato (429-347 BC). Plato, like Descartes, saw the mind as identical with the soul. However, unlike Descartes, Plato argued that the soul both pre-existed and survived the body, going through a continual process of reincarnation. Platos beliefs of the soul revolve around his teachings of the world of forms.
Plato had 4 main arguements for his dualism theory, the first of which was the cyclical argument. This arguement is based on the notion that opposites rely upon one another and in fact lead to one another. In terms of life and death, this leads to the conclusion that, if life leads to death, then death must also lead to life. So, the living come from - or are reincarnations of - the dead, which then die and are born again. The second arguement of platos for dualism is The recollection argument, this second argument is based on the idea that all knowledge is simply a form of recollection. This is proven by showing that a young, untutored boy, with no knowledge of maths or geometry, can be led to display or "arrive at" knowledge which he did not know he possessed. The third arguement for Plato's dualism theory is the affinity argument. The third argument attempts to prove that the soul, although it may arguably predate birth, also survives death. Since the body is mortal, changing and made up of different parts, the soul, which seems not to be composed of many parts, must therefore also be immortal and unchanging. The 4th and final arguement for dualism is the Argument from Opposites. Since death is the opposite of life, and opposites are mutually exclusive, therefore when the body dies, life must go on. (5)
Descartes also believed that we have a soul. He believed in his theory of the divisibility arguement. It says how the body can be divided such as you can lose an arm or a leg, but with the mind, such as willing, of understanding, of sensory perception and so on, cant be divided from the mind, and that the mind is separate from the body as it can't be divided. This one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is completely different from the body, even if I did not already know as much from other considerations. (struggled to understand this)
On the other side of things, we have the religious arguements for life after death. For christians, they believe in heaven and that they will be resurrected based on the belief of Jesus' resurrection. Tradition christian beliefs for christians is that the resurection of the body occurs at the end of time when jesus returns. Though the body dies, the soul is immediately united with God in heaven. Catholics believe that most souls go to purgatory until they have payed for the sins in this life before starting over with God in the next life. Though different parts of christianity have different beliefs on the afterlife.(6) On the other hand we have Muslim believes, that when you die you face 3 questions:
1. Whos your God? Allah
2. Who do you follow? Prophet Muhammed
3. What is your religion? Islam
A true muslim would answer these in an instand without question and gain imediate access to heaven, where as a bad muslim wouldn't and have to go to hell for a period of time. Eventually, every muslim is joined with God in heaven, but they must pay for their sins in hell first. When a Muslim goes to heaven, they start a new life with Allah of which they choose how it is. This is their beliefs in life after death. (7)
Also we have the beliefs of life after death in Hinduism as they believe in reincarnation. This is the believe that when we die our soul lives again in another embodied form. Depending on how you live in this life, like if you are good, you will be born well off in the next life, where as if your bad, you shall be born into poverty or even as an animal, depending on how bad you are.
There are also some radical beliefs out there such as people believe that when they die that they will be born anew, as a chicken, in a new life. (8)
Its difficult for one to judge which arguement is the most supported out of all of the above. Dawkins saying that we are just DNA can be proven with science, though it doesn't disprove the evidence of a soul, just says its not nessessary. Also it does not dismiss any theory of life after death. For example, when we die we decompose, our cells could them become neutrition for plans and we could live on within the plant in that form. As for a spiritual life after death, thats another issue. Plato's dualism arguement is supported by his world of forms but it shows no physical evidence, which is simalar with Descartes divisibility arguement, though the mind cannot be devided it shows no evidence of a soul.
Though the idea that we might even know that whats around is real confuses this even more. Like in the matrix, we could be in a virtual world with the real world awaiting us outside. And so our mind could be a our soul, trapped in an illusion world right now, and being released into our real life like neo was, is dying for us now, where we go to the heaven the real world?
The idea that we have a soul is a hard thing to discuss as we cannot prove weather we do or do not, and as we cant justify this, life after death is an unconcievable issue. Im not really religious, im an Agnostic, but i believe that we all have souls, (apart from gingers (9)), but as for an afterlife i do not believe in a God or that we are reincarnated so the idea of dying is mystery in my mind.
In conclusion, i believe dawkins is wrong to say there is no afterlife, even if we are DNA reproducing, we may still be souls and there may still be a heaven which he cannot disprove, so saying there CAN'T be an afterlife is something he cannon support, where as if he said that he doesn't believe in and afterlife, thats a different story.
He was talking with his son after death 
