Science could capture the soul, said Oscar-nominated actor Morgan Freeman on National Geographic’s new docu-series, The Story of God.
The show, which premiered Sunday on the National Geographic Channel made it its business in the first episode to equate all belief systems.
The first episode spotlighted ideas of the afterlife from cultures around the world. Freeman donned an Indiana Jones fedora and crouched through Egyptian tombs, joined a Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, visited Aztec temples and the Ganges river in Varanasi, India where sacred cremation rites are performed.
After examining different cultures’ beliefs regarding the afterlife Freeman pivoted his focus to “how science is beginning to study the possibility of the afterlife.”
“There’s still no way to escape physical death, but scientists may soon achieve eternal life by other means,” said the star after speaking in New York with critical care physician Sam Parnia, who said the psyche doesn’t disappear after death.
“We yearn to break bonds with mortality, to become eternal, and around the world so many faiths have helped us to do that,” Freeman posited. “But now scientists are beginning to challenge the finality of death. What’s going to happen if we create eternal life in this life?”
Freeman concluded that science has begun to master the soul.
“It is amazing that science is now quantifying death, even defining the soul … The afterlife, something that has fascinated us since the dawn of religion now seems tangible,” said the star.
In a scene that felt like it came straight out of Star Trek, Freeman talked to an android-like robot who told the actor she wished she could travel and hoped to be fully human someday. The robot was designed by entrepreneur Martine Rothblatt, who discussed his ideas of how to store thoughts and emotions in a thinking machine. The robot is allegedly “filled with the memories, beliefs, and values of the real Bina [Rothblatt’s wife]” in the hope that she will help Bina “cheat death.”
“It will take decades of additional development in what Bina and I call cyber consciousness using computers to recreate the mind to see if a soul evolves from that,” Rothblatt told Freeman. “Whether or not there is in the eyes of God is a question that you and I will not be able to answer.”
Freeman concurred heartily: “Well put, Martine, well put.”
One of Freeman’s goals is to identify the common themes in religion around the world.
“The human sacrifice of the Aztecs and the elaborate tombs of ancient Egypt are both driven by a common belief in the afterlife,” he remarked. “The dead have the power to reach back and sustain the living. But today billions of people believe this power can do more than sustain us in this world. It can grant us all eternal life.”
It is unclear whether Freeman refers to Christians or others when he says some believe the dead have the power to give us eternal life, as Christians believe that God, not the dead bestows eternal life.
Buried in the episode is Freeman’s trip to Jerusalem, where he visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
“I want to know why those beliefs took root and how they spread all around the world,” Freeman said of Christianity.
“For Christians the death and resurrection of Jesus allowed believers to overcome the fear of death to know they could live forever,” the actor commented.
He was quick to add, however, “But there’s another way to overcome that fear. For Hindus reincarnation means death is just a step on the way to another life right here in this world.”
Freeman interviewed David Bennet, who had an out-of-body drowning experience where a light told him it was not his time to die and that he still had a purpose on earth.
“I believe that you can find that spirituality in all different beliefs,” said Bennet. “I don’t subscribe to just one belief anymore. I try -- I love -- My library at home has all different beliefs represented.”
‘So does mine,” Freeman answered.
In other words, eternal life in some sense can be achieved by anyone, the star implied.
“Whether you’re a Christian following the example of Jesus, a Hindu hoping for liberation from the endless cycles of reincarnation, or you’re simply trying to leave the world a better place than you found it, our desire to go beyond death has changed the world,” he said. “Whatever we may find on the other side, no matter what our faith, we can all become eternal like the stars.”
