What is the strongest evidence/argument for life after death?

If any? I'm curious to see what you guys think/know/find convincing.

(Joh 14:2) In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

Flame away

Not usually considered an argument, but if that is the strongest argument for you that's the way it is.

discussion regarding life after death is going to be faith based.

about various phenomena we did not understand, say 3000 years ago... Right now I cannot even imagine what development would provide some scientific evidence in support of the hypothesis... But I'm not sure it's impossible by definition...

...to justify any belief. I could tell you I believe there are invisible, microscopic, pink-and-green zebras living in my left armpit. I could tell you I have faith that this is so and nothing you could say would defeat my "reasoning" based on faith.

To me the idea of life after death is just as ridiculous as the idea of microscopic zebras living in my left armpit. The only difference is that certain people of faith have had less trouble convincing others prone to faith that it is so. The main reason is that people want to be believe in life after death.

For me, anything that people want to believe, regardless of empirical evidence, is automatically suspect. That's just the way I think.

You are free to hold any belief you want, but since somebody asked, I feel free to post my beliefs. In the long run, as long as we all believe in social justice (and getting rid of the reich-wing), this difference of opinion isn't terribly important.

In fact, I've pledged my support for the religious left. So, my comments are merely reflections of my opinions. They aren't intended to incite flames.

scriptural evidence is only evidence to those who accept it, which requires faith. To quote it as evidence to someone who doesn't believe in it is stupid. Why anybody ever expects that to work is beyond me.

It may not be convincing to others, but I had asked to give your opinion (what you think is the best evidence)... So, I think it's fair game :)

As long as your beliefs don't infringe on someone else's rights, who cares, right? That's why I want religious lefties on my side and vice versa as we try to undo the harm done by neocons and the religious right.

"It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." -T. Jefferson

aka braindead republicans (btw 'republican' seems a fine word to give to them racialist, busybodied, bush worshipping bastards; it's too bad god wouldn't just smite the fukkers, or something) who might be dead but still eats too much, sheets too much, talks too fukkin much, thinks too much, has too much, wants too much, hates too much giggles too much, lies (talks) too much ....etcetera

was the birth of my 2 children, the deaths of my parents, and what I see when I really look into someone's eyes.

Along with one psychedelic drug trip I took in the early 70's with my sister when we were young and saw each other's soul.

My interest in soul and psychological Astrology.

And my very strong intuition/"knowing" that this is so.

:-)

DemEx

i just know.

for life after death.

If you are honest with yourself, the default position for any claim should be disbelief. If there is no definitive proof, there is no there there. Outrageous claims require outrageous proof.

That said, should someone come up with proof, I'll happily change my position, but I have no faith in faith. Faith can be used to justify any belief.

To me, it is obvious that myths about life after death were created to alleviate fear and to control the masses. I was raised to believe in life after death. When I realized there was no proof for such a claim, I decided to go looking. I read stories about going toward the light and various claims of near-death experiences. I even watched the biggest douche in the universe, John Edward. Finally, I realized I was trying to convince myself of something that had no merit because I was afraid. Believing in something because you're afraid of the truth is very human, but it is also intellectually dishonest.

After my realization, I have tried to follow the truth no matter where it might lead. It was hard. For months, I shivered in fear as I realized my death would be the very end of me. But through it, I've come to realize it is best to face one's fear rather than make up a pretty story to relieve it.

"Religion is based . . . mainly upon fear . . . fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand . . . . My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race."--Bertrand Russell

"Faith is an absolutely marvelous tool. With faith there is no belief that cannot be justified." -- Rev. Donald Morgan (b. 1933), Atheist theologian

"It is as morally bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it." --Edmund Way Tecle, 1950

even if it is subjective and can be interpreted physiologically. There are a lot of people who have been clinically dead yet still had some kind of conscious experience and believe they have seen another dimension: life after death.

I worked as a nursing assistant years ago and had to call a "code blue" on a patient who had no pulse and stopped breathing. Although he was "dead" during the only time I had met him, he remembered me two weeks later and he told me that I was the one who had called the code. He said he had had several such experiences, and that he was not religious, and that he was no longer afraid to die.

Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.

:thumbsup:

Although it can dissipate....

DemEx

What does energy have to do with life, consciousness?

just as "everything" is some form of energy.

God too, is "just" energy....we and everything, are all "God"....

IMHO.

Just a view of things from my life experience, intuition, and lots of stuff I have read.

DemEx

In India it is called "Advaita-vada," non-dualism, or monism; the belief that everything is one.

I am a dualist. In fact, I believe in what is called acintya-bheda-abheda tattva. That is to say, I believe that there is both eternal oneness AND eternal difference between the individual living being and the supreme being. (Bheda means difference, and abheda means non-difference).

it later in life?

I was brought up completely irreligious.

As I got interested in empirical research and less tolerant of authority.

I used to be an empiricist. Did my degree in physics. Then I became unsatisfied with it and started looking for answers. I never had any faith that I would find them in religions that are mainstream in the West though, which is why I ended up further afield.

asking those questions. Wait a minute! This thread shows I'm getting older!!! :(

Anyway, I am going to bed. Good night to you!

:)

What I mean is, why is your consciousness located in your body, and nowhere else? Why should that be so? And since it is so, why should it be impossible for your consciousness to be located somewhere else, once the body is destroyed?

you're going to have to define 'life' and 'death'

Just to see what people think or have heard... After all, such intutions are what people rely on most of the time...

He is a psychic who regularly (and convincingly) communicates with the
dead. Reading his books made me a believer.

You are right to treat it with extreme scepticism.

I do take those with extreme caution. If a number of scientists and magicians look at it and have no explanation other than something "paranormal", then I'd be willing to believe something real is going on.

and he is a very humble, compassionate guy as well. He specializes in
working with people who have lost a loved one through some sort of
trauma. His goal is to help them deal with their grief.

One of the things I found compelling was that Smith's gift has been tested
by wiring him up with electrodes (if that's what their called). When he
then gets in touch with someone who died, say, from a bullet wound to
the chest, his own body will temporarily show signs of serious trauma
in the same area.

George Anderson?

I knew it was a very common name. You're probably right. :blush:

our bodies are just vehicles, shells that help protect us from the 3D environment on planet earth.

We are not Physical Beings having Conscious Experiences.

We are Conscious Being having Physical Experineces.

Oh, and also the fact that some people remember past lives in detail.

past lives? I don't think I've seen much that seemed seriously verified...

http://www.victorzammit.com/book/chapter02.html

One of the pioneers in this tradition was Emmanuel Swedenborg who was born in Sweden in 1688. One of the leading scientists of his day, he wrote 150 works in seventeen sciences. At the University of Uppsala he studied Greek, Latin, several European and Oriental languages, geology, metallurgy, astronomy, mathematics, economics. He was an intensely practical man who invented the glider, the submarine and an ear trumpet for the deaf. He was held in high esteem by all, was a Member of Parliament and held important government posts in mining. He always showed he had enormously high intelligence and maintained a keen practical mind until his death.

Swedenborg was also a very highly gifted clairvoyant who spent more than twenty years investigating other dimensions. He claimed that he regularly spoke with people after they had died. On one well-documented occasion the Queen of Sweden sarcastically suggested that if he ever met her dead brother to give him her regards. A week later Swedenborg whispered a message in the Queen's ear. Shaken the Queen told those around her 'Only God and my brother can know what he just told me' (Inglis 1977:131).


Swedenborg wrote:


After the spirit has been separated from the body (which happens when a person dies), he is still alive, a person, the way he was before.


To assure me of this, I have been allowed to talk with practically everyone I have ever known during this physical life — with some for hours, with some for weeks or months, with some for years — all for the overriding purpose that I might be assured of this fact, (that life continues after death) and might bear witness to it. (Swedenborg Heaven and Hell : 437).


Swedenborg wrote volumes about what today would be called his Out of Body Experiences including very detailed descriptions of the afterlife. Interestingly he put forward a view of the universe which is remarkably similar to twentieth century quantum physics. At a time when Newton was arguing that matter was composed of impenetrable atoms which were given motion by outside forces, Swedenborg taught that it was made up of a series of particles in ascending order of size, each of which was composed of a closed vortex of energy which spiraled at infinite speeds to give the appearance of solidity.


In his 490 page history of the paranormal Brian Inglis (1977) makes reference to Emmanuel Kant, the great Rationalist philosopher who investigated Swedenborg. Although Kant was an open-minded skeptic he felt that the evidence for the afterlife provided by Swedenborg was, as a whole, overwhelming. He quotes Kant as saying:


"… while I doubt any of them, still I have certain faith in the whole of them taken together." ( Inglis 1977:132).


For more on Swedenborg see Emanuel Swedenborg His Life and Writings.

but if someone near & dear to you dies, ask them to send you a sign that they're ok. Made a believer out of me.

best

I'm very interested in these things.

And anyone else that wants to know, I'm just uncomfortable on a message board.

It might take me a few hours; got other stuff to do. OK?

best

:hi:

DemEx

best

there is no incontrovertible evidence of life after death, any more than there is evidence for the existence of any god.It is just plain silly to believe in such nonsense. If you look at pictures of St. Peter's square teeming with thousands of believers straining to get a glimpse of an old man dressed in regal robes and a funny hat, waving his hands at them, it is really a funny sight, but also kind of sad, and pathetic. Silly, deluded people. Just the briefest study of the history of the papacy will show anyone what a farce it is.And how much harm has been done to the world by religion is incalculable.

...I was severely injured, and after all noise began buzzing and ringing in my head, (distorted and sounding like I was underwater), I found myself floating above my body looking down....
It was totally peaceful and painless and I no longer fear death. O8)

Here is a good place to start:

http://www.childpastlives.org/

PM me if you want more sites.

Tucker

see serious verification, somehow. Anecdotes are interesting but not enough (but I haven't read the info on this site yet). :)

I'm pretty obsessed with the neural correlates of behavior. And of mental states. Beyond the simplest phenomena, nobody has a clue. When it comes to awareness, "qualia" and such, nobody has a clue...

And I think it urgently needs to be inquired into.

Since you can't reproduce these phenomena in a controlled way in a lab (like killing a mouse that has learned a certain maze, then proving the mouse's ability to run the maze has transferred to a mouse born later on) even the best evidence you'll get will be anecdotal.

Tucker

What I mean, for instance, is doing more than taking somebody's word and checking in detail, using more objective/historical sources. Perhaps that is what they do...

But there is always room for a hard-core, capital S Skeptic to find a way for it not to be so.

Of course, the Minimum Hypothesis is that "somehow, memory transfer has occurred" without necessarily assuming that the medium for the transfer is some kind of self-aware "spirit." (I favor the spirit hypothesis for personal reasons, but recognize it as unprovable using current technology.)

Tucker

The fact that we are here is pretty amazing, so the prospect of an afterlife really can't be all that far fetched. Think of it in terms of realities and alternate realities.

Consciousness is so unlike anything we know. What is its basis, and how did it come to be? I am convinced that these are extremely important questions.

"solutions" in the media. You know "X Professor has demonstrated Z". Usually, when you read the original article you realize that the claims are extremely cautious and the implications much more limited than the media reports. So, there is the perception that neuroscience has solved it all... Not true... Huge gaps remain... And people have no clue on how to even conceptualize the problems...

the 'life after death' argument is really about if there's a god and if the answer's yes, then what's god like? (if the answer's no, then eat drink and be merry, cuz then there's no right/wrong outside physical survival...and even then, life's such a burden we're all 'white men,' and eternal non-existence, especially if it included everything 'we' personally have known of, would be nice, really nice!)...no god mean nothing happened, ever, cuz oblivion is eternal; so what if you stubbed your toe, or if millions were herded into death camps, or if ann coulter lives to 96! W/out god, there's no way to link personal experience of life with history, both true history and the bs version the MAN pawns off on us (even given the animal concern with bloodlines surviving)....subconsciously, i think most people hope there isn't a god, because if there is, then there are reasons for punks like george bush being prez of the richest, most dynamic society ever put together by humanity, and it's the fault or sin, of every person who's an adult and in control of themselves ...bush is obviously a demon of some sort, yet he chugs along like a fukkin toy car!
btw i'm going to hell anyway, so i don't particularly worry about myself not doing anything about the nazipoo resurgence since the JFK murder....i see big tough men everyday who have families and friends and they not only do nothing, many of them love and worship the goofmachine...god invested everything in humanity (if you don't accept that there's such a person as god, then don't worry about it, it don't concern you) including 'itself'...if humanity dies, god dies....
as satan (death) says 'go bush'

This thread is a very rare thing. A discussion on transcendence that made it to a half-century without becoming a flame war. Alas, I must go to bed!

and it stopped ticking 2 minutes after his last breath.

The batteries were not "old", and even if they had been, quite the coincidence, in my view.

My siblings and I took this phenomenon as sign from him showing us that something else happens at death besides an "ending".

DemEx

during or right after your dad passed away? I'm sure you thought about it...

:-)

No, he was lying very peacefully in his bed at his home with his arms at his side.

At first the occurrence freaked me out, but afterwards it was strangely comforting.

DemEx

Most enjoyable.

:hi:

DemEx

:)

I don't think the question is - is there life after death - because matter = energy and cannot be destroyed, only transformed.

The question is - what kind of existence is there after death.

I believe it is a form of consciousness that is not comprehendable by the average human mind.

I think some humans have an inkling, and have tried to explain in a way that we can try to understand. That's why people like Jesus, and other prophets have used symbols like mansions, and kingdoms. Kind of like the episode of Voyager where the Q Civil War is acted out like the US Civil War so Janeway can wrap her mind around it.

I think people who practice deep forms of meditation might get close to experiencing what consciousness without the body is like.

I do believe there is a collective consciousness which is eternal - we were a part of it before we got here, and we'll be a part of it when we die. But eternity isn't time that stretched out forever. It's a dimension that exits now - and only a few people have evolved to a place where they can grasp it. I can only know that I don't know what it is.

He wrote about "Mental Science".

Basically, what this boils down to is studying Consciousness... not just the physical brain but the Consciousness that uses that brain as a "Seat".

Here's his writings online-
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:cicWTWzWf_MJ:www.ardue.org.uk/library/book4.htm+judge+troward&hl=en

He doesn't necessarily write about life after death but he lays down a rational argument for a Universal Consciousness that is independant of physical matter.

And that would be the first step in studying such topics.

Which doesn't mean I dismiss the idea out of hand. I keep an open mind about most anything - life on other planets, ESP, life after death, etc. I think there is much about the theory of reincarnation which makes sense to me but I don't know as I fully believe it. I don't fully disbelieve it either. I figure I'll find out eventually and so I don't worry too much about it now.