What is the best proof there is an afterlife?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SolemnSister
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
SolemnSister said:
And I mean actual empirical or logical evidence, not bible verses.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but that’s an invalid limitation. It’s like saying: OUTSIDE OF THE EVIDENCE, what is the best evidence for proposal Y?

The historicity of the resurrection is the answer to your question, and limiting yourself by not permitting the witnesses to speak is quite unreasonable. Discarding the New Testament with regard to this historical event implies a hyper-skepticism that, for all intents and purposes, is simply a case of begging the question.

I would recommend you read the following: reasonablefaith.org/jesus-resurrection

Reading N.T. Wright would be a useful suggestion, too.
 
Tomdstone said:
Therefore, there is a nonmaterial element without which the crocodile is a corpse, and which disconnects from the body at death.
Click to expand...
That’s the Catholic position. St. Thomas recorded this precise sort of reasoning 800 years ago. Crocodiles *do *have a soul. But it doesn’t survive death.

Plants have “souls” too. They don’t survive death either.

The reason? Other animals and plants don’t have *rational *souls.

How do we know that? Because the squirrel outside my window isn’t picking up his iPhone to chime in on this debate, and neither are the swallows deciding they’d rather drive their car today than fly.

Our human souls *are *rational, and, just as we were given every other organ of our body in order to accommodate our soul’s needs, so we were given a brain to accommodate our soul’s rational faculty.

This is a natural consequence of being created with a will and an intellect.
 
multitude said:
Marian apparitions are reported from all around the world, in Europe, Asia, the Americas, Middle East, if you’re asking for some sort of cohesion.
Click to expand...
I was referring to a similarly of beliefs over different cultures, religions and history. There is a pretty pervasive belief in the existence of an afterlife and ghosts. But beyond that the variety of details are staggering.
 
Tomdstone said:
The argument given is the same for the corpse of a dead crocodile: Here is his argument, but with man replaced by crocodile:
The difference between a corpse of a crocodile and a living crocodile. In the morning a crocodile is alive, but by the evening he may be a corpse. Now what is the difference between the two? It’s not a difference of material. There is no chemical you could add to the corpse of the crocodile that would make it alive again, nothing material could do that. But there is a difference. Therefore, there is a nonmaterial element without which the crocodile is a corpse, and which disconnects from the body at death.
Click to expand...
The difference is that even the body of a human is made in the image and likeness of God (not that God has a body), whereas a croc is not.

Thus a dead human body still has nobility and dignity.
 
mommy_k said:
For non-Catholics it may be quantum mechanics and quantum physics.
Click to expand...
How does quantum physics prove the existence of an afterlife? Does quantum physics work only for humans, or does it also work for crocodiles?
 
Tomdstone said:
How does quantum physics prove the existence of an afterlife? Does quantum physics work only for humans, or does it also work for crocodiles?
Click to expand...
Quantumn clue-- quatum physics does not apply to linear time.
 
Tomdstone said:
How does quantum physics prove the existence of an afterlife? Does quantum physics work only for humans, or does it also work for crocodiles?
Click to expand...
Quantum physics is equally true for human life and for the crocodile.

However, it is also equally imperceptible by the human body and by the crocodile.

Only the human being can reach it with his mind.

ICXC NIKA.
 
triumphguy said:
The difference is that even the body of a human is made in the image and likeness of God (not that God has a body), whereas a croc is not.

Thus a dead human body still has nobility and dignity.
Click to expand...
Explain further: If God is bodiless, how do our bodies image God?

ICXC NIKA
 
triumphguy said:
Nothing soothing about hell.:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Its soothing for the ones who felt like theyve been wronged.

Aquinas says that the joy in heaven is seeing those suffering in hell. A good feeling that justice has been served.
 
GEddie said:
Explain further: If God is bodiless, how do our bodies image God?

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
This is critical to St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

Let me get some links for you.

Here’s some

MAN’S AWARENESS OF BEING A PERSON
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb6.htm

ORIGINAL UNITY OF MAN AND WOMAN
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb8.htm

MAN BECOMES THE IMAGE OF GOD BY COMMUNION OF PERSONS
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb9.htm

Man Enters the World as a Subject of Truth and Love
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb18.htm

Real Significance of Original Nakedness
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb26.htm
 
schaeffer said:
I won’t go as far as calling it proof, but the pervasive belief in life after death, ghosts, etc throughout history is hard to simply discount.
Click to expand...
This isnt a good argument, since there is pervasive belief in bigfoot, aliens, chupacabras, vampires, werewolves, etc. They are easy to discount as folklore precisely because there is no evidence.
 
InNomineDomini said:
Sorry, but that’s an invalid limitation. It’s like saying: OUTSIDE OF THE EVIDENCE, what is the best evidence for proposal Y?
Click to expand...
The Bible isnt evidence. It is a book of compiled assertions that need evidence to be credible. The Bible hasnt been “proven” and in fact much research actually debunks much of what the Bible claims. So its easy to see why people want real, tangible proof and not just an appeal to “Because the Bible says so.”
 
SonOfMan said:
The Bible isnt evidence. It is a book of compiled assertions that need evidence to be credible. The Bible hasnt been “proven” and in fact much research actually debunks much of what the Bible claims. So its easy to see why people want real, tangible proof and not just an appeal to “Because the Bible says so.”
Click to expand...
Throughout the Gospels we are constantly told that the majority of followers leave Jesus even after they have seen miracles.

Evidence doesn’t really bother me anymore - though it did when I was green behind the ears.

What I care about is relationship. And I believe I have a relationship with Christ in which I benefit most.
 
SonOfMan said:
This isnt a good argument, since there is pervasive belief in bigfoot, aliens, chupacabras, vampires, werewolves, etc. They are easy to discount as folklore precisely because there is no evidence.
Click to expand...
I agree, there is no proof of an afterlife. Personally I believe that this life is all there is for me. But I have no proof of that either.

I had an NDE. That was interesting.

But back to the topic. My point in my original post is that is what I find to be the best evidence…pretty thin.
 
Appealing to logical proof found in the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas: A human is capable of thought, reasoning which although dependent on the physical in this life can exist after this life. That is possible because the source of reasoning and thought is not the body but a non-material, spiritual soul. Empirical scientists have never found a soul, because it is not physical. Death comes to a person when the body can no longer sustain the activity of the principle of life which is the soul. The soul is the principle of activity that gives the body life and sustains it till physical corruption takes over. Since the soul is not material, it continues to exist and be active, enjoying a freedom that was not possible when united to the body. The soul has for it powers rational intelligence, and will power which are spiritual faculties belonging to a spiritual entity called the soul. Even the Church teaches this, because it is concerned like Jesus with the salvation of souls. It is the noblist part of humans. It is like God who is Pure Spirit, who is Intelligence, and Goodness, and Truth, the things that the human mind strive for. A human is not complete unless the body and soul are united, that is human nature, but it is the soul that forms the body, and sustains it, without the soul the body ceases to live, and decomposes. So is there an after life, you bet!
 
SonOfMan said:
This isnt a good argument, since there is pervasive belief in bigfoot, aliens, chupacabras, vampires, werewolves, etc. They are easy to discount as folklore precisely because there is no evidence.
Click to expand...
What count as evidence?
 
schaeffer said:
I agree, there is no proof of an afterlife. Personally I believe that this life is all there is for me. But I have no proof of that either.

I had an NDE. That was interesting.

But back to the topic. My point in my original post is that is what I find to be the best evidence…pretty thin.
Click to expand...
If we do not have a comprehensive understanding of Metaphysics regarding human life, I d o not see any other way to know if there is an after-life, or the possibility of one. There is the exception of the Christian Faith, which consists of many spiritual experiences, even of after-life, but that is a gift of Jesus Christ, who endows man with His Holy Spirit, the source of spiritual life.
By spiritual soul is meant-that the entity,the soul, exists, that it can know itself,and know others, that it can choose a course of action, that it is not compose of matter, that it is the principle of activity in the human body, that it gives order,and function to the body. It maintains the life in the body. It is autonomous, self-directing. We know it exists because of its effects on the body, that can not be accomplished by matter alone. There is evidence that there is an intellectual substance or entity at work that can not be done by matter. Matter can not think, it does not have rational intelligence- a spiritual power, if it was matter, scientist would have discovered it. What is thought, matter?

The soul is called spiritual because it resembles breadth or wind, real but can not be seen, but we know they are real because of wind’s and breadth’s effects So too can we know the soul exists through it’s effects. If science can not destroy matter, and matter can not destroy spirit, and the
spiritual soul is the principle of activity in the human body, then the soul will continue to be active after the body dies through corruption If the soul remains active after human life on earth, then there is an after-life. This is also confirmed by our Christian Faith.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top