What is the evidence for life after death?

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I’ve never been able to explain this very good but in my thoughts no problem. So here goes as best i can describe this idea. I often believe that dreaming is our preparation for the eternal sleep. I believe that at death our mind gives us this extremely real place dream and is eternal whether it last for 5 seconds or hours as time has ceased as well as space and if you were a evil person you will be in a horrible place and if you were good you will see beauty and God or all the things in life that made you love and feel loving. I started thinking of this yrs ago after i had a experience that while unconcious i was in a place that was beautiful peaceful and perfect and while i was there it was like i had entered a different world that seemed more real than this world and i was there what seemed like forever and when i came too i was very angry i was no longer there and all said i was only out for maybe 5 seconds. Another time i was maybe 5-6 yrs old i was living with my grandparents and was playing outdoors and was pretending i could fly and had stopped and was leaning against the chicken fence and all of a sudden i was looking down at every thing and was maybe a couple of hundred feet in the air just from the view i had and recognized every thing below me and it was a very neat experience that lasted maybe 5 minutes but of course it was over 60 yrs ago so i’m only guessing the lenght of time.And last of all there has been 3 times in my life while being by my self when a voice just as clear as you could ever imagine has called out my name with no one around me at all.The last time it happened was 4 yrs ago when my wife was dying from cancer and i was making a delivery in the country and was concentrating very hard on finding the farm i needed when once again just as before a Voice suddenly calls me and said do not worry she will be alright,and i knew then it meant not alright physically but in the here after. Call me whacko or what but all i’ve told is truth to give you all something to ponder…
 
lhk0pd said:
Call me whacko or what but all i’ve told is truth to give you all something to ponder…
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I for one am very happy that you have reported what had happened to you. This is the basis of all progress in true philosophy. If more people would simply honestly tell their actual experiences of reality, we could form a better picture what reality actually is and our purpose in reality.

Thank you, what you have said is very meaningful.
 
lhk0pd, I agree wiht geometer. I had similar experiences to yours. They are far more common than they are though to be. You can see what good company you are in if tyo go to near-death.com/index.html

Thanks for posting. Geometer is right. We all need to let others know about such instances.

Tahnks, and Warm regrds,

BD
 
Joanna_Ionescu said:
First of all, ‘soul’ has been a philosophical term long before being a theological one as is clearly evidenced by Aristotle’s rather elaborate definitions (two of them).

But in your very first post it appears that you make some distinction between soul and mind since you posit an either/or question: “So, given the evidence, which seems more likely, mind or souls? Otherwise put, why would one believe in “souls” that have an “afterlife” if there is absolutely no reasonable evidence for it? (Other than, of course, belief in doctrine.) We can believe in “mind” because we can generate evidence of mind’s activity.”

Clearly, the question of What is it? asks for a definition and cannot be asked about a thing unless one knows that there is such thing. Moreover, by asking the question of an ‘afterlife’ (i.e. after bodily, physical death) in terms of either/or presupposes an affirmation for the existence of such things as mind and soul which further presupposes having assigned a meaning to both since one cannot ask if there is such a thing as soul and mind without assigning a meaning to both.

Now, I am not asking you for someone else’s definition of the human soul but simply what is your meaning in the above quoted sentence since you make an obvious differentiation between soul and mind.
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I admire your perspicacity, Joanna. Please refer to the previous posts. 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
What evidence is there to suggest that the mind doesn’t cease to exist after death? Does anyone know of any people who have passed away and talked to anyone from the great beyond? (And if so, how can we discern if that wasn’t just a production of the living person’s mind?)

I’m sure you know as well as I do that one cannot quantify the mind, or consciousness. The best we can hope for – at this time – is to look at exterior evidence of internal mental activity, such as is seen with EEGs, anecdotal reporting, etc. While scientists come up with fascinating findings when they do things like mapping activated brain regions when a stimulus is applied, mind/consciousness is still quite a scientific mystery.

But, at the very least, there IS that external evidence for mind.

So, given the evidence, which seems more likely, mind or souls? Otherwise put, why would one believe in “souls” that have an “afterlife” if there is absolutely no reasonable evidence for it? (Other than, of course, belief in doctrine.) We can believe in “mind” because we can generate evidence of mind’s activity.
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***A profound question deserves a profound answer, so please take this as such;)

The greatest proof of an afterlife is life of humanity itself.

There seems to be no other explaination for our existence.

It is proveable that humanity is both physical and spiritual. While some are want to claim an explaination for the evolutation of the human species [yet to be scientifically proven] one is unable to explain why humanity is superior to all other creations by virtue of our complexity. In addition to physical attributes of sight, hearing, mobility, we have cognative traits of mind, intellect and freewill, that permit being creative, logical [as opposed to instinctual] and have the abilty of self determination. Thus we are unique and superior.

It is the origin of these “spiritual traits” that make an afterlife an absolute necessity. Logic alone can conclude that if humanity alone is so gifted, that their MUST BE a specific reason for their and thus our existence. As no one can tender an explaination for why we have these spiritual gifts, nor the origin of these gifts, logic concludes that it must be to enable humanity to accomplish [a] very specific thing.

As one is unable to show the origin of mind, intellect and freewill, yet can prove scientifically that they do exist; one can [must] conclude that they are from another source greater than humanity, and from that conclusion understand that it is by plan, not accident, and certainly not evolutation that they exist, which begs an explaination for their being.

That explaination has to have someting to do with the source that brought them into exisence; and as that source is clearly SPIRITUAL [something can’t give what something does not itself have] so the answer too has to be spiritual.

Afterlife is the explaination and the reason for our spiritual gifts.:rolleyes:***

Love and prayers.
 
I have written a short article about the soul which I am presenting here for what it’s worth.
MAKING SENSE OF THE CONCEPT OF THE HUMAN SOUL
A Lay Person’s Speculation
by
Pio G. Yap, Jr.
Code: 
Although most of us profess to believe in the existence of our soul, not being a theologian or a philosopher, we are not sure that we understand what it is at all. The dictionary tells us that it is the spiritual part of the person. But what is spirit? Why is it immortal? Or is it?

In the section SOUL in the WIKIPEDIA (which can be accessed in the Internet) one can find an array of beliefs and speculations about the existence and the nature of the soul. Going through the section as it discusses the beliefs of philosophers and various religious systems would be a good introduction to this article. 

Theologians tell us a thousand times that the human soul includes his intellect and will. Not being a theologian or a philosopher I find it difficult to appreciate and much less to be ex-cited by this explanation. 

Perhaps the modern lay persons, particularly Christians, may be able to appreciate what another lay person, born in this age has to say about it –for whatever it is worth.

This is an attempt to make sense of this ancient notion in the light of concepts that we are now familiar with.
Some Axioms
It is a fact that most people believe in God. And it is not an exaggeration to say that many thinkers are theists. For sure, thinkers have their own notion about God which may vary with each individual. It is safe to say that many men of science are Christians and therefore we can assume that they hold about the same set of views of the idea of God as most Christians do. Two of these views which are the centerpiece of this thesis are that God exists for all eternity and that God is omniscient or All-Knowing.
Code: 
It would not be unreasonable therefore to use these tenets as the basic axioms to serve as the starting points of this thesis: That an eternal God exists and that He is omniscient. (This is Biblical. But let us start this thesis in the spirit of science.) 

Before proceeding with our discussion, allow me first to present what can be considered as a self-evident axiom: 
        Each physical object contains the sum total of its own software.
Explanation: Consider a particular pencil. What information does it contain? It has its length, color, the amount and kind of wood it has, the amount and kind of lead in it, where the wood and its other entire component come from, and all the enumerable information contained in it. In other words, it contains all the information of what it is; and it alone has this complete in-formation Hence it contains its own software.

As software, it can be stored in a memory bank. For the complete software of an object as simple as a pencil, it may not be humanly possible to gather all its information and store it in even the most sophisticated memory bank.

But there is a memory bank that is perfect and inherently stores all the software of all that can be found in the universe. This is the memory of an omniscient God.
Code: 
I state now as a corollary: that a person consists of a set of information. 

Then at the risk of sounding like someone having read and seen too many science fictions, I ask the reader’s indulgence and bear with me and decide later whether or not what follows make sense: The human soul includes all the information that makes a person who he is. In modern language therefore, we can think of the soul as software.
(Continued on next post.)
 
I find this definition to lead to some significant implications.

The key idea here is that God is omniscient. That is, God knows everything and for-gets nothing. In the language of science we can state that the idea that God is omniscient implies that information is conserved.

It may completely boggle the human imagination that in attributing to God the omniscient nature, we accept the notion that this Supreme Being has perfect knowledge of all the particles in the universe –from the largest to the smallest, for all time. As soon as God loses track of a single electron in the universe, He ceases to be the omniscient God that He is. He also ceases to be om-nipotent in the sense that He loses control of that single electron.

Based on this concept, some of our Christian doctrines about the soul becomes much more plausible and therefore, easier to appreciate.
  1. The soul is immortal
    In the same manner that we can say that an object contains its own software, so does a human person’s body. This software we identify earlier as the human soul.
The human soul as software includes not just the information on the body (which we may consider as the hardware) but it includes the memory, intellect, emotion, the subconscious, and all the experiences of the person from conception until the very present or until death.

People usually ask, where does a person’s soul reside? Is it in the brain? If our thesis is correct, then it is not just in the brain, but throughout his entire body because it is in the entire body that the information about the whole person is found.

This resonates uncannily with what the Catholic Church teaches about the soul: “The uni-ty of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body.” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Sect. 365).

The soul as software resides in a memory bank. This memory bank is no less than God’s memory. This is not to relegate the soul (especially when the body dies) to some far-way inac-cessible vault. For God is present everywhere and at all time. Therefore, to say that the soul as software is in God’s memory bank is to say that the soul exists.
Code: 
From this, it follows that since God never forgets, then the soul must be immortal. When the body dies, the entire human software or soul remains in God’s memory. As Christians, we believe that even in this state, the soul retains its self-awareness.
  1. The doctrine of hell
    This concept answers for us the hard doctrine of the eternal damnation of the unjust. For some people, the idea of hell contradicts the tenet that God is merciful. Admittedly, it is difficult to reconcile this idea with the teaching that God punishes an evil person to eternal suffering. Is it not more merciful to wipe a person’s soul out of existence?
The problem is that the idea of God reducing an existent soul to non-existence is not con-sistent with the more basic tenet that God is All-knowing. God cannot eliminate a single bit of information from His memory. To do so would be contrary to His nature as all knowing. It fol-lows therefore that the soul of a person, no matter how evil, must remain forever intact in the Di-vine memory bank. That state may be what we call hell. Hell therefore is the inherent everlasting existence of a human soul who, by choice, remains incorrigibly evil. More reasonably, theologians tell us that hell is the state of being alienated from God. To say that God may annihilate such a damned soul is equivalent to saying that God may delete such software from His memory. This is to indulge in an illogical proposition. It is also unbiblical.
 
  1. The resurrection of the body
    As software, the soul includes the information of a person’s memories, emotions and his-tory. But more than this, the soul includes the information of the complete design of the person’s body as encoded in its DNA.

    All these are not only stored but are also completely understood by the all-knowing Crea-tor. It would be quaint therefore, for a person to exist for all eternity as a soul only, all the time carrying within, all the information pertaining to his/her body. He or she would only be half the creature he was created to be. It is reasonable to believe therefore, that the Master Engineer will rebuild our body on the basis of the complete blueprint that our soul provides. This time, the er-rors in the blue print, which are the causes of imperfections of some people’s bodies here on earth, will be corrected. (Even human engineers correct errors and bugs as they find them in the process of constructing any gadget.)

    Where would God get the material to rebuild a person’s body during the Last Judgement? This question is easily answered by considering that, given its blueprint, even a human engineer can easily build up a computer or any gadget for that matter. We must remember that the universe is an overwhelming source of matter –the stuff our bodies are made of.

    What is difficult to answer is: given that our resurrected bodies are made up of matter, how would it be prevented from deteriorating again? Would the Law of Entropy be abolished by the Creator? In other word, why would it be immortal? How would it be prevented from perish-ing in an accidental catastrophe? How could it survive the violent end of the solar system as pro-jected by scientists?

    Let us consider the data of our human existence as present science reveals to us. We are told that we are using only a small percentage of our human capacity as we live our earthly lives. And this is true even of the most intelligent and active of human beings on earth. We see a glimpse of this potential when we consider our subconscious mind where all our experiences (e.g. what we see, feel, hear, taste and smell, including what we emotionally feel) are buried. We also see a glimpse of our capability when we consider some well-documented paranormal phenomena. The well known case of Padre Pio’s prodigies is one of these. Think of our power to ‘see’ when we are able to exercise our intuition. Even some autistic people are able to demonstrate wondrous ability to make arithmetical computations or memorization. While we consider these as aberration, are they not indications of our mind’s hidden capability?

    It is reasonable to expect that a person’s resurrected body would completely be able to access these buried talents. Otherwise, why would God put them there?

    Even in the physical sphere, given the earth being populated by god-like resurrected people, it is not difficult to imagine the capability of surviving any catastrophe that may happen to the planet a billion years hence.
 
  1. The existence of the human soul upon conception
    Even as a single celled organism right after fertilization, geneticists tell us that the ferti-lized egg includes its complete DNA as its main component. We know, of course, that the DNA is not just a meaningless piece of particle. Its genetic code is a software (a marvelously pro-grammed software at that) that embodies encyclopedic information and instruction on how a per-son from that single cell would grow up to be. A trained geneticist would be able to tell of some of the physical and mental make up of the individual that will emerge from that cell. God would be able to tell far more than the greatest geneticist about the nature and potential of a fertilized egg. Perhaps this is one sense in which it can be said that the human soul is infused on it upon fertilization.

    The significance of that fertilized egg may be illustrated as follows:

    Suppose that a researcher discovers an unpublished musical composition of Beethoven.
    He announces his discovery to the world, showing proof beyond reasonable doubt of its authen-ticity. Later on he announces that he did not think much about his discovery and he is going to burn it. How would the people of the world react? We can just imagine the exasperation, anger and other violent emotions that will greet such a patently foolish decision.

    It is not an exaggeration to say that the harmony, ingenuity and complexity of the soft-ware encoded in a fertilized egg’s DNA is far greater than the greatest masterpiece of any genius. Furthermore, it is unique. Yet many intelligent and educated people don’t think much about it. Some would consider it as a mere blob of tissue even when already a few weeks old. They be-lieve that destroying it is not a big deal.

    The question is, once a fertilized egg is aborted, would it ever acquire consciousness?

    This may be answered by the following hypothetical situation: A highly intelligent and scientific person has gotten hold of complex blueprint for a unique Artificial Intelligence device. His analytical mind convinces him that, when realized, the device would be far more superior to anything that has been done by the state-of-the-art technology. And it is within his capability to build the device. The question is, will he build it? The answer is of course obvious.

    This is not a proof that God will really do it. That is, develop a fertilized egg into a con-scious being. But it gives added plausibility that God will do it. Being perfect, He would not do things by half measure or by 0.001% measure. Everything that God has started will somehow be completed.
  2. Spirit as software
    Going back to the beginning of this article we asked: What is spirit? What is soul?

    Soul applies to man and maybe, all living things. It includes the information about its ma-terial part –the body. On the other hand it is not difficult to imagine beings that are made up purely of software. This is how we can imagine angels. Angels therefore are pure spirit. When a person is alive, his soul is intimately mingled with his body. When he dies, his soul becomes pure spirit.

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the human soul is infused by God right at the moment of conception. Is the process of “infusion” equivalent to saying that the en-tire DNA which makes up a person’s overall potential is now in existence? Or is there more? Not being a theologian or a philosopher I can not answer this question. So I leave this open.

    If a man of science believes in the omniscience of God, then this may be a bridge be-tween his science and his religion.
  3. Conclusion
    Although I am not a theologian, I dare point out that what I write in this article is an echo of what St. John the Evangelist wrote about God Himself:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. …And the Word was made flesh.
    John 1:1-3, 14

    Far be it for me to be blasphemous or disrespectful and it is not the intention of this piece to degrade the Evangelist’s magnificent language; but in this passage, St. John seems to suggest that the nature of God Himself is software.

    Perhaps this is one sense of the Christian teaching that man is in the image of God.
(Thanks for bearing with me.)
 
***It seems to me that all three Theological Virtues come into play, in searching for the response.

Faith*, because the "design’ of humanity seems far to complex to waste it on earthly life alone.

Hope As someone earlier pointed out, Christ Himself was raised from the dead, introducing or confirming life after death.

Charity LAD seems logically to confirm to our understanding of “all that is good perfectly.” Certainly Perfect Love is very good.

***I have long been fascinated by the fact that a great many seem not to believe in LAD. At least the way they choose to live their lives would seem to indicate such a position.

How very sad it must be to think, “Is that all there is?” This life, then nothing?

Not only do I find this position foolish, but also lacking logic.

Our Bodies are Mortal flesh and like all creation we will too die. But Humanity is different, better, more unique because we are also “spiritual beings”. We have minds, intellects and freewill’s, and both our bodies and souls are animated by these souls.

So the “body” can and will die. But what happens to the spiritual parts of us? The parts that form and conform us to the image [in a very imperfect way] to the God who Created us. Can Spiritual THINGS too die? or be killed? I know of no evidence that this is so. What happens to these Spiritual Gifts Humanity is blessed with.

And is it not prudent to error on the side of Faith, Hope, Charity, Logic and specific cause? Eternity is FOREVER!

The “specific cause” I mention is the fact that we have these Spiritual Gifts, and only humanity has them. One would have to be quite shallow to presume that we have these gifts without specific cause. Even if one does not reach my conclusion, it astounds that one would not seek to determine why?

Even Native Americans, long before Christianity was introduced believed in reverence for the dead “Spirits” of their fallen family and tribes.

My theory as to why some work very hard at convincing themselves that it can’t be, won’t be is because they know intuitively that if they acknowledge this as a real possibility, it then naturally leads to God, which in turn means that their is a specific reason for these gifts and that Moral Absolutes are absolutely true. One would then HAVE to change how ones chooses to live ones life.

The saddest part, is that even if one ignores what seems to me obvious and true, even without religion, using only logic; what is true is true, and shall nevertheless come to pass. ***

John 14:1 "Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way where I am going."

This seems to me to conform completely with a God who is LOVE!

Love and prayer’s**
 
What’s the matter guys and gals? Why the sudden silence? Was my post too out-of-this-world that it does not deserve any comment? Or what?
 
PioYapJr said:
What’s the matter guys and gals? Why the sudden silence? Was my post too out-of-this-world that it does not deserve any comment? Or what?
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There are so many ideas in your posts one doesn’t know where to begin…🙂
 
PioYapJr got me thinking about the process of ensoulment at the initial stages.

Aquinas taught something about the soul and what is natural to it, is perfected only with the body.

What came to mind " What you bind on earth is bound in heaven"

That the order (pattern)of life originates in matter ( earth ) and the order binds heaven, (soul) to matter. Spirit binds to the order of matter, only then is matter bound to life.
 
Since my experience i related too in this discourse i’ve also come to the conclusion that People such as Doctors and even the Church make it all seem so much more complicated when it’s a very simple action that you can deny it’s truth or accept it. Such as in my experience i did not need a Priest or a scientist or Doctor to tell me what i experienced as i’m the one who experienced it. Just as when i was a small child pretending i could fly and suddenly i was flying and recall how vividly clear the experience was including looking down and seeing my self with the white tea towel tied around my neck up against the Chicken fence.I know it was real and do not my self need a bunch of rationalizing to explain it. Ask just about any nurse who has witnessed the passing of numerous people what they have saw and witnessed. One such nurse told me that after what she experienced with dying people she stopped being a Atheist. But then again there are people totally afraid to discuss anything close to or about death.
 
Thanks, PioYapJr, for revitalizing this thread.

I see that Ihk0pd has brought up an important distinction. Whereas in, say, before the Age of Enlightenment at least Western thinking was a fusion of ideas which had religion, science, and politics all of a piece, we now can better distinguish whether we are considering a question of personal interior significance, cultural meaning, or of scientific evaluation. This is in line with David Bohm’s thesis that the struggle of Man in the beginning was to be able to sort out what was internal and external to his personal awareness. In other words, we are better now able to understand if we are looking at the surface appearance and behavior of things as objective appearance, or whether we are dealing with matters of internal, subjective meaning.

It is therefore important to remember that whereas our relationship to the Divine is internal and subjectively meaningful, we tend, in looking at our own and others experience, to see it through the filter of appearance called Scripture, or religious form. This is very much like mixing apples and oranges.

We are, we say as Catholics, created in the image and likeness of God. That being so, we must distribute that over all of humanity from our perspective of objectifying meaning. Yet all of humanity is not Catholic, only about maybe 20% at most after all this time. But all of humanity has experiences in common, so it is very reasonable to postulate a common mold, so to speak.

So all of us common molders learn different ways to speak of our Earthian experience, most of that learning being pertinent to the inherited thought patterns of more localized and environmentally influenced groups than we now have contact with. Thai is why it is problematic, for instance, to translate “lamb” and “fig tree” into Inuit or another Eskimo dialect. They have neither in their experience, only seal pups and maybe shrubs. Yet they are born, live, and die as everyone else of humanity does.

So while our various external, scientifically quantifiable action differ. Our internal, unquantifiable, experiences engaging those differences are the same. We might hunt a polar bear on the ice wearing seal skin to keep us warm, or a lion in the desert wearing cotton to keep us cool. but a bite from a bear or a lion in each case causes the experience of a wound.

All I am saying is that we need to respect the interior experience of someone even if we may not understand their language, as it may contain or lack elements of our own way of perception/expression as influenced by localities and education. But there is a common core in all of us that needs to be gotten at in the realm of meaning. This is where our language seems to break down and we have to do the hard work of establishing a common tongue. That is done by constant adjustment of translation even among speakers of the same language. But that we can move toward a common understanding only again underscores our sameness in Essence.

This is why it is necessary to both look for Universal principles and to constantly self examine our own structures we have acquired through our own localized perspectives. If we can develop the tolerance and critical awareness that comes with that, we might better deal with issues such as are consequent of this thread.
 
tonyrey said:
There are so many ideas in your posts one doesn’t know where to begin…🙂
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Sorry for that. What I’m trying to say is that if we start from the assumption that God is all-knowing (which, as Christian, is an article of our faith), then combining it with the modern concept of ‘software’, many of the teachings of the Catholic Church (e.g. immortality of the soul, resurrection, the eternity of hell etc.) fall into place like parts of a jigsaw puzzle.
 
~~"many of the teachings of the Catholic Church (e.g. immortality of the soul, resurrection, the eternity of hell etc.) fall into place like parts of a jigsaw puzzle.

Which is why CS Lewis failed miserably in justifying christianism, depite my love for his work, and even Augustine wanted, in the end, to burn his own work. At least, as far as I can see, he woke up in time!
 
Detales said:
~~"many of the teachings of the Catholic Church (e.g. immortality of the soul, resurrection, the eternity of hell etc.) fall into place like parts of a jigsaw puzzle.

Which is why CS Lewis failed miserably in justifying christianism, despite my love for his work…
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How exactly did C S Lewis fail miserably?
 
At least you seem to agree that Augustine woke up at the last moment. Lewis, apparently didn’t. Though he had and excellent and developed reasoning, he did not make the final leap of understanding. His God, despite appearances, was at arm’s length. This is the fundamental avoidance and the materialism of christianism. He was the blind man who saw Light, but didn’t identify it correctly. Had he done so, his wonderful stories would have been somewhat differently informed. Heck, has he done what Aquinas did, Lewis might have wanted to burn his work as well! But he was brilliant! I always remember his dictum that he prayed not to change God, but to change himself.
 
Please stick to the OP’s topic. Take side discussions to new or existing threads on that topic. Thank you all.
 
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