What is the evidence for life after death?

[tonyrey]

Why are we alive?

The best test of any explanation is to examine whether it corresponds to reality. The fact that people choose what to believe and how to live is convincing evidence that the purpose of life** is** to choose what to believe and how to live. Otherwise it is necessary to explain why life has no ultimate purpose and how purposeless activity has produced purposeful activity.

*The fact that the mind or consciousness cannot be quantified implies that they are not properties of material objects. *The functioning of mind IS an attribute of the material object we know as “human.”

You are assuming the mind is produced by the brain and cannot exist without the brain. How would you justify that assumption?

Just because we don’t know what it is doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist as a property of the material objects we call “humans.”

Our ignorance of what the mind is and how it originated doesn’t mean it must be a property of a material object. The fact that human beings have always differentiated the mind from the body puts the onus on the materialist to explain how it is derived from the body.

Besides, how does this support the notion of life after death?

If the mind is independent on the body it need not perish with the body.

If, by your own statement, “mind or consciousness cannot be quantified”, then how do you make the leap of logic required to say that they “exist at a higher level than material objects?”

If they cannot be quantified they cannot be material objects.
Material objects are not associated with consciousness. So some explanation is required of consciousness - and also of free will and the power of the mind to control the body.

• The mind of the scientist exists prior to scientific activity. To explain something is a purposeful activity. To attempt to explain the scientist scientifically is to go round in circles. It is equivalent to believing atomic particles have somehow become aware of themselves, can analyse and understand themselves - and, above all, act purposefully!*There is a great difference between atomic particles and the human mind, and that is that we have self-reflexivity, a function of human consciousness. An atom, at best, has irritability, which is its response to stimuli

Exactly! And the atheist believes the human mind is derived solely from atomic particles. So how have these new powers emerged?

Then I’ll ask: “Why should the Catholic concept of life-after-death, wherein the mind is reunited with the body, be dependent on the body?”

The mind is not dependent on the body but without the body a human being would be incomplete. We are not created as angels but as **embodied **persons.

The very fact that we can grasp abstract ideas and think of the past and future demonstrates that our mind is not limited to the dimensions of time and space.
If this is true for you, then what is to say that mind/consciousness IS limited to this body, or that it occupies a body once the current physical organism is dead and gone?

All material objects are limited to a particular time and space whereas the mind is not.

The functioning of mind IS an attribute of the material object we know as “human.”

How do you know this?

That functioning may be limited or non-existent in some people (brain damage, coma, fundamentalist, etc.), but it exists in the majority of humans.

If a guitar is damaged we do not conclude that the guitarist is limited or non-existent…

 

[tonyrey]

Thank you, Tonyrey. I appreciate your noting that.
Have a great day!

Thanks for your thanks! You too!

 

[Daedelus76]

The mind is not dependent on the body but without the body a human being would be incomplete. We are not created as angels but as **embodied **persons.

Except a person has no body, because a body is made of matter that is in constant flux. in the resurrection, who is going to get molecules from your body, that probably belonged to dozens of other people? This is why a literal resurrection is not a credible idea. There is simply no body to resurrect. We know better than the ancients, who thought the body was made up of one thing.

In reality, there may not even be a “you”, at least in a substantial way. Dr. Ramachandran has done research on split-brain patients and found that people with split-brains exhibit two personalities, not one. They even have different religious beliefs, depending on the hemisphere of the brain. He often found that the left hemisphere is atheistic, incapable of belief in God, for instance.

The Stoic, Buddhist, or Whitehead idea is probably closer to reality, at least in terms of what can be empirically observed. People are not essential beings, they are processes of Being.

 

[reggieM]

Pope Benedict XVI, commenting on the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man:

The rich man, looking up to Abraham from Hades, says what so many people, both then and now, say or would like to say to God: “If you really want us to believe in you and organize our lives in accord with the revealed word of the Bible, you’ll have to make yourself clearer. Send us someone from the next world who can tell us that it is really so.” The demand for signs, the demand for more evidence of Revelation, is an issue that runs through the entire Gospel. Abraham’s answer—like Jesus’ answer to his contemporaries’ demand for signs in other contexts—is clear: If people do not believe the word of Scripture, then they will not believe someone coming from the next world either. The highest truths cannot be forced into the type of empirical evidence that only applies to material reality. Pope Benedict – Jesus of Nazareth, p. 216

 

[Benadam]

Except a person has no body, because a body is made of matter that is in constant flux. in the resurrection, who is going to get molecules from your body, that probably belonged to dozens of other people? This is why a literal resurrection is not a credible idea. There is simply no body to resurrect. We know better than the ancients, who thought the body was made up of one thing.

 

[Daedelus76]

Pope Benedict XVI, commenting on the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man:

The rich man, looking up to Abraham from Hades, says what so many people, both then and now, say or would like to say to God: “If you really want us to believe in you and organize our lives in accord with the revealed word of the Bible, you’ll have to make yourself clearer. Send us someone from the next world who can tell us that it is really so.”

How about conscience? [edited]

Daedelus76;5491340:

To me the fact that organic tissue we are composed of is not dependent on particular atoms or molecules but molecular and atomic structure supports resurrection as a plausible phenomenon. … (snip)

If that were true, the informational structure might still be in flux, subject to change. Even if this informational structure actually exists, it doesn’t require a resurrection to have an existence postmortem. Nor does it guarantee “immortality”.

The split brain isn’t two persons any more than a person suffering dissociated identities isn’t multipersonalities but one person fragmented into more than one identity. I admit the dissociation of identity that is physical rather than psychological is profoundly disturbing in comparison.

I guess it depends on what you mean by “person”. I am learning the Christian definition of “person” is far different from the Buddhist definition. Person (“pudgala”), is a “persona” or “mask” in the true sense in Buddhism, in Christianity it is treated as something absolutely real? Buddhism rejects the idea there is an unchanging “essence” to an individual, without rejecting the idea that persons exist altogether.

Individuals of a species are not distinguished in essence like humans. A cat can individuate as a particular expression of essence but cannot express an essence specific to it. we can know a cat expresses catness because what is essential to being a cat doesn’t change from cat to cat and so is observed…

This sounds like religious doctrine borne of Scholastic thought more than my experience of reality. I see no particular reason why that should be so, other than the Bible and Western Civilization assume an anthropocentric reality based on rationalized exploitation of “resources”.

 

[Detales]

Daedelus76, I enjoyed your post #46, especially the last paragraph. Few make that connection between Biblical manifest and the exploitation of resources. It seems that there has been a confusion between the idea stewardship of the Earth and profit motive that can be traced to Biblical christianist teaching. What is odd, in terms of this thread, is that one would think that a belief in the hereafter would engender a respect for fellow humans and of the gift of the Earth. What we see today is a result in large part from the teaching that Man is to “Be fruitful, become many and fill up the earth and subdue it.” I guess we were to subdue everyone who didn’t have “our” God and His directive as well, and take their stuff, a la “The business of America is business.”

And yes, in fact, the word “person” derives from the word “persona” the Greek actor’s mask used to project the voice.

And since you mentioned Buddha, I believe I am correct in that the early Church did not deny, but even taught reincarnation?

Bindar Doondat, FZPC

 

[Benadam]

Let me see if I can breakyour words into edible bites so as to understand the source from which they flow. To discern the motivation to write them.

Daedelus76, I enjoyed your post #46, especially the last paragraph. Few make that connection between Biblical manifest and the exploitation of resources.

 

[Benadam]

Daedelus:

If that were true, the informational structure might still be in flux, subject to change. Even if this informational structure actually exists, it doesn’t require a resurrection to have an existence postmortem. Nor does it guarantee “immortality”.

The structure is a pattern that characterizes the life and person… Postmortem fluxuations are not characteristic of the life and person so do not influence the final pattern or the eternal characteristic it imparts on the soul.

I guess it depends on what you mean by “person”. I am learning the Christian definition of “person” is far different from the Buddhist definition. Person (“pudgala”), is a “persona” or “mask” in the true sense in Buddhism, in Christianity it is treated as something absolutely real? Buddhism rejects the idea there is an unchanging “essence” to an individual, without rejecting the idea that persons exist altogether.

The word as a Christian term and using the human composit for refence, simply put would be that quality that individuates the particular life as a species in of it’s self . God made man a rational and self determining creature. The creature that possesses those qualities individuate and are a species in of it’s self.
You are right in thinking the Christian term is attached to a reality because it is attached to the state of existence required for humans to be realized.

This sounds like religious doctrine borne of Scholastic thought more than my experience of reality. I see no particular reason why that should be so, other than the Bible and Western Civilization assume an anthropocentric reality based on rationalized exploitation of “resources”.

It’s not scholastic thought as it comes from me. It is my experience. I validate lights of intellect with Church teaching and adopt the terms because they refine discursive expression . I take offense when the ideas and concepts I present are outright attributed to purposes of malice because my personal experience is a testimony that they are not.

Daedelus, forgive me for being offensive. You have not ever been the cause of offense to me.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

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.

The night my father died, he turned up in my flat. I didn’t know he’d died. We were estranged, and I couldn’t stand him. He’d been quite cruel.

It was a hot January night in Brisbane, about 30 years ago. The bed had a sag in the middle and I used to keep rolling into the middle. So I was having trouble sleeping.

At some stage I felt something like a shake in the middle of my back. I turned over and as I did so my father started to appear in the corner of the room near the door. My first reaction was “How the hell did you get in here?”

He moved to the foot of the bed, and started with an apology. I can’t remember now whether he said “I’ve come to apologise …” or “I’ve been sent to apologise…”.

Anyway we argued and conversed. Most of the time he seemed to be looking over my head as though enthralled. When I turned around to see what he was looking at, all I could see was the wall. Sometimes however he would hide his face behind his hands, and look frightened and appalled. I suppose he was then seeing less salubrious episodes in his life being played back to him.

Just before the end, he looked terribly dejected. He then started to turn to my left, his right, with increasing alarm. My final vision of him was of a terrifying scream, so frightening I started to scream. Then he just disappeared.

I’ve reasons to believe it was real enough.

So to answer your questions - there is life after death. And there is also a judgment. With a capital “J”. I still remember the scream, 30 years later.

It also includes what could be called “mind”, since his brain was dead, but he was still talking, remembering, thnking, judging etc. He also seemed to float a bit. Now if he was spirit, gravity would have no hold on him. So he had to keep up with the earth’s motion of about a thousand miles an hour on its own rotation, another million miles a day or thereabouts around the sun, the sun’s ungodly speed around the Milky Way, and the Milky Way’s journey around the Universe. Only for a couple of minutes mind, but we probably travelled through space to the tune of fifty thousand kilometres or thereabouts in that time. So he, or whatever was holding him there, was doing some complicated high speed maneuvres at the same time.

Four days later my uncle turned up to tel me he died. It took a couple of minutes for the reality to sink in, since I was an atheist at that time, but I still remember turning towards the room from where I was talking to my uncle, and thinking “Then what the hell was that the other night??” It was four days before his body was found, and even then only because of the smell. A bit like Lazarus I suppose, but he didn’t come back to physical life.

At one stage in the proceedings, I asked, “What is this - a dream or something??” He looked a bit bemused, and replied, “No, it’s not a dream. I died tonight.” And on another occasion, “It wasn’t easy for me either, you know. And I never had a chance to look at anything like this.”

Take it or leave it.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

The night my father died, he turned up in my flat. I didn’t know he’d died. We were estranged, and I couldn’t stand him. He’d been quite cruel.

It was a hot January night in Brisbane, about 30 years ago. The bed had a sag in the middle and I used to keep rolling into the middle. So I was having trouble sleeping.

At some stage I felt something like a shake in the middle of my back. I turned over and as I did so my father started to appear in the corner of the room near the door. My first reaction was “How the hell did you get in here?”

He moved to the foot of the bed, and started with an apology. I can’t remember now whether he said “I’ve come to apologise …” or “I’ve been sent to apologise…”.

Anyway we argued and conversed. Most of the time he seemed to be looking over my head as though enthralled. When I turned around to see what he was looking at, all I could see was the wall. Sometimes however he would hide his face behind his hands, and look frightened and appalled. I suppose he was then seeing less salubrious episodes in his life being played back to him.

Just before the end, he looked terribly dejected. He then started to turn to my left, his right, with increasing alarm. My final vision of him was of a terrifying scream, so frightening I started to scream. Then he just disappeared.

I’ve reasons to believe it was real enough.

So to answer your questions - there is life after death. And there is also a judgment. With a capital “J”. I still remember the scream, 30 years later.

It also includes what could be called “mind”, since his brain was dead, but he was still talking, remembering, thnking, judging etc. He also seemed to float a bit. Now if he was spirit, gravity would have no hold on him. So he had to keep up with the earth’s motion of about a thousand miles an hour on its own rotation, another million miles a day or thereabouts around the sun, the sun’s ungodly speed around the Milky Way, and the Milky Way’s journey around the Universe. Only for a couple of minutes mind, but we probably travelled through space to the tune of fifty thousand kilometres or thereabouts in that time. So he, or whatever was holding him there, was doing some complicated high speed maneuvres at the same time.

Four days later my uncle turned up to tel me he died. It took a couple of minutes for the reality to sink in, since I was an atheist at that time, but I still remember turning towards the room from where I was talking to my uncle, and thinking “Then what the hell was that the other night??” It was four days before his body was found, and even then only because of the smell. A bit like Lazarus I suppose, but he didn’t come back to physical life.

At one stage in the proceedings, I asked, “What is this - a dream or something??” He looked a bit bemused, and replied, “No, it’s not a dream. I died tonight.” And on another occasion, “It wasn’t easy for me either, you know. And I never had a chance to look at anything like this.”

Take it or leave it.

I did a brief search on google for earth, sun and Milky Way speeds, and while it is going to depend a lot on the frame of reference, if the above episode took 2 minutes, then I estimate I moved about 60.000 kms through space in that time. So whoever was keeping him there was doing some fancy speedwork, since he wasn’t bound by gravity.

A footnote to the above episode - about 2 years ago I was debating NDE’s (near death experiences) with atheists, and getting nowhere. So I prayed I might meet someone who’d had an NDE.

About 2 days later I was sitting in a Maxi Taxi in a suburb called Boondall (not very far from Nundah where my father died), when a Maxi job came up on the screen for a suburb called Brighton. I procrastinated for a few minutes, as I thought someone nearer would take it, but when it stayed there I went for it and got it. The location was a retirment complex called Eventide.

When I arrived I found my fare, a bloke about my age, who hadn’t wanted a Maxi. I only got the job because someone made a mistake or there was a glitch in the system. Anyway we’d only been going about two minutes when he said “I’m one of those rare people.” I asked him what he was talking about, and he said he’d been technically dead for 10 minutes after an operation. Hence the fact he was in a nursing home.

It was quite a long fare so I had time to talk to him. But what intrigued me even more was the fact that he’d gone to the very same high school as the eldest son of the very same uncle who turned up to tell me my father had died.

So … I pray to meet someone who’s had an NDE, a job is reserved for me by some sort of error two days later, and I meet a bloke who’s had one, but not only that, he’s got an almost familial relationship with the uncle in the above episode. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Yet we all had free will in the process.

I’m about to head off to a Toastmasters meeting. But even there, a slight reminder of the episode is present. We meet in a Returned Services Club. On the bookshelves are a series of hard cover books put out by the Australian Defence Forces after World War II. One of them is called “Signals”. In the last set of black and white prints there is one showing three men moving up in close formation in the Battle of Milne Bay in Papua New Guina. The third bloke in line is my father.

It’s a bit hard to get away from him.

 

[tonyrey]

It’s a bit hard to get away from him.

I’m sure you don’t want to! There is so much evidence for non-scientific events that demonstrates the implausibility of scientism. What evidence is there that science can in principle explain everything?! Even primitive man was intuitively aware of the difference between physical and spiritual reality…

 

[over60]

Faith and the Word of God. Plus it’s something to look forward to. It is a transition.

 

[One]

Even primitive man was intuitively aware of the difference between physical and spiritual reality…

What makes you so sure that “modern man” is much farther advanced than “primitive man?” As a whole, we’re still remarkably ignorant of so many things.

In addition, “peak experiences” of a mystical nature are available to all, whether they are ‘primitive’, or not. IOW, the ‘peak spiritual experience’ of a primitive man is no different than the ‘peak spiritual experience’ of a modern man, save for the layers of belief and interpretation that are overlaid on that experience (which all men do quite readily.)

 

[One]

Faith and the Word of God. Plus it’s something to look forward to. It is a transition.

Over60 – Thanks for weighing in with your opinion. If you’ve read the previous pages of the thread, I don’t think that it has been established that faith constitutes evidence.

Definition: Evidence – “The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.”

“Faith” and “belief” do not constitute evidence, except perhaps for those people who are of the opinion that one’s subjective experience constitute evidence, which, apparently, is the case with some people here.

So far, the closest we’ve come in this thread to providing evidence is peoples’ personal, subjective experience of certain phenomena, and all of those remain purely subjective experiences that were not necessarily verified by objective observation. Therefore, they are relegated to exactly what they are: personal, subjective experiences, which are subject to possible misinterpretation, error, or delusion. (Note that I am not denigrating anyone’s personal experience… I’m just noting that these types of experiences are prone to personal interpretation, which may be quite biased.)

I honestly wish that people wouldn’t continue to offer “faith” as evidence. Faith and evidence are two completely different things.

 

[Benadam]

Over60 – Thanks for weighing in with your opinion. If you’ve read the previous pages of the thread, I don’t think that it has been established that faith constitutes evidence.

Definition: Evidence – “The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.”

“Faith” and “belief” do not constitute evidence, except perhaps for those people who are of the opinion that one’s subjective experience constitute evidence, which, apparently, is the case with some people here.

So far, the closest we’ve come in this thread to providing evidence is peoples’ personal, subjective experience of certain phenomena, and all of those remain purely subjective experiences that were not necessarily verified by objective observation. Therefore, they are relegated to exactly what they are: personal, subjective experiences, which are subject to possible misinterpretation, error, or delusion. (Note that I am not denigrating anyone’s personal experience… I’m just noting that these types of experiences are prone to personal interpretation, which may be quite biased.)

I honestly wish that people wouldn’t continue to offer “faith” as evidence. Faith and evidence are two completely different things.

wouldn’t you say the ability to apprehend eternal reality that is evidently unique, point to the possibility that an eternal realm exists and that it pertains to human life ?

 

[tonyrey]

What makes you so sure that “modern man” is much farther advanced than “primitive man?” As a whole, we’re still remarkably ignorant of so many things.

I don’t believe we are more advanced than “primitive” man in every respect - or even animals for that matter!

In addition, “peak experiences” of a mystical nature are available to all, whether they are ‘primitive’, or not. IOW, the ‘peak spiritual experience’ of a primitive man is no different than the ‘peak spiritual experience’ of a modern man, save for the layers of belief and interpretation that are overlaid on that experience (which all men do quite readily.)

I entirely agree with you. No one has the monopoly!

 

[One]

wouldn’t you say the ability to apprehend eternal reality that is evidently unique, point to the possibility that an eternal realm exists and that it pertains to human life ?

Absolutely.

Now, if we can strip away all the stories and beliefs surrounding that apprehension, we’d be witnessing progress.

It is so often said that Truth cannot be spoken. Indeed, there is nothing we can say about that Truth – that “eternal reality” – including this statement.

 

[One]

I don’t believe we are more advanced than “primitive” man in every respect - or even animals for that matter!
I entirely agree with you. No one has the monopoly!

Should I mark this day in the calendar, my friend?

I’m happy that we could agree on some points; I prefer the world much better that way.

 

[Detales]

One raises a couple of interesting points. First, evidence by faith, though an oxymoron, may be emotionally useful in stabilizing someone at the time of passing. That is a big issue, and very loaded. But nevertheless, as One says, despite claiming such a thing as “peak spiritual experience” which is the same for both “modern” and "primitive "man, there is no evidence other than questionable individual experience on which to postulate an “afterlife,” though lack of such eveidence is neither proof that there is no afterlife, only that it may be in a realm unaccesible to ordinary sensual reasoning and analysis.

I think there is more. So far, because of the form of the question and habit, we are thinking here about individual survival, in whatever form. There must be some sort of form, if there is individual survival, because individuality as regards person must entail form as a factor of distinction. But we see people born and people die, and we are continuous ourselves over the span of some of these, so we see our life before and after the arrival or departure of another as a sort of bridge. So we can in a strange way assume that after we pass, life, as we now know it continues. So that is another aspect. Life IS, as a Principle, and doesn’t depend on forms, though it includes them.

So perhaps we are reasonably thinking that there is a gradient between the ISness of Life (an uncatholic concept, I’m sure,) and our physical existence. There is, of course, the concept of “Eternal life,” but there we have a problem. Eternality has not duration as a factor. So if there is an individual survival, it is in a realm timed, yet not Eternal. This is reasonable as well. So we have:

1. Earthly life spans that bridge the appearance and passing of forms, which forms themselves are constantly constituted of changing material, yet are referred to as :“I” and “me.” indicating a factor that is not necessarily dependent on form.
2. Uncommunicable “peak” experiences claimed to be “spiritual” which are also unverifiable, save statistically in the genre of generally having similar contents. This includes such things as NDE’s, OBE’s, and incidents of what may be called either Nirvanic Bliss or Beatific Vision, or whatever, depending on current cultural terms useful to the experiencer.
3. Probability that Life is a Principle independent of form, as we witness continuity in our experience as shown in 1) and can generalize that over what we perceive inwardly, outwardly, individually and as a group as the world we live in. I myself would go so far as to say that there is no need to ask if there is extraterrestrial “life,” based on the idea that Life is an omnipresent pressure to have form and experience. So we might say we are interested in finding other life forms, if we are so inclined, but life as a Principle is always already Omnipresent. That Omnipresence is equatable to God in the exoteric and empirical systems which require faith, are founded on subject/object awareness, and promise a reward after “death.” In the esoteric experiential systems that require Transcendental awareness, or Nirvanic or Beatific consciousness, (equatable with personal “death” of ego, or a “first” death so that “the second death may have no sting.”) founded on meaning grounded in those states, that Omnipresence is known as Self. “Self” in that denotation is very much NOT to be confused with person in the ordinary sense.
4. So we have several kinds of factors playing in our considerations, depending on our habituations in faith systems or our freedom from them. These factors are belief, faith, scripture, tradition, superstition which may encompass faith, and various degrees of publicly unprovable experiences that are nonetheless absolutely real to the individual having them. In fact, they are so real, that some who have had very very strong ones speak of their experience to those who have not had it, and those who listen in their lack of experience interpret the described esoteric experience and make it a tenanted exoteric system in order to preserve the feeling that is often charismatically experienced by those near what we might call an Original Revelator. That is another kind of bridge, and is the beginning of faiths, as is evident in so many even modern day foundations of religions. But again, the accuracy of interpretation even of the Original Revelator is here in question, never mind that of the followers.

Those are my thoughts so far on this, except to say that “life after death” is itself then ultimately an oxymoron. If we are alive in one sense or another, before and after “discorporation,” then there is no after “death,” only a continuity of what was already present as Essence. What that Essence is might be debated, remembering that Soul is one of the synonyms for God, along with Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Spirit, and Principle.

I would say one last thing. Experience trumps Scripture, tradition, and dogma every time, unless the experiencer deliberately chooses to express their understanding in habitual terms, which in some cases is the only choice available. The subject/object oriented intellect is often the lens used to focus into words something utterly beyond it and upon which it depends even to be apprehended as a mode of living participation in Universe.