Is there proof of life after death

[quandary121]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/986177.stm

Monday, 23 October, 2000, 09:24 GMT 10:24 UK
Evidence of 'life after death'

Seriously-ill patients reported "near-death" experiences


Scientists investigating 'near-death' experiences say they have found evidence to suggest that consciousness can continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function.
However, the claim has been challenged by neurological experts.
The researchers interviewed 63 patients who had survived heart attacks within a week of the experience.

Memories are extremely fallible

Dr Chris Freeman, Royal Edinburgh Hospital

Of these 56 had no recollection of the period of unconsciousness they experienced whilst, effectively, clinically dead.
However, seven had memories, four of which counted as near-death experiences.
They told of feelings of peace and joy, time speeded up, heightened senses, lost awareness of body, seeing a bright light, entering another world, encountering a mystical being and coming to "a point of no return".
Oxygen levels
None of the patients were found to be receiving low oxygen levels - which some scientists believe may be responsible for so-called "near-death" experiences.
Lead researcher Dr Sam Parnia, of Southampton General Hospital, said nobody fully understands how brain cells generate thoughts.
He said it might be that the mind or consciousness is independent of the brain.
He said: "When we examine brain cells we see that brain cells are like any other cells, they can produce proteins and chemicals, but they are not really capable of producing the subjective phenomenon of thought that we have.
"The brain is definitely needed to manifest the mind, a bit like how a television set can take what essentially are waves in the air and translate them into picture and sound."
Scepticism
Dr Chris Freeman, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital, said there was no proof that the experiences reported by the patients actually occurred when the brain was shut down.
"We know that memories are extremely fallible. We are quite good at knowing that something happened, but we are very poor at knowing when it happened.
"It is quite possible that these experiences happened during the recovery, or just before the cardiac arrest. To say that they happened when the brain was shut down, I think there is little evidence for that at all."

 

[quandary121]

<H2>Truth Journal

</H2><H1>The Case for Life After Death</H1>

<H2>Professor Peter Kreeft

</H2>

Can you prove life after death?

Whenever we argue about whether a thing can be proved, we should distinguish five different questions about that thing:

1. Does it really exist or not? "To be or not to be, that is the question."
2. If it does exist, do we know that it exists? A thing can obviously exist without our knowing it.
3. If we know that it exists, can we be certain of this knowledge? Our knowledge might be true but uncertain; it might be "right opinion."
4. If it is certain, is there a logical proof, a demonstration of why we have a right to be certain? There may be some certainties that are not logically demonstrable (e.g. my own existence, or the law of non-contradiction).
5. If there is a proof, is it a scientific one in the modern sense of 'scientific'? Is it publicly verifiable by formal logic and/or empirical observation? There may be other valid kinds of proof besides proofs by the scientific method.

The fifth point is especially important when asking whether you can prove life after death. I think it depends on what kinds of proof you will accept. It cannot be proved like a theorem in Euclidean geometry; nor can it be observed, like a virus. For the existence of life after death is not on the one hand a logical tautology: its contradiction does not entail a contradiction, as a Euclidean theorem does. On the other hand, it cannot be empirically proved or disproved (at least before death) simply because by definition all experience before death is experience of life before death, not life after death.

If life after death cannot be proved scientifically, is it then intellectually irresponsible to accept it? Only if you assume that it is intellectually irresponsible to accept anything that cannot be proved scientifically. But that premise is self-contradictory (and therefore intellectually irresponsible)! You cannot scientifically prove that the only acceptable proofs are scientific proofs. You cannot prove logically or empirically that only logical or empirical proofs are acceptable as proofs. You cannot prove it logically because its contradiction does not entail a contradiction, and you cannot prove it empirically because neither a proof nor the criterion of acceptability are empirical entities. Thus scientism (the premise that only scientific proofs count as proofs) is not scientific; it is a dogma of faith, a religion.



<H3>I.</H3>

The first reason for believing in life after death is simply that there is no compelling reason not to, no objection to it that cannot be answered. The two most frequent objections are as follows:

(a) Since there is no conclusive evidence for life after death, it is as irresponsible to believe it as to believe in UFOs, or alchemy. Perhaps we cannot disprove it; a universal negative always is difficult if not impossible to disprove. But if we cannot prove it either, it is wishful thinking, not evidence, that makes us believe it.

Now this objector either means by 'evidence' merely empirical evidence, or else any kind of evidence. If he means the latter, he ignores all the following proofs for life after death. There is a lot of evidence. If he means the former, he falls victim to the self-contradiction argument just mentioned. There is no empirical evidence that the only kind of evidence we should accept is empirical evidence.

In most supposedly scientific objections of this type, an impossible demand is made, overtly or covertly-a demand for scientific proof-and then the belief is faulted for not satisfying that demand. This is like arguing against the existence of God on the grounds that "I have not found Him in my test tube," or like the first Soviet cosmonauts' "argument" that they had found no God in outer space. Ex hypothesi, if God exists He is not found in a test tube or in space. That would make Him a chemical or a meteor. A taxi trip through Cleveland disproves quasars as well as a laboratory experiment disproves God, or brain chemistry disproves the soul or its immortality. The demand that non-empirical entities submit to empirical verification is a self-contradictory demand. The belief that something exists outside a system cannot be disproved by observing the behavior of that system. Goldfish cannot disprove the existence of their human owners by observing water currents in the bowl.

(b) The strongest positive argument against life after death is the observation of spirit at the mercy of matter. We see no more mental life when the brain dies. Even when it is alive, a blow to the head impairs thought. Consciousness seems related to matter as the light of a candle to the candle: once the fuel is used up, the light goes out. The body and its nervous system seem like the fuel, the cause; and immaterial activity, consciousness, seems like the effect. Remove the cause and you remove the effect. Consciousness, in other words, seems to be an epiphenomenon, an effect but not a cause, like the heat generated by the electricity running along a wire to an appliance, or the exhaust fumes from an engine's tailpipe.

What does the observed dependence of mind upon matter prove, if not the mortality of the soul? Wait. First, just what do we observe? We observe the physical manifestations of consciousness (e.g. speech) cease when the body dies. We do not observe the spirit cease to exist, because we do not observe the spirit at all, only its manifestations in the body. Observations of the body do not decide whether that body is an instrument of an independent spirit which continues to exist after its body-instrument dies, or whether the body is the cause of a dependent spirit which dies when its cause dies. Both hypotheses account for the observed facts.

When a body is paralyzed, the mind and will are still operative, though deprived of expression. Bodily death may be simply total paralysis. When you take a microphone away from a speaker, he can no longer be heard by the audience. But he is still a speaker. Body could be the soul's microphone. The dependence of soul on a body may be somewhat like the dependence of a ship on a dry-dock. Ships are not built on the open sea, but on dry-dock; but once they leave the dry-dock, they do not sink but become free floating ships. The body may be the soul's dry-dock, or (an even better metaphor) the soul's womb, and its death may be the soul's emergence from its womb.

What about the analogy of the candle? Even in the analogy, the light does not go out; it goes up. It is still traveling through space, observable from other planets. It 'goes out' as a child goes out to play; it is liberated.

But what of the need for a brain to think? The brain may not be the cause of thought but the stopping down, the 'reducing valve' for thought, as Bergson, James and Huxley suppose: an organ of forgetting rather than remembering, eliminating from the total field of consciousness all that serves no present purpose. Thus when the brain dies, more rather than less consciousness occurs: the floodgates come down. This would account for the familiar fact that dying people remember the whole of their past life in an instant with intense clarity, detail, and understanding.

In short, the evidence, even the empirical evidence, seems at least as compatible with soul immortality as with soul-mortality.



<H3>II</H3>

According to the medievals, the most logical of philosophers, "the argument from authority is the weakest of arguments." Nevertheless, it is an argument, a probability, a piece of evidence. Forty million Frenchmen can be wrong, but it is less likely than four Frenchmen being wrong.

The first argument from authority for life after death is simply quantitative: "the democracy of the dead" votes for it. Almost all cultures before our own have strongly, even officially, believed in some form of it. Children naturally and spontaneously believe in it unless conditioned out of it.

A second argument from authority is stronger because it is qualitative rather than quantitative: nearly all the sages have believed in it. We must not, of course, answer the challenge 'How do you know they were sages?' by saying 'Because they believed'; that would be begging the question pure and simple. But thinkers considered wise for other reasons have believed; why should this one belief of theirs be an exception to their wisdom?

Finally, we have the supreme authority of the teachings of Jesus. Belief in life after death is central to His entire message, "the Kingdom of Heaven." Even if you do not believe He is the incarnate God, can you believe He is a naive fool?



<H3>III</H3>

Arguments from reason are logically stronger than arguments from authority. The premises, or evidence, for arguments from reason can be taken from three sources, three levels of reality what is less than ourselves (Nature), ourselves (human life), or what is more than ourselves (God). Again, we move from the weaker to the stronger argument.

We could argue from the principle of the conservation of energy. We never observe any form of energy either created or destroyed, only transformed. The immortality of the soul seems to be the spiritual equivalent of the conservation of energy. If even matter is immortal, why not spirit?



<H3>IV</H3>

The next class of arguments is taken from the nature of Man. What in us survives death depends on what is in us now. Death is like menopause. If a woman has in her identity nothing but her motherhood, then her identity has trouble surviving menopause. Life after menopause is a little like life after death.



<H3>IV. A.</H3>

The simplest and most obvious of these arguments may be called Primitive Man's Argument from Dead Cow. Primitive Man has two cows. One dies. What is the difference between Dead Cow and Live Cow? Primitive man looks. (He's really quite bright.) There appears no material difference in size or weight immediately upon death. Yet there is an enormous difference; something is missing. What? Life, of course. And what is that? The answer is obvious to any intelligent observer whose head is not clouded with theories: life is what makes Live Cow breathe. Life is breath. (The word for 'soul', or 'life', and 'breath' is the same in many ancient languages.) Soul is not air, which is still in Dead Cow's lungs, but the power to move it.

Life, it is seen, is not a material thing, like an organ. It is the life of the organs, of the body; not that which lives but that by which we live. Now this source of life cannot die as the body dies: by the removal of the soul. Soul cannot have soul taken from it. What can die has life on loan; life does not have life on loan.

The 'catch' in this argument is that this 'soul' may in turn have its life on loan from a higher source, and transmit it to the body only after having been given life first. This is in fact the Biblical teaching, contrary to the Greek view of the soul's inherent, necessary and eternal immortality. God gives souls life, and souls can die if they refuse it. But in any case the soul survives the body's death.



<H3>IV. B.</H3>

Another quite simple piece of evidence for the presence of an immaterial reality (soul) in us which is not subject to the laws of matter and its death, is the daily experience of real magic: the power of mind over matter. Every time I deliberately move my arm, I do magic. If there were no mind and will commanding the arm, only muscles; if there were muscles and a nervous system and even a brain but no conscious mind commanding them; then the arm could not rise unless it were lighter than air. When the body dies, its arms no longer move; the body reverts to obedience to merely material laws, like a sword dropped by a swordsman.

Even more simply stated, mind is not part of the system of matter, not measurable by material standards (How many inches long is your mind?) Therefore it need not die when the material body dies. The argument is so simple and evident that one wonders who the real 'primitive' is, the 'savage' who understands it or the sophisticated modern materialist who cannot understand the difference between mind and brain.



<H3>IV. C.</H3>

A traditional Scholastic argument for an immortal soul is taken from the presence of two operations which are not operations of the body (1) abstract thinking, as distinct from external sensing and internal imagining; and (2) deliberate, rational willing, as distinct from instinctive desiring. My thought is not limited to sense images like pyramids; it can understand abstract universal principles like triangles. And my choices are not limited to my body's desires and instincts. I fast, therefore I am.



<H3>IV. D.</H3>

Still another power of the soul which indicates that it is not a part or function of the body and therefore not subject to its laws and its mortality is the power to objectify its body. I can know a stone only because I am more than a stone. I can remember my past. (My present is alive; my past is dead.) I can know and love my body only because I am more than my body. As the projecting machine must be more than the images projected, the knower must be more than the objects known. Therefore I am more than my body.



<H3>IV. E.</H3>

Still another argument from the nature of soul, or spirit, is that it does not have quantifiable, countable parts as matter does. You can cut a body in half but not a soul; you can't have half a soul. It is not extended in space. You don't cut an inch off your soul when you get a haircut.

Since soul has no parts, it cannot be decomposed, as a body can. Whatever is composed (of parts) can be decomposed: a molecule into atoms, a cell into molecules, an organ into cells, a body into organs, a person into body and soul. But soul is not composed, therefore not decomposable. It could die only by being annihilated as a whole. But this would be contrary to a basic law of the universe: that nothing simply and absolutely vanishes, just as nothing simply pops into existence with no cause.

But if the soul dies neither in parts (by decomposition) nor as a whole by annihilation, then it does not die.



<H3>IV. F.</H3>

One last argument for immortality from the present experience of what soul is, comes from Plato. It is put so perfectly in the Republic that I quote it in its original form, adding only numbers to distinguish the steps of the argument:

1. Evil is all that which destroys and corrupts. . .
2. Each thing has its evil . . . for instance, ophthalmia for the eye, and disease for the whole body, mildew for corn and for wood, rust for iron . . .
3. The natural evil of each thing . . . destroys it, and if this does not destroy it, nothing else can . . .
   (a) for I don't suppose good can ever destroy anything,
   (b) nor can what is neither good nor evil,
   (c) and it is certainly unreasonable . . . that the evil of something else would destroy anything when its own evil does not.
4. Then if we find something in existence which has its own evil but which can only do it harm yet cannot dissolve or destroy it, we shall know at once that there is no destruction for such a nature. . . .
5. the soul has something which makes it evil . . . injustice, intemperance, cowardice, ignorance. Now does any one of these dissolve and destroy it? . . .
6. Then, since it is not destroyed by any evil at all, neither its own evil nor foreign evil, it is clear that the soul must of necessity be . . . immortal.

V.

We turn now to a stronger class of arguments: not from the nature of Man but from the nature of God; not 'because of what I am, I must be immortal' but 'because of what God is, I am immortal.' The weakness of this type of argument for practical apologetics, of course, is that it does not convince anyone not already convinced, because it presupposes the existence of God, and those who admit God usually admit life after death already, while those who deny the one usually deny the other as well. Yet, though apologetically weak, the argument is theoretically potent because it gives the real, the true reason or cause why we survive death: God wills it.



<H3>V. A.</H3>

We could first argue from God's justice. Since God is just, His dealings with us must be just, at least in the long run, in the total picture. ("The long run" is the answer to the problem of evil, the apparently unjust distribution of suffering.) The innocent suffer and the wicked flourish here; therefore 'here' cannot be 'the long run,' the total picture. There must be justice after death to compensate for injustice before death. (This is the point of Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus.)



<H3>V. B.</H3>

The next argument, from God's love, is stronger than the one from His justice because love is more essential to God. Love is God's essence; justice is one of His attributes-one of Love's attributes.

Love is "the fulfillment of the whole law." Each of the Ten Commandments is a way of loving. "Thou shalt not kill" means "Love does not kill." If you love someone, you don't kill him. But God IS love. Therefore God does not kill us. We want human life to triumph over death in the end because we love; is God less loving than we? Is He a hypocrite? Does He refuse to practice what He preaches?

Only if God does not love us or is impotent to do what He wills, do we die forever. That is, only if God is bad or weak-only if God is not God-is death the last word.



<H3>VI.</H3>

Whether the premises be taken from the nature of the world, of man, or of God, the last three arguments were all deductive, arguments by rational analysis. More convincing for most people are arguments from experience. These can be subdivided into two classes: arguments from experiences everyone, or nearly everyone, shares; and arguments from extraordinary or unusual experiences. The first class includes:

1. the argument from the demand for ultimate moral meaning, or long-range justice (similar to the argument from God's justice, except that this time we do not assume the existence of God, only the validity of our essential moral instinct)- this is essentially Kant's argument;
2. the argument from our demand for ultimate purpose, for a meaningful end, or adequate final cause-this argument is parallel, in the order of final causality and within the psychological area, to the traditional cosmological arguments for the existence of God from effect to a first, uncaused cause in the order of efficient causality and within the cosmological area;
3. the argument from the principle that every innate desire reveals the presence of its desired object (hunger indicates the existence of food, curiosity knowledge, etc.) coupled with the discovery of an innate desire for eternity, or something more than time can offer-this is C. S. Lewis' favorite argument.
4. the argument from the validity of love, which insists on the intrinsic, indispensable value of the other, the beloved-if love is sighted and not blind and if it is absurd that the indispensable is dispensed with, then death does not dispense with us, for love declares that we are indispensable;
5. finally, the argument from the presence of a person, who is not a thing (object) and therefore need not be removed when the body-object is removed-the I detects a Thou not subject to the death of the It.

From one point of view, these five arguments are the weakest of all, for they presuppose an epistemological access to reality which can easily be denied as illusory. There is no purely formal or empirical proof, e.g., that love's instinctive perception of the intrinsic value of the beloved is true. Further, each concludes not with the simple proposition 'we are immortal' but with the disjunctive proposition 'either reality is absurd or we are immortal.' Finally, each is less a demonstration than an almost-immediate perception: in valuing, purposing, longing, loving, or presencing one sees the immortality of the person. These are five spiritual senses, and when one looks along them rather than at them, when one uses them rather than scrutinizing them, when they are innocent until proven guilty rather than proven innocent, one sees. But when one does not take this attitude, when one begins with Occam's razor, or Descartes' methodic doubt, one simply does not see. They are less arguments from experience than experiences themselves of the immortal soul.



<H3>VII.</H3>

Three arguments from unusual or extraordinary experience are:

1. The argument from the experience of medically 'dead' and resuscitated patients, all of whom, even those formerly skeptical, are utterly convinced of the truth of their 'out-of-the-body' existence and their survival of bodily death. To outside observers there necessarily remains the possibility of doubt; to all, who have had the experience, there is none. It is no more deceptive than waking up in the morning. You may dream that you are awake and in fact be dreaming, but once you are really awake you are in no doubt. Unfortunately, this waking sense of certainty can only be experienced, not publicly proved.
2. A similar sense of reality attaches to an experience apparently even more common than the out-of-the-body experience. Shortly after a loved one dies (most usually a spouse), the survivor often has a sudden, unexpected and utterly convincing sense of the real here-and-now presence of the dead one. It is not a memory, or a wish, or an image from the imagination. It is not usually accompanied by an image at all. But it is utterly convincing to the experiencer. Only to one who trusts the experiencer is the experience transferable as evidence, however. And that link can be denied without absurdity. Again, it is a very strong and convincing experience, but not a convincing proof.
3. What would be a convincing proof from experience? If we could only put our hands into the wounds of a dead man who had risen again! The most certain assurance of life after death for the Christian is the historical, literal resurrection of Christ. The Christian believes in life after death not because of an argument, first of all, but because of a witness. The Church is that witness; 'apostolic succession' means first of all the chain of witnesses beginning with eyewitnesses: "We have been eyewitnesses of His resurrection. . . and we testify (witness) to you." This is the answer to the skeptic who asks: "What do you know for sure about life after death anyway? Have you ever been there? Have you come back to tell us?" The Christian reply is: "No, but I have a very good Friend who has. I believe Him, and I follow Him not only through life but also through death. Come along"

http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth28.html

ibelieve that there is cause to think that there may indeed be life after death

 

[quandary121]

The Scientific and Rationalist Case for Life After Death - 1

An interview with Michael Roll, director of the Campaign for Philosophical Freedom
Directed by Sam Giles (1994)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qVtHBEZbN6I

The Scientific And Rationalist Case For Life After Death - 2
Heaven and Hell : Amazing Stories of Life After Death

 

[Scott Free]

The Scientific and Rationalist Case for Life After Death - 1

An interview with Michael Roll, director of the Campaign for Philosophical Freedom
Directed by Sam Giles (1994)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qVtHBEZbN6I

The Scientific And Rationalist Case For Life After Death - 2
Heaven and Hell : Amazing Stories of Life After Death

This guy is absolutely absurd!

He claims people come back from the dead and materialize over and over again so that these experiments can be repeated. He claims family members are brought in to confirm the materialized person is authentic. He says the first reproducible experiments of these types were performed over 100 years ago and again today.

I say he's full of $hit. If this were true it would be all over the place. A whole herd of scientists couldn't keep Oprah away from such a ghost!

 

[china]

Is there proof of life after death.

If you know what life is and are living , then you don't look for any proofs" of life after death".
Beside the body;what is it that dies ?

 

[quandary121]

This guy is absolutely absurd!

He claims people come back from the dead and materialize over and over again so that these experiments can be repeated. He claims family members are brought in to confirm the materialized person is authentic. He says the first reproducible experiments of these types were performed over 100 years ago and again today.

I say he's full of $hit. If this were true it would be all over the place. A whole herd of scientists couldn't keep Oprah away from such a ghost!

admittedly the video http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qVtHBEZbN6I is abit naff
but there are others that are lest rediculass ,his comments on Einstein are ludicrous.
i still feel there is more to this then we can truly understand, and what the religious teachings are on this are as absurd as the video ,we could never really know until we die what will happen, but my problem is with evidence of supernatural occurrences, such as ghosts ,paranormal poltergeists, and such like.

 

[quandary121]

If you know what life is and are living , then you don't look for any proofs" of life after death".
Beside the body;what is it that dies ?

I'm not sure china, does the soul die.? Is that what we mean when we say life after death..? is or soul eternal.?

 

[quandary121]

Arrival in the Spirit Home
Once a spirit has crossed over into heaven, it has been met by loved ones, has gone through a life review, and then moves to its spirit home. And with individuals of that consciousness, for that is where your spirit home is--that is where you are as a form of spirit energy, living with other spirit energies of the same consciousness, of the same like mind and thought that you carry as a spirit. Not as you carried as a human but as you carry as a spirit. You are a form of energy that interacts with other energies within your spirit home, not all the time and often you are in your spirit home with your own spirit guides. But you still have interaction with other spirits there. It is not an interaction that you think of like on earth, playing cards or eating together or shopping together or enjoying something together; it is an energy that is communicated without words but with the knowing, an energy that in heaven--the most important thing to it--seeks to find a higher level of its connection with God the Oneness.
Though you have the opportunity to revisit earth with the pleasures that you would have like to have seen, in an energy form such as your late wife wanting to enjoy Disneyland at some point, or as an individual who cares to be with their most current life family during holidays that you are about to approach, you can move in the energy that you are into experiencing those life experiences on earth with those that you continue to love. Generally, though, after you have been transformed from human to spirit you begin to more and more expand your energies, more into your spirit life than into what your human life was. You have the ability to oftentimes help protect your loved ones on earth, but generally when their life is being threatened, their guardian angel is there to help with any type of protection required. But you can always help assist in warning or providing a safer means as an outcome for those who that you have loved. Many times this will happen and you often on earth will wonder about how did that not happen and never realize that a loved one from the other side was helping to protect you. As you were in your spirit family, as we mentioned, you do have connections with them, you have an interaction with them, you help support each and every person within your spirit family.
In your spirit family, energies of only supporting and loving and caring and teaching will be energies that you will experience, for you have left your earth energies and emotions behind and so you do not have to experience fear and hate. And therefore you support each other without judgment and with only trust and love. Within your spirit family you all are essentially at a consciousness level that is equivalent to all others within your spirit family, and so you are all working at the same level of energy.

http://www.afterlife101.com/Chapter4.html

 

[quandary121]

AFTERLIFE 101
CHAPTER 6. LIFE ON EARTH

http://www.afterlife101.com/Chapter6.html​

 

[Scott Free]

admittedly the video http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qVtHBEZbN6I is abit naff
but there are others that are lest rediculass ,his comments on Einstein are ludicrous.
i still feel there is more to this then we can truly understand, and what the religious teachings are on this are as absurd as the video ,we could never really know until we die what will happen, but my problem is with evidence of supernatural occurrences, such as ghosts ,paranormal poltergeists, and such like.

I tend to think when we die we just stop being, like when a picture fades on a TV. If it were any other way our lives, our destiny and our potential mean nothing. If there is a god then we don't matter, only god matters. If there is no god then we matter but we're not immortal. I would rather have a short life that meant something then live for eternity as someones b!tch.

 

[s_lone]

I tend to think when we die we just stop being, like when a picture fades on a TV. If it were any other way our lives, our destiny and our potential mean nothing. If there is a god then we don't matter, only god matters. If there is no god then we matter but we're not immortal. I would rather have a short life that meant something then live for eternity as someones b!tch.

How would a continuation of life after physical death render our lives meaningless? Can I suggest the meaninglessness you see is absolutely subjective? To many, the idea of life after death gives great meaning. Furthermore, life after death doesn't necessarily need to be supported by any traditional version of God. (No reason to believe you'd be ''God's bitch''...) Can't you imagine some form of after life without resorting to the traditional beliefs of western society?

 

[Praxius]

I tend to think when we die we just stop being, like when a picture fades on a TV.

Just because you lost power to your TV, or your TV just dies, or you just turn it off yourself, doesn't mean the information still isn't there.

 

[china]

quandary121

Quoting china If you know what life is and are living , then you don't look for any proofs" of life after death".
Beside the body;what is it that dies ?

I'm not sure china, does the soul die.

I have to admit that I don't know what a soul is besides it being a very misunderstood word .I have not seen a soul nor felt it,nither created , manifested or whatever.

Is that what we mean when we say life after death.

I think people are tired of their life at the present and are searching for an "extension" in an 'after life'

.? is or soul eternal.?

_What is soul?????????????????????????????????????_________________

 

[#juan]

I once read an article in some august journal (maybe the Reader's Digest) about how, at the moment of death, the body loses a few grams of weight. It was suggested that this weight loss was attributable to the soul leaving the body. Here is a link to just one of those stories:

http://www.lostmag.com/issue1/soulsweight.php

 

[s_lone]

_What is soul?????????????????????????????????????_________________

It is true that 'SOUL' is a widely misunderstood word as everybody has their own vague interpretation of what SOUL is.

To me the 'soul' is the principle that keeps the different parts of a living organism as a unified whole. It functions as a sort of abstract gravity center without which no organism could function as a cohesive unit. When the soul is gone, the organism breaks apart and disintegrates. When death occurs, what was once part of a whole is dissolved into the greater Whole (nature, God, Universe or whatever...)

With this definition of 'SOUL', there is no doubt to me that 'soul' is a reality.

Now is this SOUL a pure abstraction or something 'physical' or 'energetic' I don't know.
When someone dies, is the merely soul leaving the body to move on elsewhere, or is it simply, the end of a soul. Perhaps the soul dissolves itself and disappears slowly in the same way a minuscule cloud in the sky would... I don't know...

On a deeper level of things, I see 'SOUL' as being the force that organizes and structures energy. I see the universe as having soul because of its tendency to organize itself in complex and elaborate forms.

Soul is what has the power to rise above the sea of randomness.

 

[lone wolf]

In the few times (two verified as VSA) I've been there, there was proof enough to know it's nothing to fear. They were all dream-like things and I'm so lousy at recalling dreams. I remember distinct impression of somebody in armour mounted on a white horse - and I recall the face of a seventeen-year-old friend who'd passed on in 1974. I woke relaxed, well rested, and in the most intense calm I'd ever felt. The last time, five very excited cardiac care people sorta messed with the headspace - and those paddles one was greasing would have been a total come-down. Not enough proof to testify ... but surely enough to let me understand peace.

 

[quandary121]

I once read an article in some august journal (maybe the Reader's Digest) about how, at the moment of death, the body loses a few grams of weight. It was suggested that this weight loss was attributable to the soul leaving the body. Here is a link to just one of those stories:

http://www.lostmag.com/issue1/soulsweight.php

i heard the same thing many years ago, and they said that there was a fraction of an ounce weight loss, that they could not account for thanks for the link, i will take a look ;-)

The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce." Which is, yes, twenty-one grams. Hollywood metricized their reference to the event for the simply reason that 21 Grams sounds better.

this is what the article says it weighs

 

[quandary121]

_What is soul?????????????????????????????????????_________________

<H1>What Is the Soul?

Bertrand Russell
1928

One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did. When I was young we all knew, or thought we knew, that a man consists of a soul and a body; that the body is in time and space, but the soul is in time only. Whether the soul survives death was a matter as to which opinions might differ, but that there is a soul was thought to be indubitable. As for the body, the plain man of course considered its existence self-evident, and so did the man of science, but the philosopher was apt to analyse it away after one fashion or another, reducing it usually to ideas in the mind of the man who had the body and anybody else who happened to notice him. The philosopher, however, was not taken seriously, and science remained comfortably materialistic, even in the hands of quite orthodox scientists.

Nowadays these fine old simplicities are lost: physicists assure us that there is no such thing as matter, and psychologists assure us that there is no such thing as mind. This is an unprecedented occurrence. Who ever heard of a cobbler saying that there was no such thing as boots, or a tailor maintaining that all men are really naked? Yet that would have been no odder than what physicists and certain psychologists have been doing. To begin with the latter, some of them attempt to reduce everything that seems to be mental activity to an activity of the body. There are, however, various difficulties in the way of reducing mental activity to physical activity. I do not think we can yet say with any assurance whether these difficulties are or are not insuperable. What we can say, on the basis of physics itself, is that what we have hitherto called our body is really an elaborate scientific construction not corresponding to any physical reality. The modern would-be materialist thus finds himself in a curious position, for, while he may with a certain degree of success reduce the activities of the mind to those of the body, he cannot explain away the fact that the body itself is merely a convenient concept invented by the mind. We find ourselves thus going round and round in a circle: mind is an emanation of body, and body is an invention of mind. Evidently this cannot be quite right, and we have to look for something that is neither mind nor body, out which both can spring.
Let us begin with the body. The plain man thinks that material objects must certainly exist, since they are evident to the senses. Whatever else may be doubted, it is certain that anything you can bump into must be real; this is the plain man's metaphysic. This is all very well, but the physicist comes along and shows that you never bump into anything: even when you run your hand along a stone wall, you do not really touch it. When you think you touch a thing, there are certain electrons and protons, forming part of your body, which are attracted and repelled by certain electrons and protons in the thing you think you are touching, but there is no actual contact. The electrons and protons in your body, becoming agitated by nearness to the other electrons and protons are disturbed, and transmit a disturbance along your nerves to the brain; the effect in the brain is what is necessary to your sensation of contact, and by suitable experiments this sensation can be made quite deceptive. The electrons and protons themselves, however, are only crude first approximations, a way of collecting into a bundle either trains of waves or the statistical probabilities of various different kinds of events. Thus matter has become altogether too ghostly to be used as an adequate stick with which to beat the mind. Matter in motion, which used to seem so unquestionable, turns out to be a concept quite inadequate for the needs of physics.
Nevertheless modern science gives no indication whatever of the existence of the soul or mind as an entity; indeed the reasons for disbelieving in it are very much of the same kind as the reasons for disbelieving in matter. Mind and matter were something like the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown; the end of the battle is not the victory of one or the other, but the discovery that both are only heraldic inventions. The world consists of events, not of things that endure for a long time and have changing properties. Events can be collected into groups by their causal relations. If the causal relations are of one sort, the resulting group of events may be called a physical object, and if the causal relations are of another sort, the resulting group may be called a mind. Any event that occurs inside a man's head will belong to groups of both kinds;

Well, maybe not any event; to take drastic example, being shot in the head.​

considered as belonging to a group of one kind, it is a constituent of his brain, and considered as belonging to a group of the other kind, it is a constituent of his mind.
Thus both mind and matter are merely convenient ways of organizing events. There can be no reason for supposing that either a piece of mind or a piece of matter is immortal. The sun is supposed to be losing matter at the rate of millions of tons a minute. The most essential characteristic of mind is memory, and there is no reason whatever to suppose that the memory associated with a given person survives that person's death. Indeed there is every reason to think the opposite, for memory is clearly connected with a certain kind of brain structure, and since this structure decays at death, there is every reason to suppose that memory also must cease. Although metaphysical materialism cannot be considered true, yet emotionally the world is pretty much the same as i would be if the materialists were in the right. I think the opponents of materialism have always been actuated by two main desires: the first to prove that the mind is immortal, and the second to prove that the ultimate power in the universe is mental rather than physical. In both these respects, I think the materialists were in the right. Our desires, it is true, have considerable power on the earth's surface; the greater part of the land on this planet has a quite different aspect from that which it would have if men had not utilized it to extract food and wealth. But our power is very strictly limited. We cannot at present do anything whatever to the sun or moon or even to the interior of the earth, and there is not the faintest reason to suppose that what happens in regions to which our power does not extend has any mental causes. That is to say, to put the matter in a nutshell, there is no reason to think that except on the earth's surface anything happens because somebody wishes it to happen. And since our power on the earth's surface is entirely dependent upon the sun, we could hardly realize any of our wishes if the sun grew could. It is of course rash to dogmatize as to what science may achieve in the future. We may learn to prolong human existence longer than now seems possible, but if there is any truth in modern physics, more particularly in the second law of thermodynamics, we cannot hope that the human race will continue for ever. Some people may find this conclusion gloomy, but if we are honest with ourselves, we shall have to admit that what is going to happen many millions of years hence has no very great emotional interest for us here and now. And science, while it diminishes our cosmic pretensions, enormously increases our terrestrial comfort. That is why, in spite of the horror of the theologians, science has on the whole been tolerated.

</H1>http://arts.cuhk.edu.hk/humftp/E-text/Russell/soul.htm

 

[quandary121]

DUST + BREATH = SOUL
​

The Biblical definition of a soul is simply a breathing body. Notice that the text does not say that man was given a soul, but rather he became a soul. A soul is not something a person has, it is the person. Souls have blood (Jeremiah 2:34). Not only are people souls, but so are fish and animals (Revelation 16:3).
The Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, is variously translated "person" (Genesis 14:21), "self" (Leviticus 11:43), "life" (Psalm 31:13), "me" (Judges 16:30), "creature" (Genesis 1:21), "beast" (Leviticus 24:18), "man" (2 Kings 12:4), "thing" (Ezekiel 47:9), and "fish" (Isaiah 19:10). When translated "body" the nephesh is usually dead (Leviticus 21:11).
The Greek word for soul, psuche, has the same meaning. In Matthew 16:25 Jesus commends anyone who will lose his soul (psuche) for Christ’s sake. It is often translated simply as "life" (Matthew 2:20). It means "person" (Acts 7:14). "My soul" and "your soul" are idiomatic expressions meaning "I" and "you" (Matthew 12:18; 2 Corinthians 12:15, margin).

SOUL - BREATH = DUST
​

"If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust." Job 34:14, 15.

The Hebrew word for spirit (and ghost, Job 3:11), ruach, and the Greek word, pneuma, mean breath, wind, or vital element. It is the spark of life which makes you able to live. It is "the breath of the Almighty" (Job 33:4). When the Bible uses those words in reference to man, not once does it say that ruach or pneuma is something in man that retains consciousness after the person dies.
Angels are called spirits (Psalm 104:4) because to human eyes they are as invisible as breath. But man does not possess the nature of angels (Psalm 8:5), nor does the Bible indicate that he assumes it at death.

A soul is like the light that results when a light bulb is connected to a power source. The spirit, or breath of life, is the electric current.
Electricity will produce light only while it is flowing through the bulb. When the filament in the bulb breaks, the electrical circuit is broken, and the light goes out.
Just as the light cannot exist unless there is both electricity and a bulb, so there must be both the breath of life and a functional body in order for there to be a living soul.
​

​

 

[quandary121]

What is a Soul?


By Yanki Tauber

The soul is the self, the "I" that inhabits the body and acts through it. Without the soul, the body is like a light bulb without electricity, a computer without the software, a space suit with no astronaut inside. With the introduction of the soul, the body acquires life, sight and hearing, thought and speech, intelligence and emotions, will and desire, personality and identity.
Everything Has a Soul
In truth, not just the human being, but also every created entity possesses a "soul." Animals have souls, as do plants and even inanimate objects; every blade of grass has a soul, and every grain of sand. Not only life, but also existence requires a soul to sustain it--a "spark of G-dliness" that perpetually imbues its object with being and significance. A soul is not just the engine of life; it also embodies the why of a thing's existence, it's meaning and purpose. It is a thing's "inner identity, it's raison d'être. Just like the 'soul' of a musical composition is the composer's vision that energizes and gives life to the notes played in a musical composition--the actual notes are like the body expressing the vision and feeling of the soul within them. Each soul is the expression of G-d's intent and vision in creating that particular being."1
Five Levels
But it is the human soul that is both the most complex and the most lofty of souls. Our sages have said: "She is called by five names: Nefesh (soul), Ruach (spirit), Neshamah (breath), Chayah (life) and Yechidah (singularity)."2 The Chassidic masters explain that the soul's five "names" actually describe five levels or dimensions of the soul. Nefesh is the soul as the engine of physical life. Ruach is the emotional self and "personality." Neshamah is the intellectual self. Chayah is the supra-rational self--the seat of will, desire, commitment and faith. Yechidah connotes the essence of the soul--its unity with its source, the singular essence of G-d. For the essence of the soul of man is "literally a part of G-d above"3--a piece of G-d in us, so to speak.
Two Souls
The Chassidic masters speak of two distinct souls that vitalize the human being: an "Animal Soul" and a "G-dly Soul." The Animal Soul is driven by the quest for self-preservation and self-enhancement; in this, it resembles the soul and self of all other creations. But we also possess a G-dly Soul"--a soul driven by the desire to reconnect with its Source. Our lives are the story of the contest and interplay between these two souls, as we struggle to balance and reconcile our physical needs and desires with our spiritual aspirations, our self-focused drives with our altruistic yearnings. These two souls, however, do not reside "side-by-side" within the body; rather, the G-dly Soul is enclothed within the Animal Soul--just as the Animal Soul is enclothed within the body. This means that the Animal Soul, too, is vitalized by the "part of G-d above" at its core. Ostensibly, the two souls are in conflict with each other, but in essence they are compatible.4
Choice
The Divine essence of the human soul is what sets the human being above and apart from all other creations, even the angels. The angel may be more spiritual, but the human being is more G-dly. No creation can possess true freedom of choice--a creation, by definition, has and consists of only what its creator has imparted to it; this is its "nature," and its every inclination and action will be dictated by that nature. It is only in the human soul that the Creator imparted of His own essence. The human soul is thus the only truly "supra-natural" being (aside from the Creator)--a being that is not limited by its own nature. A being that can transcend itself; a being that can choose to not merely react to its environment, but to act upon it; a being whose choices and actions are therefore of true significance.
Why a Physical Life?
A soul is formed in the womb of supernal spiritual realms, where it acquires its distinct identity and mission. To fulfill this mission, it is dispatched to the physical realm, enclothed within an Animal Soul and equipped with a body. Here the G-dly Soul is challenged by the (apparently) conflicting needs and desires of the Animal Soul; here divine reality is obscured by the dense selfhood of the body and physical world. In this arena of hidden truth and perpetual challenge, the soul can fully express and actualize its divine power.5
Guidance & Nurture
The soul is provided with a compass and guidebook to navigate the challenge of physical life, and the resources to fortify it. The Torah is the divine "blueprint for creation" that guides and instructs the soul on its mission in life. The Torah is also "food for the soul": by studying Torah the soul ingests and digests the divine wisdom and is supplied with the divine energy to persevere in its mission and overcome its challenges.
Mitzvot
A mitzvah is a G-dly deed. Every time a soul performs a mitzvah--giving a coin to charity, putting on tefillin, lighting Shabbat candles--it acts as a "partner with G-d in creation" and brings G-d's presence into the world. The mitzvot are all physical deeds--so the soul can perform them only while a resident of the physical world, invested within an Animal Soul and a body. Thus the duration of its physical life is the soul's only opportunity to perform mitzvot. Everything that comes before and after is just a prequel and sequel to the soul's greatest and loftiest moments--its acts of connecting the G-dly with the mundane.
Life After Life
Upon conclusion of its physical life-span, the soul resumes a purely spiritual state. It can no longer perform mitzvot, but the G-dly deeds it performed during its physical lifetime have elevated it to heights it could not even had contemplated before its descent. These mitzvot are like seeds which take root in the soil of the physical world and grow and multiply, further fueling the soul's ascent; as do the good deeds performed in the physical world by others for the merit of the departed soul.
The World to Come
Ultimately, the soul will reunited with the body. In the Messianic Era, the resurrection of the dead will usher in a "World to Come" of eternal physical life, in which "death will be eradicated forever."6 In the World to Come, the entirety of creation will fully and uninhibitedly reflect the infinity and perfection of its Creator, and the physical will transcend the finitude and mortality which define it in today's imperfect world.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3194/jewish/What-is-a-Soul.htm