My big questions about God and the Afterlife, on both sides

[Winston]

Here are some big questions I have about God and the Afterlife. Has anyone else ever asked these questions? Can there ever be an answer to them? Or are they forever unanswerable and shrouded in mystery?

1. If there is a God, why doesn't he physically come out so that EVERYONE can see him anytime, making himself an objective physical person, to settle the dispute over his existence? Why all the mystery and hide-and-seek, leaving everyone guessing and speculating? Why can't he appear to everyone like he did to Moses as a pillar of fire in the movie "The Ten Commandments", instead of a select few who are sometimes not even credible or sane?

2. If there is life after death, then why don't the deceased return to visit their loved ones or the living in a CONSISTENT reliable unambiguous direct manner? Why do they only allegedly appear to only some of their loved ones through dreams, sensations or feelings, ghostly experiences, or signs and omens? Why not directly in full form that is clearly visible to the naked eye and can be seen by anyone, like the way Ben Kenobi visited Luke Skywalker in his afterlife form in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?

Analysis and sub-questions:

Christians like to excuse the first question by claiming that even if God did physically appear, most heathens on earth would not believe him anyway. But that is a total copout, and completely false too. People usually believe what they see with their eyes, especially once it appears. For example, in the movie Independence Day, when alien fighters were attacking and ravaging the whole Earth, no one denied the existence of aliens anymore, they were an established fact by then.

Or they say that God is not appearing to test our faith in him, another lame copout which makes no sense. Why doesn't he just appear to settle the dispute over his existence?

But on the other hand, Atheists have not fully explained away the things that point to the existence of God:

a) Miracles and answered prayers happen so often through the world, sometimes with such detail, that cannot be explained by coincidence alone. However, the miracles that have been documented are usually those that can also have occurred through spontaneous remission or even placebo effect. There has never been a known instance of a miracle, for instance, which involved amputated limbs growing back. Why? Is it beyond God's power to grow back an amputated limb?

b) The Intelligent Design argument has never been completely debunked, only nitpicked at. So much in creation, from stars to atoms, and especially living organisms, indicate an elaborate, intricate, and efficient order design. In fact, some reputable scientists have compared the chances of life evolving on Earth by random mutations to be less probable or equivalent to the probability of a group of monkeys typing randomly at typewriters for millions of years and coming up with "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare", or the odds that a tornado could blow through a junkyard and randomly put together a complete functional 747 jumbo jet. Such would be beyond astronomical.

c) And of course, many who have had a Near Death Experience claim to have encountered God face to face.

So what can we make of all this? Could our whole notion of what God is be wrong? And thus the assumptions in these questions here be in error too?

Regarding life after death, some spiritualists have proposed that a barrier exists between our world and that of the afterlife dimension that prevents the departed from contacting us easily or directly. However, even if that were so, you'd think that out of the countless millions on Earth who have died, that at least some or a few of them would have found a way to contact the living directly and unambiguously in a clear cut solid manner, to show their afterlife existence to be an objective fact right? Why only through dreams, signs and omens, or sudden feelings/sensations.

Or perhaps consciousness is completely vanquished at death?

After all, during anesthesia, a patient's consciousness loses its existence momentarily until the patient regains consciousness, to the point that not even dreams occur. So doesn't that mean that consciousness can lose its own existence too? (at least consciousness as we know it) Some spiritualists argue that since matter cannot be destroyed, but only go through a change in form, that consciousness can't be destroyed either. But even if that were so, and consciousness simply changed its form to something else, it doesn't automatically follow that awareness cannot be vanquished, as it seemingly does with the experience of patients in anesthesia. After all, it has not been established that awareness itself is a form of matter. If it were merely a by-product of matter (the brain), wouldn't it be possible for it to be extinquished?

On the other hand, if there is no life after death, then what about the widespread reports of ghostly experiences all over the world all throughout history? Surely countless millions of experiences everywhere throughout all history can't be 100 percent all wrong or mistaken?

But even if ghosts were proven to be real, that would not prove that they are the spirits or consciousness of people who have passed away. They could be interdimensional beings, a different type of lifeform, projections from the consciousness of the living, etc.

Near Death Experiences, although a fascinating phenomenon, may point to the possible existence of a life after death, but they are highly controversial and personal, and certainly not conclusive proof nor universally testable or verifiable. However, the unwavering conviction and knowing of many experiencers that their experience was real and absolute proof of life after death to them, is quite fascinating.

And reincarnation, a highly fascinating subject, is mainly backed by circumstantial evidence. There are many compelling cases that have been documented and suggest a reincarnation hypothesis, such as those in Ian Stevenson's "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" and "Across Time and Death" by Mary Sutton, which present very convincing cases with no alternative explanations. However, such evidence is purely circumstantial, not hard scientific.

In addition, reincarnation contains inherent paradoxes, such as how can everyone have a past life when 30 years ago, the population was half what it is now? Reincarnation advocates solve this paradox by claiming that some of us may have had past lives on other planets or in other dimensions. But isn't that just a copout?

As to all the other phenomena used to support the afterlife hypothesis - amazing mediums, seances, Electronic Voice Phenomenon (capturing ghostly voices on tape), automatic writing, spirit photography, etc. - they are interesting, ambiguous, and may or may not be real. But either way, such phenomena does not seem conclusive enough to make life after death a hard objective universally verifiable fact.

Again, perhaps our whole notion of what consciousness is, is wrong? Maybe it's totally different in nature than what we think? Could an answer somewhere in the middle be possible?

Or could the type of consciousness in the afterlife dimension be totally different than the kind we have in this life, as Dr. Melvin Morse, pediatrician and NDE researcher/author, postulated? What he concluded was that "something" definitely survives death, but it's not the ordinary consciousness that we have in this life.

Can such questions ever be answered? Or are they eternally unanswerable?

[Enishi]

2. If there is life after death, then why don't the deceased return to visit their loved ones or the living in a CONSISTENT reliable unambiguous direct manner? Why do they only allegedly appear to only some of their loved ones through dreams, sensations or feelings, ghostly experiences, or signs and omens? Why not directly in full form that is clearly visible to the naked eye and can be seen by anyone, like the way Ben Kenobi visited Luke Skywalker in his afterlife form in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?

Have you ever read articles by Theosophists or western mystics?

The main explanation revolves around the different grades of energy-substance which the human soul splits into upon physical death. The emotions and desires of the previous life are processed in the astral plane, while the higher aspects of the soul move on. The image/personality of the person remains in the astral for a time as a decomposing shell. Supposedly this is what some spiritualists connect with and mistake as the true spirit of a person.

Being able to consistently come back ala Obi-Wan would only be possible for a highly evolved adept.

[Winston]

Yes I have heard of theosophy. I think one of the founders was a Russian lady named Madam Blavatsky.

It's a very comprehensive paradigm. I wish there were groups devoted to it today.

It makes a lot of sense though.

I wonder what theosophy says about God or if it would answer my big questions.

[Enishi]

There are, they're just small.

Part of it is due to the fact that a lot of the stuff they teach sounds very far fetched in our current culture, part of it is due to stupid mistakes Theosophical members made after Blavatsky died, and much of it is due to their full scoop of their teachings sounding unappealing to self serving new agers who want feel good explanations about creating their own reality(I'm not referring to you here, but other people I've met).

In Theosophy, they teach that God is infinity, everything which exists. Infinity contains an infinite spectrum of worlds and energy-substances at every range of size, density and vibration, all of them ensouled by, and composed of, various forms of life. However, as infinity contains infinite variation, it is not something which can in of itself be described, at least not in its infinite totality. It exists, and yet, in a sense, is but an abstraction, without any discernible essence or form of its own, as everything which composes it is subject to causes and conditions (interdependant origination in Buddhism nomenclature), lacking inherent existence.

However, in the more relative, general sense, one could indeed point to this interdependant, interconnected consciousness as a diety with certain personal aspects.

[momopi]

I'm just going by strict trans literal interpretation here.

Exodus 33:20:
And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

The life after death part is less exact. Fundamentalist sects today who believe in the rapture says that after you die, you body lays in wait until the second coming, then you'd be judged to see if you're worthy to be resurrected and join the Lord in a new body, which could be either spiritual or physical.

They also view that since there is no "reincarnation", incidences where supposed reincarnates can give details about a deceased person's life, such as Buddhist Lama reincarnations, are due to interferences from long-lived demons. The demons would whisper details of the deceased person to the "reincarnated" child, deceiving them into believing that they've been reincarnated, and thus propagating pagan cults.

Same with ghosts... demons in disguise.


I'm not advocating anyone to actually believe in their ideology. If you want to know about the afterlife, you only have to wait until you die. Until then, time is better spent worrying about your next meal.

[Winston]

Here is a fascinating response to my big questions from someone on my spirituality list:


1. If there is a God, why doesn't he physically come out so that EVERYONE can see him anytime, making himself an objective physical person, to settle the dispute over his existence?


This assumes that the curiosity of some people is a significant motivator for God. Some of my students would love to have me do their work for them, but they won't learn anything if I do. I want them to learn, so they have to find out for themselves how to use the tools of their craft. In the same way, although I have "extra" reasons to believe in God, I can also see abundant implicit cause to believe in him from the design of our universe and all the things that inhabit it.

Living on earth, to me, is like learning how to walk on the bottom of the ocean. I can't get there without a heavy protective suit, and have to leave the land-based world behind when I dive. When I get to the bottom, the way is difficult because of the pressure at great depths. It is easy to forget the world above while exploring the murk, but then I have to refresh my air periodically by going back to the surface before diving again and forgetting everything again so I can focus all my energy on my goal. In that context, is easy to forget that the things littering the sea bed originally came from above, rained down as ships sank of typhoons dropped their booty into the waves, and those things in turn made by other hands, and yet they are. Maybe I forget what my supervisor looks like as I get lost in a tangle of ever more complex problems to solve. Maybe I run into others who feel the same way. Is this a reason for the supervisor to come down? Maybe, maybe not. If we've all forgotten his nature, it's a decent bet that his motives are beyond our comprehension as well.

2. If there is life after death, then why don't the deceased return to visit their loved ones or the living in a CONSISTENT reliable unambiguous direct manner? Why do they only allegedly appear to only some of their loved ones through dreams, sensations or feelings, ghostly experiences, or signs and omens? Why not directly in full form that is clearly visible to the naked eye and can be seen by anyone, like the way Ben Kenobi visited Luke Skywalker in his afterlife form in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?


I only met my paternal grandfather a couple times in my life (I met my dad when I was 16), but after he died, I dreamed of him regularly. He told me he was waiting for my grandmother's time on earth to be up, and then they'd both go away for good. On the morning of her death a few years later, I dreamed of her beautiful spirit leaving her body. Shortly after that, I dreamed of them both as they said goodbye, and never dreamed of either one again. Did I need to see him? I barely knew him (at least consciously), but the point of seeing me wasn't to prove life after death. I think it's just that he could contact me, so he did, and explained what he was up to. I had a similar set of dreams regarding an aunt who died young, but I'd met only once. I once had the spirit of the mother of an old friend of mine tell me of her death. It was that dream that gave me the information I needed to get back in touch with this old friend of mine, after 20+ years. Again, the purpose wasn't to prove something, but to give me some information of a more meaningful nature. It might be annoying to skeptics that the spirit world doesn't come out and announce itself in a way that makes sense to them, but while skeptics scratch their heads, there is plenty going on all around them.

My understanding, btw, is that spirits do sometimes appear to be quite solid. I will also note that twice in my life that I know of, someone has seen me in their presence simultaneous with me dreaming about them while my body was somewhere else. If that can happen while I am alive, I think it can work just as well with someone who no longer has a physical body. From my experience though, I do not think that all people are equally capable of this.


Christians like to excuse the first question by claiming that even if God did physically appear, most heathens on earth would not believe him anyway.


Unless God prevented people from recognizing him, I don't think anyone would be able to deny who he was. Nor would, in this hypothetical example, a skeptic take a look at God in the distance and say, "Well, what do you know? He's real!" He'd be on his face in a second, worshiping God even more than if only his life depended on it.


Or they say that God is not appearing to test our faith in him, another lame copout which makes no sense. Why doesn't he just appear to settle the dispute over his existence?


In this case I don't think it is a copout, though it could be described differently. There are a number of people on earth who have this question in their minds, like a dog dropping fleas in their ears, and they'd like to know the answer and get this itch scratched, but it may be that answering this question for people would nullify the purpose of our being incarnated here in the first place. This would be like putting a mouse in a maze to see if he can find the cheese, and then deciding to just pick the mouse up and drop him in the right chamber. The mouse learns nothing, and you never find out if the mouse can do it, or will do it, on his own.


But on the other hand, Atheists have not fully explained away the things that point to the existence of God:

a) Miracles and answered prayers happen all the time among so many, sometimes with such detail, that cannot be explained by coincidence alone.
b) The Intelligent Design argument has never been completely debunked, only nitpicked at. So much in creation, from stars to atoms, and especially living organisms, indicate an elaborate, intricate, and efficient order design. In fact, some reputable scientists have compared the chances of life evolving on Earth by random mutations to be less probable or equivalent to the probability of a group of monkeys typing randomly at typewriters for millions of years and coming up with "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare", or the odds that a tornado could blow through a junkyard and randomly put together a complete functional 747 jumbo jet. Such would be beyond astronomical.
c) And of course, many who have had a Near Death Experience claim to have encountered God face to face.

So what can we make of all this? Could our whole notion of what God is be wrong? And thus the assumptions in these questions here be in error too?


These are all signs of God, and to ignore them, particularly the design of things, takes a lot of obfuscation and effort. I fell into that category once, and am now amazed at how much I prevented myself from noticing simply because my science teachers told me not to look there, that nothing interesting was going on in THAT corner.


Regarding life after death, some spiritualists have proposed that a barrier exists between our world and that of the afterlife dimension that prevents the departed from contacting us easily or directly. However, even if that were so, you'd think that out of the countless millions on Earth who have died, that at least a few of them would have found a way to contact the living directly and unambiguously to make their afterlife existence an objective fact right? Why only through dreams, signs and omens, or sudden feelings/sensations. So why haven't they?


I think they do do this, regardless of whether you are acquainted personally with such an event. My grandfather-in-law, just before he died, saw his wife in his room. She had died the previous week, but no one had told him and he didn't know. So he thought she was really there and had started asking why she was wearing this certain dress (the one she was cremated in), when he died.


Or perhaps consciousness is completely vanquished at death?


It would be easier to make the argument that consciousness is vanquished in life, then liberated at death, though it isn't exactly right because "vanquished is the wrong word". As a spirit guide said with great compassion to me in one dream, "The living sleep very hard in life".



After all, during anesthesia, a patient's consciousness loses its existence momentarily until the patient regains consciousness, to the point that not even dreams occur. So doesn't that mean that consciousness can lose its own existence too? (at least consciousness as we know it) Some spiritualists argue that since matter cannot be destroyed, but only go through a change in form, that consciousness can't be destroyed either. But even if that were so, and consciousness simply changed its form to something else, it doesn't automatically follow that awareness cannot be vanquished, as it seemingly does with the experience of patients in anesthesia. After all, it has not been established that awareness itself is a form of matter. If it were merely a by-product of matter (the brain), wouldn't it be possible for it to be extinquished?


I disagree with you here. We may not remember anything after anaesthesia, but it doesn't mean nothing happened. Some people do remember a great deal during anaesthesia, perhaps that others have similar experiences but simply forget them, just as many people have a hard time remembering dreams?


Or could the type of consciousness in the afterlife dimension be totally different than the kind we have in this life, as Dr. Melvin Morse, pediatrician and NDE researcher/author, postulated? What he concluded was that "something" definitely survives death, but it's not the ordinary consciousness that we have in this life.

Can such questions ever be answered? Or are they eternally unanswerable?


On this long series of statements (I cut some out to make it easier to read), you will know one day.

AP

[Shokkers]

It might help you to read the initial part of THE GOD DELUSION by Richard Dawkins.
It describes Religious leaders' clash with Einstein who "did not believe in a personal God".
Dawkins explained that Einstein did not believe in a SUPERNATURAL God who interferes with human affairs.
He was more apt to believe in a Deist god (as Jefferson did: God was the Ultimate Watchmaker; He set up the watch and let it run, so He would not HAVE to intervene in mortal affairs), or Spinoza's Pantheistic God, where all of Nature and the Universe is a facet of God.
I can accept those theories, and the basis of Christianity as well. However, the Egyptians kept very good records, and there is no record of a jewish revolt or exodus. The Ark is nowhere to be found. The Ark of the Covenant is likewise missing in action. The golden plates of the Mormons are supposably under lock and key 'somewhere', but nobody's allowed to see them...strange.

In THE UNBREAKABLE HEART I propose that the Afterlife is actually a "Before And Afterlife"...one psychic described it as a glorious palace, which coincides with most images of Heaven. Time is inapplicable to it. Souls, once released, are pure sentient energy, so they can travel anywhere but most choose to remain in 'the palace'. Since this energy cannot be created or destroyed, this 'soul-er energy' (pardon the pun) is in fact a smaller facet of God and knows everything...however, without a body, it cannot FEEL anything, and it really wants to, so eventually it opts for another human incarnation again, just so it can feel (good things and bad).

I could write about ghosts and demons all day, but I normally charge for it, so I'll shut up now...
Best, K.K.
http://www.rockherworld.net

[Winston]

What is The Unbreakable Heart? Is that a book or article you wrote? Where is it?

I thought most of the Egyptian records were lost or buried? That's why not even the modern Egyptians know the full story of how or why the pyramids were built.

Have you seen that Robin Williams movie "What Dreams May Come"? It shows something like what you describe in the life between lives, in a very beautiful way.

[polya]

God has been used as a tool to control the masses, to keep them slaving away on earth to get a reward in the afterlife. There have been so many wars, murders, halocausts in the name of God that no intelligent person should believe anything Churches tell us. For example, tithing 10% of your income is not in the bible - it was incorrectly drawn from burning a sacrificice of your animals.

In fact, I think we will soon see secrets revealed about Christianity that will cause a great "falling away" from the Church as prophesied by Nostradamous & in the book of revelation. I wouldn't be surprised if this secret has something to do with aliens (ets) because theres many references to ets in the bible - e.g. the elohim (ones who came from the sky), Elijah being taken up to heaven in a fiery chariot (a ufo)...

Finally, the most shocking people in the world use God like Hitler & G Bush - their God is so horrible, I don't want any part of it!

[Shokkers]

What is The Unbreakable Heart? Is that a book or article you wrote? Where is it?

I thought most of the Egyptian records were lost or buried? That's why not even the modern Egyptians know the full story of how or why the pyramids were built.

Have you seen that Robin Williams movie "What Dreams May Come"? It shows something like what you describe in the life between lives, in a very beautiful way.

The Unbreakable Heart's my 'warm fuzzy' book, kind of like THE SECRET or UNLIMITED POWER...I'm trying to win back the bad karma I got writing horror stories... It's not quite done yet (around 145 pages); I'm going to start querying publishers in a bit, I'll let you know how it goes...I may actually give the thing away on CD-ROM as a gift back to God & The Universe for all the cool sex & fun & rocknroll.

RE the Egyptians, I'm amazed historians can trace their dynasty back through pharoahs A, B & C, but can't find any trace of the Exodus. But there are also any amount of guys who can say "Jesus was here, here and there" 2000 years ago.

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME is an awesome movie. I remember one particular suicide victim (revived) who said her near-death experience was extremely disturbing, stranded on a really bleak dimension with other suicides that couldn't notice her. It makes sense in a karmic way.

Best, K.K.

[Winston]

Another interesting response I received:

In reply to the questions, let me again offer some wisdom from Victor Hugo:

Victor Hugo asked a spirit claiming to be Martin Luther (through a medium) why God doesn't better reveal himself.

The reply from spirit was:

“Because doubt is the instrument which forges the human spirit. If the day were to come when the human spirit no longer doubted, the human soul would fly off and leave the plough behind, for it would have acquired wings. The earth would lie fallow. Now, God is the sower and man is the harvester. The celestial seed demands that the human ploughshare remain in the furrow of life.�

[Winston]

A response from a Muslim girl:

"God..
there is something bigger and better than humanity and everything else that created everything. Perhaps it is God, perhaps it is energy.

Afterlife/Soul.. so many people-millions of people in all cultures and countries have reported feeling leftover energy after a human's body has died. There is a big possibility that we do have an afterlife. There is only one way to tell-to die. But then again, after we die, we can't tell others, can we? That is just something we have to either choose to believe in, or not.

As far as it all comes down to it Winston, all religions teach pretty much the same thing: There is a higher power, there is right and wrong ect. We should all respect each other, and celebrate the rich diversity of our beliefs. I may have chosen Islam, but I still love to hear about other's beliefs. I choose not to become so caught up in the rituals of my religion that I have to become closed minded. I hate it when people talk crap about my choice of faith, and it also bothers me when other's talk crap about other people's faith. Let each person have their own reality.

The most important thing is that all humans and animals are connected. We exist and breathe together. We are born together, we die together. That is all that counts-that we are all connected no matter how different we all appear."

[ladislav]

If there is a God, why doesn't he physically come out so that EVERYONE can see him anytime, making himself an objective physical person, to settle the dispute over his existence? Why all the mystery and hide-and-seek, leaving everyone guessing and speculating? Why can't he appear to everyone like he did to Moses as a pillar of fire in the movie "The Ten Commandments", instead of a select few who are sometimes not even credible or sane?

2.

God is not a 'he' or a 'she'. It is the fundamental life force that moves the Universe, it's fundamental law. And it has come out. It is what makes everything move and develop, what makes life live itself. It has come out in everything. Can you see electricity itself? Can you the the force of gravity? I think you may not see them but their functions- well, yes. God is the unifying force of all these forces of the universe, its underlying pulse. Its basic principle. Einstein came very close to proving that gravity, the electromagnetic force the strong and the weak forces of the nucleus sprung from one unifying force- that is what God is, or at least one of its dimensions. It is what unifies sentient and non sentient beings and your mind into one whole.

An old man on a cloud with a white beard is just an allegory. Because the above explanation would be too much for common people to understand back in the old days.

If there is life after death, then why don't the deceased return to visit their loved ones or the living in a CONSISTENT reliable unambiguous direct manner? Why do they only allegedly appear to only some of their loved ones through dreams, sensations or feelings, ghostly experiences, or signs and omens? Why not directly in full form that is clearly visible to the naked eye and can be seen by anyone, like the way Ben Kenobi visited Luke Skywalker in his afterlife form in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?

After death, living being move into a non physical dimension leaving this plane. They can appear and visit you but you will simply not see them with your eyes because they now exist at a different frequency on a different layer of existence. When you sleep, your non physical, very "fine"soul which again cannot be seen by the naked human eye starts acting like its own unit by often separating from your body. It can see things and travel to other planes. Somehow, although the exact mechanism of it is not yet understood, your subconscious mind layers are connected to other non physical dimension of the universe and they can see what goes on there and also see the dead.

However, there have been sightings of ghosts and yes, sometimes, when the non physical shell is heavy enough, it can be seen by naked eye, but this is rare.

You are asking 'why'? Because such are laws of nature. There is no 'why'. There is only a 'what'?

I can ask the same 'why"- why does water freeze at 0 degrees Celsius? And not at one degree or five degrees? Why does the Earth have only one moon and not three? Why is the Sun a single star and not a double star? Many things do not have a ' why'.

Analysis and sub-questions:

Christians like to excuse the first question by claiming that even if God did physically appear, most heathens on earth would not believe him anyway. But that is a total copout, and completely false too. People usually believe what they see with their eyes, especially once it appears. For example, in the movie Independence Day, when alien fighters were attacking and ravaging the whole Earth, no one denied the existence of aliens anymore, they were an established fact by then.

Because many Christians do not understand the nature of God. They think God is some ghost that flies around the Universe. It is not what God is.

Or they say that God is not appearing to test our faith in him, another lame copout which makes no sense. Why doesn't he just appear to settle the dispute over his existence?

Well, God is appearing everywhere because all existence is being fed by God. So, all nature and everything, well, God is it. For example, there is a force of life that moves your body, your thoughts, your innards, that makes your heart pump. Can you make it appear in front of you? No, because that is not its nature. It's nature is to make you alive. See what I mean? Can you make electricity itself come out in front of you? You can make light of it come out, but not the electricity. Can you make gravity come out in front of you and talk to you?

But on the other hand, Atheists have not fully explained away the things that point to the existence of God:

a) Miracles and answered prayers happen so often through the world, sometimes with such detail, that cannot be explained by coincidence alone. However, the miracles that have been documented are usually those that can also have occurred through spontaneous remission or even placebo effect. There has never been a known instance of a miracle, for instance, which involved amputated limbs growing back. Why? Is it beyond God's power to grow back an amputated limb?

There are laws of nature an they are God, too. Even science is being fed by power of God because God is the driving force of all things. Sometimes, by mental concentration these laws can be strengthened and utilized better and served to turn different possibilities in your favor. These are things that are hard to explain but you often feel where the limits of prayer lie. Also, do not discount future existences. Sometimes, when karmic causes are too thick and heavy, miracles will happen and prayers will be answered after the karma has been 'lived down'. Which means, in a very very distant future. But all prayers are answered eventually.

b) The Intelligent Design argument has never been completely debunked, only nitpicked at. So much in creation, from stars to atoms, and especially living organisms, indicate an elaborate, intricate, and efficient order design. In fact, some reputable scientists have compared the chances of life evolving on Earth by random mutations to be less probable or equivalent to the probability of a group of monkeys typing randomly at typewriters for millions of years and coming up with "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare", or the odds that a tornado could blow through a junkyard and randomly put together a complete functional 747 jumbo jet. Such would be beyond astronomical.

That is right- there is an intelligent life force behind all things- it is just that you would have to look beyond ancient allegorical texts to see its nature.

c) And of course, many who have had a Near Death Experience claim to have encountered God face to face.

In the non physical plane where your soul goes to after death, you will see what you have believed all along as it will take the shape of what your mind expects to see.

So what can we make of all this? Could our whole notion of what God is be wrong? And thus the assumptions in these questions here be in error too?

A lot of Christian texts are allegorical and symbolic, not literal. It is up for you to see what they mean and read between the lines. The reason many scientists are anti-Christian is that they think that the symbolisms in the religion are actual. They should not take them literally, though.

Regarding life after death, some spiritualists have proposed that a barrier exists between our world and that of the afterlife dimension that prevents the departed from contacting us easily or directly. However, even if that were so, you'd think that out of the countless millions on Earth who have died, that at least some or a few of them would have found a way to contact the living directly and unambiguously in a clear cut solid manner, to show their afterlife existence to be an objective fact right? Why only through dreams, signs and omens, or sudden feelings/sensations.

View my explanations of different frequencies/dimensions above.

Or perhaps consciousness is completely vanquished at death?

After all, during anesthesia, a patient's consciousness loses its existence momentarily until the patient regains consciousness, to the point that not even dreams occur. So doesn't that mean that consciousness can lose its own existence too? (at least consciousness as we know it) Some spiritualists argue that since matter cannot be destroyed, but only go through a change in form, that consciousness can't be destroyed either. But even if that were so, and consciousness simply changed its form to something else, it doesn't automatically follow that awareness cannot be vanquished, as it seemingly does with the experience of patients in anesthesia. After all, it has not been established that awareness itself is a form of matter. If it were merely a by-product of matter (the brain), wouldn't it be possible for it to be extinguished?

It separates from the body and goes into another plane of sorts. There are also levels of consciousness. The sensual one, that is how you feel things through your body's sensory organs disappears when you faint. Other levels that are connected to your other body- the astral one, live on. Mystics say we have some four bodies, the physical one being the crudest and it is the one that dies and faints and all that. There are other bodies though. These cannot always be seen of detected with eyes or physical instruments at the present level of scientific development but sometimes they can be seen if the vibrations overlap with the physical dimension.

On the other hand, if there is no life after death, then what about the widespread reports of ghostly experiences all over the world all throughout history? Surely countless millions of experiences everywhere throughout all history can't be 100 percent all wrong or mistaken?

Well, there is life after death.

But even if ghosts were proven to be real, that would not prove that they are the spirits or consciousness of people who have passed away. They could be interdimensional beings, a different type of lifeform, projections from the consciousness of the living, etc.

Near Death Experiences, although a fascinating phenomenon, may point to the possible existence of a life after death, but they are highly controversial and personal, and certainly not conclusive proof nor universally testable or verifiable. However, the unwavering conviction and knowing of many experiencers that their experience was real and absolute proof of life after death to them, is quite fascinating.

And reincarnation, a highly fascinating subject, is mainly backed by circumstantial evidence. There are many compelling cases that have been documented and suggest a reincarnation hypothesis, such as those in Ian Stevenson's "Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation" and "Across Time and Death" by Mary Sutton, which present very convincing cases with no alternative explanations. However, such evidence is purely circumstantial, not hard scientific.

In addition, reincarnation contains inherent paradoxes, such as how can everyone have a past life when 30 years ago, the population was half what it is now? Reincarnation advocates solve this paradox by claiming that some of us may have had past lives on other planets or in other dimensions. But isn't that just a copout?

No, it is not because there are not only other planets but other spiritual planes where souls reside. Also, they say souls can split like cells split.

As to all the other phenomena used to support the afterlife hypothesis - amazing mediums, seances, Electronic Voice Phenomenon (capturing ghostly voices on tape), automatic writing, spirit photography, etc. - they are interesting, ambiguous, and may or may not be real. But either way, such phenomena does not seem conclusive enough to make life after death a hard objective universally verifiable fact.

Not yet because science has not yet developed enough to detect all these things.

Again, perhaps our whole notion of what consciousness is, is wrong? Maybe it's totally different in nature than what we think? Could an answer somewhere in the middle be possible?

We have not yet developed science that can explain all this.

Or could the type of consciousness in the afterlife dimension be totally different than the kind we have in this life, as Dr. Melvin Morse, pediatrician and NDE researcher/author, postulated? What he concluded was that "something" definitely survives death, but it's not the ordinary consciousness that we have in this life.

That is right. It is another layer of it that does so. Winston, there is some glitch in the answer window. After some lines, every time I try to place the quote marks on your text it brings me to the very top of the window. Hence no quote marks.

Can such questions ever be answered? Or are they eternally unanswerable?

Eternally? Why such a grand and mighty word? They are being answered, it is just going to take time. As science develops more and more,such things will be answered more and more. We are talking decades, if not centuries.

[jamesbond]

I have been fascinated by the idea of an afterlife for years now. I did a research paper in college on the subject and have concluded that, there indeed is an afterlife. One of the best books I have read on the subject is called, "What happens when we die" by Dr. Sam Parnia. The book was written in 2006 and goes into detail on the specific studies that were done by MEDICAL DOCTORS on the afterlife. Here is a link for the book on amazon;



Here is a youtube video by Dr. Parnia talking about the studies he has done in regards to the afterlife.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK7_T9CpvGw#

Here is a cool website from Victor Zammit, who has done years of research on the afterlife and has written an awesome book on the subject called, "The case for the afterlife."

http://www.victorzammit.com/

[Winston]

Ladislav,
I fixed the problem with your quotes. My parts and your responses are properly quoted now. I don't know what went wrong earlier or what caused such a strange glitch. Like I said, many unexplained things in life......