05/13/2021
Hugh Ross and Reasons to Believe is an organization many people don’t know about. They are a Christian group of scientists (real scientists who pay attention to science). Check out this post, then go to their site or his Wikipedia page. You may find yourself intrigued.
Question of the Week: Using science alone, can you establish that an afterlife for humans exists?
My Answer: An afterlife, by definition, is a non-physical experience. Hence, we should not expect to find any direct physical evidence for an afterlife. However, several lines of indirect physical evidence do exist.
1) The origin of human consciousness continues to defy naturalistic explanations. We have almost fifty books at our Reasons To Believe headquarters in which naturalistic hypotheses and scenarios are proposed to explain the origin of human consciousness. They share one thing in common. The authors admit that their suggested scenarios and hypotheses fail to provide an adequate explanation. These diligent attempts indicate that human consciousness is a non-physical entity and, therefore, could survive the demise of the physical body.
2) Humans are unique among Earth’s animals in that they universally ponder subjects that transcend the physical universe. Examples would be does God exist, are there beings that transcend the cosmic spacetime dimensions, is there a heaven, is there a hell, will we be judged for the way we live our Earthly lives. Why such a compulsive focus on the transcendent if the transcendent does not exist?
3) The spacetime theorems establish that a Causal Agent must exist beyond matter, energy, space, and time who created space, time, energy, and matter. Hence, there must exist a reality beyond the universe and the possibility exists that we could enter into that reality.
4) The observational and historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is overwhelming. There is no other reasonable explanation for what happened to Jesus. As Paul explains in his letters to the Corinthians, given that Jesus possesses the demonstrated power to raise himself from the dead, he clearly has the power to raise anyone else he so chooses from the dead.
5) Experiments conducted by medical doctors demonstrate that the consciousness of a human can operate independent of the physical body of that human. Years ago, we interviewed cardiologist Michael B. Sabom. He reported that some of his patients accurately reported on the status of devices and monitors during times when they were unconscious and their eyes were shut. Sabom has written two books documenting over 200 cases where individuals were able to accurately report on events and messages that were not accessible by their physical bodies. We presently are searching for our recording of the interview with Sabom and hopefully will post it on our new website soon.
