Can someone who can't smell have evidence that certain poisons smell like walnuts? They can have faith that it does, but they can't experience it forthemselves.
Of course they can. But the fact that certain poisons smell like walnuts is supported by scientific evidence, whereas the afterlife is not.
How do we know that other explanations of it are incorrect without knowing the actual explanation? Thats silly.
It is most certainly not silly. Let's take a hypothetical situation; a book falls off a shelf suddenly.
Someone who believes in ghosts believes that a ghost knocked it off the shelf. This belief depends on the physical existence of ghosts.
All things which exist physically are composed of massenergy. There is a finite amount of massenergy. If ghosts exist, they must be composed of massenergy. If a ghost is the soul of a dead organism, then the massenergy must come from that organism upon their death. Since, excluding the recent development of synthetic foods, all organisms are reusing massenergy from dead organisms to make up their own bodies, this means that with each successive generation of organisms, there is less massenergy left behind to be used to make new organisms. Since there is less massenergy left behind to make new organisms, there must be less organisms with each successive generation.
However, it is demonstrably true that 75, 000 years, the Toba event resulted in the mass reduction of many populations, including the reduction of the human population to a mere 10, 000 breeding pairs, if that. If ghosts exist, due to the aforementioned loss of massenergy, it would be impossible for the amount of organisms on the planet to increase.
However, it is also demonstrably true that that has happened, since the human population has grown from that mere 10, 000 breeding pairs to almost 7 billion people. Therefore, it is impossible that ghosts exist.
From that, it can reasonably be concluded that a ghost did not knock the book of the shelf. However, it remains unexplained.
But just because it is unexplained does not mean that some of the theories cannot be ruled out.
Because we have no explanation for what happens to the thinking consciousness of a human after they expire, wherein we have an explanation of lightning.
Of course we have an explanation for what happens to human consciousness; it ends. Human consciousness is just a biological process carried out by one of our organs, when we die, our organs cease to function and human consciousness ends.
"Less knowledge"? We still don't know what happens in a subjective experience of a human being once their bodies stop functioning anymore than the people of Jesus' time did.
When their bodies stop functioning, they lose the ability to have any experiences. We don't know what experiences a dead person has because a dead person
has no experiences.
Yes but what we experience after we expire is not ball lightning, nor do we have any explanations of what happens as clear as the ball lightning's explanation.
We experience nothing after we die, because we are dead.
But there is no scientific explanation of our subjective experience of reality after our bodies cease function. Does it just "end"? What would the "ending" feel like? Would we be aware of this "ending"?
The scientific evidence is that our experience ends, because we are dead. Yes, it does just end, the quotation marks are unnecessary. The ending doesn't feel like anything because we are dead and therefore incapable of feeling. We are not aware of this ending because we are dead.
What scientific explanations?
That the soul, of which there is no evidence of existing, does not exist and that human consciousness, which is a biological process, ceases to occur just like our other biological processes.
Why are we confined to the physical laws of this reality when He is clearly referring to another reality?
Because even if Jesus is referring to another reality, we still die in this reality, so our deaths are subject to this reality's physical laws.
Furthermore, there is not, nor has there ever been, anything other than purely hypothetical evidence of a reality other than our own. It is ridiculous to assume the existence of another reality when there is no evidence of such. This what opal was referring to.
Your belief in the afterlife requires the existence of souls, of which there is no evidence, that can move from one reality to another, which requires the existence of another reality, of which there is no evidence, and the ability to move from one reality to another, of which there is no evidence, which also requires the existence of another reality, of which there is no evidence.
On the other hand, the idea that there is no afterlife is consistent with our knowledge of physical laws.
The first hypothesis requires the existence of numerous entities of which there is no evidence, while the second requires no such entities and is already, without positing the existence of such entities, consistent with the physical laws of the universe.
And yet, based on the account of one man, who lived in an age significantly less scientifically knowledgeable than the modern age, you choose to believe the first hypothesis rather than the second. Why?
Furthermore, you state after reading the account of several people, you decided that Jesus's was the most believable. Why is his account any more believable than the account of an atheist who never posited the existence of entities of which there is no evidence?
Finally, you have stated that you have not yet completed your studies into the lives of "prophets". If you have not yet completed your studies, why have you already reached a conclusion?
