(July 14, 2011 at 3:26 pm)xonage Wrote: The common theme I see here is "burden of proof" and "an afterlife has no evidence so dont believe in it." But why then firmly believe in no afterlife, if there is no evidence for it. You guys have it a little mixed up. The burden of proof lies on the one making a claim. If you claim there is no life after death, the burden of proof would be on YOU.
You miss the point entirely. We DO have evidence to say what happens to us after death. Biologically our brains stop and cease to have consciousness. End of.
The crux of this argument is flawed anyway, how can you have life after death when the very premise of death is that there is no life? You either believe that we die, or
you don't. Now scientifically, WE DIE. Simple as.
When people say, "there is no afterlife", the burden of proof is not on them at all because the statement they are making is scientifically correct. Seen as there is nothing to suggest we have souls or that our consciousness lives on, how can it possibly be a positive claim to say that these things don't happen? We are merely asserting the scientific fact that we don't have souls nor do our consciousness's live on. Now that isn't to say that there DEFINITIVELY isn't some form of afterlife, but with the evidence we DO have, and the scientific analysis we can make of a human being after death etc, there is nothing at all to suggest even remotely that there is an afterlife. So tell me, why is the burden of proof on someone who says there is not an afterlife? Scientifically they are 100% correct with the current knowledge we have at this point in time.
Your line of logic would determine that because we have no evidence of a flying teacup orbitting mars, we should still keep an open mind about it. Well sorry mate but that's not how it works. Sure there could be a teacup orbitting mars, but given there is no evidence there is also no reason to believe it at all. Someone who simply asserts this has no burden of proof because they have nothing to prove.
