The existence of an afterlife.

“I would like some hard core proof on your end, proving myself wrong, and or the afterlife wrong, and completely out of the picture.”The type of proof that is maximally achievable is dependent on the nature of a subject. Unhelpful to us, the nature of our subject relegates us to marginal assessments of death and near-death. But, it is compelling evidence that near-death experiences' reports vary along with the trends of a society, that no one is having experiences of the Mictlan type now that the Aztecs have died, that Heaven and Hell concepts, like Mictlan, have to be introduced and explained to people first -- they can't be discovered unintentionally. Such things make afterlife theories seem like mere concepts that are faithfully believed.“Quick question to add to that: Do you believe that either A) A man made up a huge book regarding heaven and hell, as well as a bunch of science, morals, stories, and how to's that have actually proven quite true is completely made up from a man whom could not read or write's, imagination?” The order of discovery of scientific knowledge is relevant here. People did not read the Quran and then update our public scientific knowledge. The order instead was that of the rigorous work of scientists followed by reinterpretation of religious text with the convenient claim “Our text was saying exactly that all along.” I think a great portion of the Quran is conceptions of men written down -- not necessarily with an intent to deceive others; what was written was probably written with the earnest belief that the conclusions were from God. “The bible also has some holy scriptures and stories, as well as the Torah. If you would like me to prove some points from these books that are accurate scientifically I will.”There are scientific inaccuracies in the Bible and Quran as well. The faithful simply find favorable interpretations for those parts of their scriptures like saying that the verses had allegorical intention. “For there to be no after life a human would have to pass and as his or her brain and body shut down, they themselves also shut down completely into nothing. All their thoughts completely disappear and transfer into nothing. It doesn't seem plausible if you think about it.”It seems plausible to me. Can our consciousness be maintained after the decomposition of our brains? When we try to measure what our brains are doing as we think, we find synchronous electrical and chemical activity.[1] To adopt the conclusion that we can have thoughts, memories, and personalities without a brain, is to believe something that we have found no instances of. Clinical death is not brain death. So, the infrequent reports of near-death experiences are those involving clinical death. “Your soul will be judged and you would enjoy your afterlife based on that.”This is not true by proclamation nor true by faith, nor by sincere belief. Religion has influenced people to become desensitized to unconfirmability. We should be affected by the fact that a judgment day is not confirmable. Instead, people know that unconfirmability is a norm for religious topics and they've become accepting of a fairly low standard of truth, and faithfully treat as true unidentifiable and unconfirmable notions. “Let's speak about an OBO. Out of body experience, one in which your soul may leave your body, it can happen in traumatic events.”I regard perceived out-of-body experiences as a type of near-death experience. So, I was using the phrase “near-death experience” to include reports of those as well. But, it should be mentioned that there is not a constant conjunction between (A) someone about to die, and (B) an experience of a Hindu (Christian, Muslim, Aztec, or Viking) theory of what happens after death for everyone. If there were one invariable experience of the Hindu (Christian, Muslim, Aztec, or Viking) type for all people approaching death, then the stories would seem more like an aspect of the reality we all share, and less like an odd occasional effect of our non-brain-dead minds while straddling life and death.A goal of public education is to have an informed, responsible, citizenry capable of navigating adult life. Don't you think that if religious topics were real the public schools would teach them? Instead, it's as though the policy makers say, “Let them believe whatever, so long as it doesn't promote violence. Let them believe in paradises and any fanciful conception.” I'm aware of the separation of church and state policy. When the work of Gregor Mendel established the field of genetics, it became irrelevant that he was a friar, a Christian, and did the work at a monastery. So, what I am suggesting is that if there is an aspect of the reality we all share that is discoverable in this topic, then the religious environment in which it is discovered won't matter; the fact that we gained new knowledge would be what matters. “It would also be nice to hear some of your views, and philosophy from yourself added into the argument.”Hopefully, this round of debate has done that. Let me know if there is something specific you want for me to elaborate more on.[1] http://engineering.mit.edu...