It is more likely than not that an afterlife does not exist

Many thanks to my opponent for his quick reply and well thought out arguments. Although he has the primary burden of proof, I will still present a rather short case of my own to show that the proposition that the afterlife most likely does not exist is a false one.==My case==I. NDE'sThroughout human history, individuals who survived incidences of severe trauma and near death have experienced other worldy experiences and brought back with them fantastic tales; common experiences include moving through tunnels, seeing bursts of lights, and meeting with deceased people. In the past it would have been easy to attribute these as a coping mechanism, a way for the mind to avoid trauma while the body attempts to survive and recover, but as medical science steadily advanced the point has been reached in some cases where even as coping mechanisms NDE's are useless. The huge scientific advances of recent decades have led to individuals recovering from experiences from which, in a state of nature, there is absolutely no chance of recovery indeed even cases where the individual is declared clinically dead but with the help of modern technologies miraculously survives. And yet, the near death experiences continue to come. Harvard Neurosurgeon Eden Alexander writes about the scientific basis of his near death experience and his visit to what he takes to be the afterlife[1]: "There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind—my conscious, inner self—was alive and well. While the neurons of my cortex were stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria that had attacked them, my brain-free consciousness journeyed to another, larger dimension of the universe: a dimension I’d never dreamed existed and which the old, pre-coma me would have been more than happy to explain was a simple impossibility."His experience is not at all unique. There are literally countless stories and dozens if not hundreds of books written on these kinds of experiences which have been documented for centuries. My opponent will try to argue that there are scientific explanations for these phenomona, and while I will gladly disprove that, it skirts entirely around the central issue that there is no scientific/evolutionary reason for these occurrences. The fact that individuals suffering from naturally irreparable trauma do not always experience onrushing blackness or nothing at all, but rather wild and other worldy experiences is a phenomona inherently without scientific or philosophical justification with the lack of an afterlife. This fact strongly disconfirms my opponents hypothesis that the afterlife most likely does not exist.II. DMT: The Spirit MoleculeRick Strassman, a psychiatrist experimented with the effects of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and came to stunning results in which the subjects in their drugged state of mind consistently experienced encounters with other worldy beings or people. Strassman hypothesized that right before death the brain released large amounts of DMT[2], flooding the dying individuals semi concious mind with DMT's effects, and that these individuals experience the effects of this drug essentially forever because as their conciusness fades from this world they cease to experience time. This seemmingly eternal experience satisfy the criteria for the afterlife, and the other worldy and pleasant effects of DMT certainly confirm many religious tenents regarding life after death. III. ConciousnessThere is no scientific concensus on what exactly causes conciousness. Until my opponent shows that there are good reasons to believe that whatever causes conciousness can ever cease to exist, than we cannot affirm the resolution because we simply do not know. Conciousness is a concept that has befuddled scientists and philosphers for milennia, so we need extremely compelling arguments that conciousness can simply end with the death of the body before we dismiss the possibility of an afterlife. Remember that we are viewing the issue initially with equal probability: until shown otherwise we assume that the likelihoods of the afterlife existing or not existing are equal so my opponent needs to give positive arguments for the death of conciousness, not just preemtive arguments. More on this later.For these reasons, I believe the most rational position to hold is that some form of continuing existence after death exists. ==Opponents case== C1. Skepticism1. This argument fails to actually prove anything. He writes: "The concept of an afterlife necessarily lends itself to experience which is not possible while we are alive." but recall that this is not an argument against the afterlife, but rather an argument for ceasing to consider the issue since we can never know for sure until we are dead. Even disregarding the fact that many individuals have indeed come back from clinical death with experiences of an afterlife, this doesnt fill his burden of proof. Just because we cant know either way doesn't show non existence after death to be anymore probable than continuing existence.2. David Hume's theory can actually be used in support of an afterlife. Spinko tells us that we can only understand what we can logically deduce from experience, for example we can imagine a centaur because we can imagine humans and horses. This argument can be turned against him, because we can understand the existence of an afterlife. The fact that we are debating this to begin with proves that we can conceive of such a thing. While we may not know what will be experienced in the next world, we can conceive of its existences because we understand the difference between existence and non existence. The concept of life after death does not suffer from the problem of experience--the actual *experiences* themselves do. 3. I concur with my opponent that we cannot know for sure if the afterlife exists because we do not directly experience it until we are dead (NDE's may dispute this premise, but accept it here for the sake of argument). However his own line of reasoning can be turned against him, as if we can never *know* anything outside of experience (like what lies beyond death) than he fails to uphold his burden. He needs to present some kind of scientific or philosphical argument against the afterlife, because merely asserting that we can't know if it exists does not affirm the proposition that the afterlife most likely does not exist. In fact, this is a negative argument--we can only guess based on evidence, not truly no and as such the resolution cannot be affirmed. 4. There are large numbers of incidences in which individuals have experienced the after life. C2. Dualism I am actually not presuming dualism, as my DMT argument shows. The continuing activity of conciousness in the final moments of ones life, an eternity trapped within a moment, have no basis in dualism. Moreover, my opponent needs to give some positive arguments for monism or else we have no reason to prefer it over dualism. C2.1. Interaction Spinko criticizes dualism for not providing an explanation as to how non material entities such as a soul could interact with a body. More on this in my nexxt round, but this argument faces an insuperable objection in that there's no reason to believe that a soul in a body has to be consistently physical. It is not at all a stretch to believe that conciousness resides in a physical brain during life but continues in a non physical state after death, especially given that scientists have never really explained what conciousness/the mind is physically. Moreover, he provides no explanation whatsoever for the experience of conciousness that we all feel and thus you have no reason to believe that it doesnt continue after death. Until he does, he has no positive ground to stand on. My opponents arguments do not actually prove the resolution to be true, and thus you negate.Citations:1. http://goo.gl...; 2. Strassman, Rick. DMT: The Spirit Molecule. 2001. Web.