It's not that I "don't like" it; it's that it doesn't exist to begin with. "Scientific evidence" is, instead, "evidence". Adding "scientific" in front of the word 'evidence' doesn't change what evidence is in any way. A fact is not a universal truth nor is it a proof. A fact is, simply, shorthand predicate. It is meant to speed up conversations so that arguments don't have to be formed for every little thing (like things which are already agreed upon). Great. Then we agree on the definition of evidence. It's a statement which supports an argument. It is evidence. Argument From Ignorance Fallacy.
If there is an afterlife of any kind, then from a scientific perspective, it implies there is at least one other unseen dimension and at least one other type of force that we have yet to discover. But tales of the afterlife and "heaven's rewards" for the righteous where created concepts designed to give for us poor ignorant humans help for us to deal with the curse of sapience - the knowledge of our own mortality and its associated fear of personal oblivion, answers to the W5 of human life and the need for social regulation.
With this, you have clearly stated that your mind does not dwell within the confines of what humans consider reality which makes any worthwhile debate and discussion little more than entertainment.
What is "reality"? Phenomenology tells us that reality is "one's own personal model of the universe and how it works". Reality is experienced as uniquely by each of us as a fingerprint is.
If you are reading this and interacting with me...that is an example of reality. You can personally experience something as well as others and the phenomenon is easily repeated through experiment and observation. This works as well: " re·al·i·ty /rēˈalədē/ noun noun: reality 1. the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. "he refuses to face reality" synonyms: the real world, real life, actuality; More truth; physical existence, corporeality, substantiality, materiality "he is unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality" antonyms: fantasy a thing that is actually experienced or seen, especially when this is grim or problematic. plural noun: realities "the harsh realities of life in a farming community" synonyms: fact, actuality, truth, verity "the harsh realities of life" a thing that exists in fact, having previously only existed in one's mind. "the paperless office may yet become a reality" the quality of being lifelike or resembling an original. "the reality of Marryat's detail" synonyms: verisimilitude, authenticity, realism, fidelity, faithfulness "the reality of Marryat's detail" antonyms: idealism relating to reality TV. modifier noun: reality "a reality show" 2. the state or quality of having existence or substance. "youth, when death has no reality"
The question being addressed was the purpose of life. If you don't care about that then why did you bother to interject with an irrelevancy?
Fair enough. How is the correlation between the evidence for or against the spiritual and the resulting belief any different?
Basically, what humans cannot reach is 1) the future, 2) the past (you are however educated to think that you know the past, 3) outside of our own space/time. Science is experiment based. That is, it can get to a conclusion provided that we can physically go to a place to establish an experiment. Evidence is supposed to behave the same, it's for humans to physically go to a location to gather them. Both science and evidence by default don't practically apply to the above 3. You may try but your attempts are subject to a factor affecting the accuracy of the results can be delivered. Evidence can also said to be trails left due to a kind of action. However this only occupies an extremely small percent of overall human activities. Today our situation is better in a modern world, we track trails by using cameras or similar technology devices. The use of these devices actually reflects our lack of ability to track trails. Another example, you eat 3 meals a day. So by the age of 31 you should have had more than 30,000 meals while non of them you can provide the trails of a meal's food contents. That's how minimal the effect of evidence is. (you or a reporter from CNN told us what you ate on a Christmas day for us to believe with faith, that's how such a fact conveys) It's because gathering evidence is difficult that humans in majority rely mostly on faith in testimonies to get to a truth of any kind. We gather facts happening around the world through TV channels. This is a form of witnessing instead of evidence. It's more obviously so in the past before the invention of audio and video recordings. That said. The only way (i.e., mostly) remains for humans to reach the above 3 unreachable areas/scopes is by means of human testimonies. Humans as eyewitnesses encountered, speculated then spread the advocates delivered for the rest of humans to gain such an awareness. Human history is an example of what we so delivered and recorded in books. History is easier for us to believe because they are all (or mostly) about human activities understandable to us. Encounters or testimonies of other types may go out of our daily experiences and may not be easy for us to understand and thus believe. However, faith in testimonies somehow remains the only way for truth of this kind to convey. We can gather scientific evidence simply because science is all above a repeatable phenomenon we can repeatedly examine, observe and speculate. This is however leveraged throughout our education system to make you think that everything else is behaving as a science and thus can be evidenced. This leverage is so cleverly done that (well speculation, speculation) it's actually a masterpiece of Satan himself.
First I would suggest you actually make the effort to understand what " evidence means. Human testimony is just stories. Whould never bee considered evidence in any scientific community. And of course as said many times there is no possible relatioship between NDEs and actual death. When anyone actually comes back from the dead then assuning they were actually dead then at least their testimony might be relevent. To use an analogy wnen you do acid the reality you think you are in can be perfectly coherent at least to the person on acid. But the stories told in nonway have any relevence to the existance of alternate realities.
No doctors are not scientists and stories told by scientist have no validity unless accompanied by evidence. Having a docterate gives you no extra credability unless perhaps it is related to your field of expertise. And let me say it one more time. Near death and death are totally separate states of being one bears no relationship to the other.
First give us a definition of " the spiritual" . And if you are heading in the direction of not proving something false is the equivalent to proving something is true lets not go there because it is nonsense.
All I claimed of 'proof' was to infer that its different from 'evidence.' By 'spiritual' I mean aspects of our existence not yet fully quantified by science. Some examples would be: human consciousness, the soul, choice or free will, other dimensions/planes of existence, an 'afterlife.'
Nothing is a distinct thing. Just because you can't understand what it is doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
Of course not. But science is learning and the more that is learned the farther religious mythology retreats into the darkness from which it came.
So its 'nonsense that I can't explain' but for science its 'learning'. Careful, your bias is showing. Are you certain that what we have yet to learn won't prove the existence of a higher power?
Science has now discovered that in a perfect vacuum, particles or quanta pop into existence and out of existence spontaneously.
Interesting challenge for science to tackle. What enables these particles to go from being in an un-measurable state to a measurable state and back to an un-measurable state again?
That's the mystery. And this isn't just some mathematical theory. The activity has actually been detected.
