How can anyone be sure that there is an afterlife?

Question

Is it all faith or is there more substance? I know my name suggests that I do not care what people say but that is not true. I am truly interested in what convinces other people of the greater meaning of life.

Answer 1

Absolute certainty is impossible.

"Evidence" might be found individually in a personal experience with the supernatural that is unrelated to drowsiness, drugs, etc. I haven't had one like this, nor did I when I was a Christian; therefore, for now, I am agnostic.

Answer 2

Why do you want to concentrate on the afterlife when you haven't even finished living this life? In Judaism we focus mostly on this life. We hardly concentrate on the afterlife. We spend our times studying the Torah, working, taking care of the children, making sure that Judaism survives onto the next generation. We believe that as soon as we passed away the more our relatives think of the faster we get into heaven. How would they remember us is another story? Do you want them to remember you based on your profession or based on your merits in life? If the only thing that a person can say about the diseased that he was a good engineer then that person had nothing else going for him. Hence, we as Jews do not concentrate of afterlife but concentrate on this life in order to make sure that we have contributed into Tikkum Olam (Heb: fixing the world).

Answer 3

There is no way to know for sure what happens when you die. Therefore, I think we should focus more on what we do with the time we have on earth. If there is an afterlife, then you would do yourself good to live the type of life that will lead to peace in the afterlife. No harm is done if you are a righteous person and discover that when you die that is the end.

Answer 4

for the past 8 years or so
I have been giving and receiving spirit messages
this isn't something that i would expect anyone who hasn't experienced it personally to believe
but it is why I believe

for instance
my dad died last year
3 days later a lady in a chat room i work at called me in from msn ....
someone had been asking for me specifically
it was a lady in Australia who believed she had my dad with her
so she continued to give me details about him and everything she told me was spot on
except a few details which later checked out with mum
all very precise details

so how could a lady in Australia who knows nothing more about me other than a chat name and that my dad had passed
know what he looked like , how he died , where he went on holiday , family names ( and i dont mean initials ) etc

Answer 5

A close friend of mine had a heart attack while she was in the hospital. She was having surgery at the time, so all the doctors and medical stuff was right there. She said she was in terrible pain, crushing in on her, and then... she wasn't in pain anymore. She looked down on herself as she floated up out of herself, and could see the doctors working on her.

Now...if this had happened to someone, who told someone, etc., and then told me, I'd not be impressed. Stuff that anyone could say. But I visited my friend in the hospital. And she told me about this, first hand.

So, she floats up, and she sees that she is walking through some kind of tunnel, and at the end, yup, I swear, she sees this bright light. Before she gets to the light, she sees there are a few (like 3 or 4--I forgot) people standing out in front of the opening to the light. And they are her relatives that have passed away before her, that she was close to. She actually had just begun to talk with them, when she felt pulled back to her body.

She got pulled back, and down, back into her body, and the pain came crashing back in on her.

What she found out later, from the surgeon, was that they had "lost her" that she was "dead" for a short time, and that they had been able to revive her because of the medical facilities available right there. They told her that if she had the heart attack at home, she would definitely not have survived.

Ever since then, she has never been afraid of death. She isn't wanting death! She loves her life, and works hard against her health problems to keep her life, but she knows, with absolute certainty, that not only is death without pain, but that there is something afterward, because her relatives who had died before were right there to help her make the passage.

And ever since then, because I have never known this friend to lie about anything, I believe her.

When my grandmother was sick, she told me that she didn't believe in an afterlife, because she had read that doctors say that when we have a "near death experience" certain chemicals are released in our brains that send us into such strange visions. I told her that if there really was a god, wouldn't it make sense for god to make us in such a way so that we could experience what comes after?

You know what is funny? She still says (she didn't die yet) that my grandfather, and her mother (my great-grandmother) come and lie down with her on her bed sometimes, and chat with her. I asked her how she could have those experiences, and still question the afterlife? She just shrugged.

People are always complaining that if there really was a god, wouldn't god show us, prove to us, about something bigger than just this lousy life? About an afterlife? Miracles? But it seems to me people get shown things all the time, and people just don't trust what they see and hear. That is all that keeps people from "knowing" about these things.

The last thing, is the book "Final Gifts" which talks about how people start moving between this world (life) and the next (death) for some time (days, weeks) before they transition/die. And it talks about what they do, and what they say, and what it all means, and how to respond. It says, that people will think the dying person is losing their mind, because stuff they say is so strange, but that for some reason (and the authors don't try to pretend they know why) people who are dying start talking in symbolic ways. They talk about planning a trip (and tickets and packing) or getting some project done, none of it makes sense, unless you realize that they are talking about the passage of dying, but only symbolically.

So I read this book, when my father was dying. And he did almost all the things the book talked about. It was like my "play book" like in a sport. There in the book, it explained all the kinds of things he would say, and what they really meant. And he would SAY them, and other family members would tell him he was losing his mind. And I would say something like, "Yes, Dad, I know how to help you get those tickets" or whatever, and he would smile, and feel better. (The book says they are trying to figure out if someone will help them--if they can make sure they will be all right making the transition.)

So the night my father died, he made sure I was the only one with him. He died with me at his side, the only one who told him I would help him, according to the "crazy" way he was asking.

Long answer. Don't know how to make it short. But, yes, I am absolutely sure that there is an afterlife. I haven't seen it myself, but I've had too much experience with people who have, to doubt it.

I hope my writing these experiences helps you in some way.
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Answer 6

I have just faith. All I need. I see God work in my life everday, performing miracles and protecting me and my family. I know He's real and I know I'm going to Heaven.

Answer 7

through NDE's we have glimpsed that there is something more after this life and so also by faith do we believe what is revealed by the Lord Jesus in the New Testament

Answer 8

Jesus gives an example in the Bible. This is enough for me. There are videos of people that have come back from death and they reported on what they experienced.

Answer 9

The biggest tragedy would be to live your life under the assumption that there is one

Answer 10

Ever been out of body?