Is there any proof or evidence that there is NO afterlife? That when we die we simply fall into oblivion?

Question

The main argument against belief in the soul is that there is no scientific evidence for it. But is there scientific evidence that our consciousness does not continue in some form after the body dies? Could there ever be headlines four inches high on the front page of a newspaper, "Void Found Where Afterlife Was Thought To Be!" Or is that concept, quite ironically, forever unprovable -- the ultimate act of faith?

Answer 1

Well, we can't ask anyone that would know. I guess we'll just have to find out on our own or be ready for the longest nap we've ever had!  

Answer 2

It works is this:

You have a statement: soul exists. You have to prove it.

The statement that souls do not exist is the default condition and require no proof. Nothing is true unless it can be proven in a reproduceable fashion.

Answer 3

Karma and Reincarnation

Some are born happy, enjoy perfect health, with beautiful body, mental vigor and all wants supplied. Others are born miserable, some are without hands or feet, others again are idiots and only drag on a wretched existence. If they are all created, why does a just and merciful God create one happy and another unhappy, why is He so partial? Nor would it mend matters in the least to hold that those who are miserable in this life will be happy in a future one. Why should a person be miserable even here in the reign of a just and merciful God?

In the second place, the idea of a creator God does not explain the anomaly, but simply expresses the cruel fiat of an all-powerful being. There must have been causes, then, before our birth, to make us miserable or happy and those were our past actions.

Are not all the tendencies of the mind and the body accounted for by inherited aptitude? Here are two parallel lines of existence--one of the mind ["subtle" matter], the other of [gross] matter. If [gross] matter and its transformations answer for all that we have, there is no necessity for supposing the existence of a [mind and a] soul. But it cannot be proved that thought has evolved out of matter, and if a philosophical monism is inevitable, spiritual monism is certainly logical and no less desirable than a materialistic monism; but neither of these is necessary here.

We cannot deny that bodies acquire certain tendencies from heredity, but those tendencies only mean the physical configuration through which a peculiar mind alone can act in a peculiar way. There are other tendencies peculiar to a mind caused by the person’s past actions. And a soul with a certain mental tendency would by the laws of affinity take birth in a body which is the fittest instrument for the display of that tendency. This is in accord with science, for science wants to explain everything by habit, and habit is got through repetitions. So repetitions are necessary to explain the natural habits of a new-born soul. And since they were not obtained in this present life, they must have come down from past lives.

There is another suggestion. Taking all these for granted, how is it that I do not remember anything of my past life? This can be easily explained. I am now speaking English. It is not my mother tongue, in fact no words of my mother tongue are now present in my consciousness; but let me try to bring them up, and they rush in. That shows that consciousness is only the surface of the mental ocean, and within its depths are stored up all our experiences. Try and struggle, they would come up and you would be conscious even of your past life.

This is direct and demonstrative evidence. Verification is the perfect proof of a theory, and here is the challenge thrown to the world by the Rishis. We have discovered the secret by which the very depths of the ocean of memory can be stirred up--try it and you would get a complete reminiscence of your past life.

Answer 4

That's why Nietzsche or Kant said that if God did not exist, man would have to create Him because man can not conceive that there is no afterlife promised by a supernatural being

Answer 5

I feel the answer to your question is very simple.  Since no one in modern times has ever returned from the dead to report the existence or nonexistence of an afterlife, we truly don't know.  This question will be answered for all of us some day.  When we die, there will either be nothing or eternity in some form.  Personally, I believe the soul lives on after the body dies.  Yes, it is the ultimate act of faith.  

Answer 6

All i can offer is the bibles view.

Eccl 9:5&6 .....5 For the living know that they will die,

       but the dead know nothing;

       they have no further reward,

       and even the memory of them is forgotten.

6 Their love, their hate

       and their jealousy have long since vanished;

       never again will they have a part

       in anything that happens under the sun.

& Ps 6:5.....No one remembers you when he is dead.

       Who praises you from the grave

Hope this helps

Answer 7

there is no evidence for or against after life

Answer 8

Those who believe that "nothing happens after we die" do so under the assumption that our sense of "I" gets extinguished upon death, because they hold the view that the mind is only the functioning of the brain and that it ceases once the body dies.

That is, at best, a mere stance on the issue. They are entitled to it....but it definitely is not the final truth supported by scientific evidence.

Because science can only go so far as to tell you how and why the physical body starts to rot after it dies, but science is in no position to answer the question of what happens to our sense of "I" after we die. Furthermore, science isnt even concerned with this question as its only concerned with that which can be observed.

The ONLY way for one to observe what happens after death is for him to die and know the answer for himself...and once that happens theres no question of  him returning back to share the answer with other living people.  So like you said... it is indeed "forever unprovable -- the ultimate act of faith".

Answer 9

If Joseph Smith actually saw Christ and god, then that is an actual happening and is scientific. Science cannot prove he didn't see them. The same with Paul. I only know the earth is round because someone tells me it is and their evidence seems reasonable. the same goes with spiritual happenings. If they happen to honest men such as Paul, Peter, Joseph Smith etc. then it is scientific, and I can take their word for it. I play the odds. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, wrote a volume of personal revelations and did many other things that are scientifically impossible for a person with his background and education. I will play the odds. (See google life after death)    

Answer 10

unproven. faith based alone. the greatest mystery.

Answer 11

I farted

Answer 12

What constitutes evidence that something is not there?