Is there proof of the afterlife?

Strictly speaking, in objective, empirical, legitimate sense, no. There is neither proof of the existence of afterlife or of the soul nor is there disproof.

Persuasive, even compelling, argument may be made either way. However there exists no evidence - as the term "evidence is most precisely defined - but rather the issue, however approached, is surrounded by only conjecture, assumption, preference, prejudice, anecdote, and unsubstantiable claim.

To find proof of an afterlife is an oxymoron. All one can do is believe or not believe in it.

You say "persuasive, even compelling, argument may be made either way" but in furtherance say "the issue, however approached, is surrounded by only conjecture, assumption, preference, prejudice, anecdote, and unsubstantiable claim".

Thus I ask the following:

1) Please demonstrate a "persuasive, even compelling, argument for an afterlife"; I for one have heard none.

2) From your two quotes above, you contradict yourself, why?

persuasive
2. capable of convincing; "a persuasive argument"; "the evidence is persuasive but not conclusive"

You misapprehend; persuasive and/or compelling argument does not entail valid, nor even convincing, argument. Hitler, for instance, was a persuasive, even compelling speaker, as was Marx. An argument may be at once well formed, powerful, persuasive, and compelling, yet all the same be invalid, unconvincing, and/or demonstrably incorrect - that's rhetoric for you - and theology ... and politics, too, for that matter.

Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Augustine of Hippo, Peter Abelard, and Thomas Aquinas come immediately to mind, as do any number of others through time all the way through C. S. Lewis to Alvin Plantinga. All put their cases well.

No I don't; you form an erroneous impression.

....Richard Wiseman started his career as a conjurer, and like Randi is a skilled illusionist. He is well known in Britain as a media Skeptic, and regularly appears on radio and TV programmes as a debunker of psychical phenomena. In addition, he tirelessly promotes the Skeptical cause through public lectures.

When my experiments with the dog Jaytee were first publicized in Britain in 1994, journalists sought out a skeptic to comment on them, and Richard Wiseman was an obvious choice. He put forward a number of points that I had already taken into account. But rather than argue academically, I suggested that he did some experiments with Jaytee himself, and arranged for him to do so. I had already been doing videotaped experiments with this dog for months, and I lent him my videocamera. Pam Smart, Jaytee's owner, and her family kindly agreed to help him.

With the help of his assistant, Matthew Smith, he did four experiments with Jaytee, two in June and two in December 1995, and in all of them Jaytee went to the window to wait for Pam when she was indeed on the way home. As in my own experiments, he sometimes went to the window at other times, for example to bark at passing cats, but he was at the window far more when Pam was on her way home than when she was not. In the three experiments Wiseman did in Pam's parents' flat, Jaytee was at the window an average of 4% of the time during the main period of Pam's absence, and 78% of the time when she was on the way home. This difference was statistically significant. When Wiseman's data were plotted on graphs, they showed essentially the same pattern as my own. In other words Wiseman replicated my own results......

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

No creator or God would allow something as glorious as me to disappear from existence after only 80 or 90 years.

What? Were you not a drop of sperm and God gave you life? This is easy for God and yet you're arrogant as ever. You're nothing more than a mortal, of which many of you came and passed away.

Natural disasters are nothing more than warnings Allah sends to mankind.

Do you feel secure against Him Who is in heaven causing the earth to swallow you up when suddenly it rocks from side to side? Or do you feel secure against Him Who is in heaven releasing against you a sudden squall of stones, so that you will know how true My warning was? Those before them also denied but then how great was My denial! (Surat al-Mulk: 16-18)

OK perhaps for others, but from what modest amount I have read, argument lacking evidence is weak when it comes to the speculative nature of the supernatural ...

Persuasive does not entail convincing

Quote:

persuasive
2. capable of convincing; "a persuasive argument"; "the evidence is persuasive but not conclusive"

Persuasive does not entail convincing

Quote:

persuasive
2. capable of convincing; "a persuasive argument"; "the evidence is persuasive but not conclusive"

... A claim of a pet psychic power, indeed the claim of human psychic power, could, in principle, be tested. Indeed, there have been hundreds of experimental tests of psychic power and yet there has never been repeatable experimental demonstration of the existence of these powers. The magician James Randi has for years offered a million dollar prize to anyone who could demonstrate psychic abilities. To date all claimants have failed.

The article also describes research by British parapsychologist Rupert Sheldrake supporting the existence of telepathic animals. Journalists are often poorly equipped to cover claims of scientific evidence for paranormal phenomena. They operate in a historical and scientific vacuum, unaware of the repeated failure to replicate these claims. Typically the initial claims of such powers get widely reported because they are interesting and appeal to the public's appetite for the unusual. When later attempts to replicate these findings fail, the results are ignored by the media. A case in point, National Geographic Kids reports Sheldrake's claim that a dog named Jaytee could psychically sense when its owner, Pam Smart, was returning. The magazine tells us:

"Sheldrake carried out experiments in which Jaytee was videotaped to see when he went to the window when Smart was out. Smart went at least five miles away and came back at randomly chosen times. She was signaled through a pager when she should return. The person doing the paging was neither with Smart nor in the house with Jaytee.

"Amazingly, Jaytee went to wait at the window when Smart started home after receiving her message. His reactions did not depend on hearing familiar car sounds from miles away, because he behaved the same way when she traveled by train, bicycle, or car. Jaytree is one perceptive pup!"

This is truly an amazing assertion and it has received considerable media attention. Unfortunately, the essential scientific question "have independent researchers been able to replicate this claim under controlled conditions?" is never asked. A simple literature search would have revealed that in 1998 the British Journal of Psychology published a paper by Wiseman, Smith, and Milton that reported on a carefully controlled attempt to test Sheldrake's claim about Jayee. The researchers concluded that "analysis of the data did not support the hypothesis that Jaytee could psychically detect when his owner was returning home."

This is a serious matter. At a time when the scientific community is raising the alarm over the public's poor grasp of science National Geographic Kids has decided to be part of the problem. The magazine is guilty of both scientific illiteracy and irresponsible journalism. Our kids deserve better.
SOURCE

Then what happens when you die and find out that you've been living of a life of delusion, but in fact there is an afterlife - will you just accept your doomed fate? Why not prepare for this before death comes upon you and you will have no means of denial?

http://www.petoftheday.com/talk/printthread.php?t=73156

Cat finds the way home from 'Glades

By Jaime Hernandez
Staff Writer
Posted February 26 2005

A Fort Lauderdale firefighter is facing theft charges after he told police that he snatched a neighborhood cat and dumped it in the Everglades because it scratched his truck.

The firefighter's 11-year-old neighbor, Maggie Leonard, was celebrating her birthday Feb. 5 when she realized her pet was gone. She started crying when she learned Cristopher Cortes, who has had a months-long spat with her family, got rid of Mr. Kibbles.

Luckily for Maggie, the cat showed up at her front door Feb. 18 -- apparently on his own.

"It was like a miracle," said Maggie's mother, Nancy Leonard. "Maggie loves this cat like royalty."

Coconut Creek police charged the firefighter, Christopher Cortes, 32, and his fiancee with petty theft and gave them notices to appear in court. Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue says it has opened an internal investigation, but Cortes is still on duty.

No one, except for Mr. Kibbles, knows how he got home, located in the 5900 block of Northwest 47th Way in Coconut Creek. He wasn't wearing ID tags.

Dr. Deborah Niedermiller, a veterinarian who examined the cat Monday, said he was in good health, tired, and "looked like he had traveled a little bit" because of his hardened paws.

Chumly wrote:

OK perhaps for others, but from what modest amount I have read, argument lacking evidence is weak when it comes to the speculative nature of the supernatural ...

Perhaps you should read more.

Read this, for instance:

Quote:

Persuasive does not entail convincing

Quote:

persuasive
2. capable of convincing; "a persuasive argument"; "the evidence is persuasive but not conclusive"

Let's try that one more time -

Quote:

Persuasive does not entail convincing

Quote:

persuasive
2. capable of convincing; "a persuasive argument"; "the evidence is persuasive but not conclusive"

There - does that help?