Evidence is great, Steve, if ya can find it. I always look first for the evidence. Sometimes it is very hard to find, though. Sometimes I don't know how to find it...or where? Sometimes there is no evidence available. This does not prove that a given proposition which is lacking evidence is wrong...and it don't prove that it's right either. It just remains as a hyothetical proposition in that case. It remains a matter of opinion or conjecture. Not proven right. Not proven wrong either.

I can't even prove that Cleopatra got bit by an asp...all I got to go on for that is hearsay in old books. I can't prove a whole lotta stuff that happened in the past, all I can do is hazard a guess about it, rely to some extent on what others have said about it, and keep thinkin' about it with an open mind....cos I got no way of knowin' for sure.

Then too, there are things one experiences personally, directly...therefore havin' direct experience and some knowledge about it...but not havin' any evidence afterward with which to convince others. That don't mean the experience didn't happen. It just means it didn't happen in such a way as to yield....observable physical evidence after the fact.

We've all had such experiences. If you haven't had some experience I did, that don't make my experience "unreal" or untrue...it just means you ain't acquainted with it, that's all. You weren't there. You can't disprove it. I can't prove it. So what? If I had it, I still know for myself that it really happened. If you don't believe it did...or even could...then yer callin' me a liar...or a fool. And on what basis? Far as I can see, the only basis in that case would be that you figger you already KNOW what can and cannot be...givin' you what would appear to be a God-like power called "omniscience". You see, yer blind faith in your own omniscience don't impress me any more than I would expect you to be impressed if I acted that way.

But if you (and folks like you) was willin' to just admit that you don't KNOW fer sure whether there is an afterlife or not...then we'd have a basis for mutual respect. And this thread woulda never been launched...cos it was launched for one purpose: to ridicule other people for givin' consideration to a possibility that the OP didn't think deserved any respect. So he launched the thread to make fun of all the people in the world who don't think as he does and attract othes to join him in makin' fun of them...kinda like a bunch of kids in a school gettin' together in a little gang to bully "the weird kid" who wears thick glasses or has red hair or is a foreigner or somethin' else like that.

You wouldn't like it if you were the ones on the receivin' end. It ain't evidence yer after at all...yer after a chance to put down some other people for not thinkin' as you do.

I'm not talkin' about the Shroud of Turin here. I'm talkin' about the games people play to enlarge themselves by belittlin' others.

- Chongo