Great points! I guess to clarify myself: I'm not so sure I believe scientists now either. As far as their theories on evolution, they seem farfetched and really ridiculous. The main reason I became an atheist is because I could not understand, if we had some sort of "soul", what would it do for eternity? The loved ones that speak to people, don't you think it would get boring after the first trillion years on the "other side"? What about the next trillion? I believe our sun will burn out at some point because it is very obvious to me, if the sun goes , our planet goes. This , to me, means we were not meant to last. Unless, some alien race put us here as an experiment and in the future we xan leave, but that is a different subject.
I am very interested in your comments because I feel you are very intelligent and in tune with " something".
Thanks!
: You wrote, "I find it almost impossible to believe in anything that I cannot see or scientifically understand?"

: Patrick, you use "see" and "scientific" as though they were somehow equated. Nothing could be further from the truth. Virtually everything we know in science is things we can't see. We can't see that the Earth revolves around the Sun; it looks quite obvious to sight that the sun travels across the sky. We can't see atoms, quarks, black holes, the center of the Earth, and about everything else.

: We know that something is true in science by testing whether we can see an effect. Astrophysicists are today discovering planets revolving around distant stars by measuring the way the star wobbles ever so slightly from the gravitational pull of some massive object--a planet. So we say there must be planets there. We smash an atom and see trails on plates from a bubble chamber, so we infer that there are subatomic particles flying off.

: In the study of the afterlife, we have much positive proof that does come from sight. Please see their deceased loved ones or other deceased people. We also have proof from recordings. Loved ones speak from the afterlife, for extended periods, carrying on conversations. Mediums learn about information that could only come from the deceased. And on and on. There's just much more evidence of the afterlife than there is of a large number of facts science accepts as truth.

: The fact that you can't see it yourself doesn't keep you from believing in atoms, the background radiation from the big bang, the fact that 700,000 years ago Earth was covered entirely in ice, and on and on. You believe them because of the evidence from people who also haven't seen these things. Why would you choose not to believe the evidence for the afterlife when you personally haven't seen it, but a great many esteemed scientists, scholars, psychologists, physicians, and other professionals have testified that they have actually seen the evidence themselves, with their own eyes?

: Love and peace, Craig

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