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Rowena · 12-07-2007, 01:54 AM

One of the reasons that I have difficulty believing in an afterlife has to do with the communication aspect, namely:

If the dead can hang around and communicate with the living, why don't

1) murder victims a) help solve their murders and b) "haunt" their murderers?

2) dead children and spouses and others comfort their families?

3) dead people honor deals they made to let someone know that there is an afterlife? (There is a famous, but probably apocryphal, story that Ben Franklin and a friend had an agreement that the first of them that died would let the other know if there was an afterlife. The friend died first, and never contacted Franklin, by which he concluded that there was no afterlife.)

4) dead people hanging around their loved ones warn them of imminent danger?

It strikes me that the existence of an afterlife is incompatible with realities like unsolved murders and people driven to suicide by grief at the loss of loved ones.

Don't get me wrong -- I wish there were an afterlife. The idea of ceasing to exist is unappealing. But wishing doesn't make it so.

12-07-2007, 01:54 AM	#23 (permalink)
Rowena Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 1	question about afterlife One of the reasons that I have difficulty believing in an afterlife has to do with the communication aspect, namely: If the dead can hang around and communicate with the living, why don't 1) murder victims a) help solve their murders and b) "haunt" their murderers? 2) dead children and spouses and others comfort their families? 3) dead people honor deals they made to let someone know that there is an afterlife? (There is a famous, but probably apocryphal, story that Ben Franklin and a friend had an agreement that the first of them that died would let the other know if there was an afterlife. The friend died first, and never contacted Franklin, by which he concluded that there was no afterlife.) 4) dead people hanging around their loved ones warn them of imminent danger? It strikes me that the existence of an afterlife is incompatible with realities like unsolved murders and people driven to suicide by grief at the loss of loved ones. Don't get me wrong -- I wish there were an afterlife. The idea of ceasing to exist is unappealing. But wishing doesn't make it so.