COMMENTARY: ON ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE: ARE YOU READY TO DEAL WITH OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE ? AS DISTINCT FROM ACCEPTING ?BLIND FAITH? BELIEFS? In the afterlife context, some of your information may be valid, other information you have may NOT be valid. We all need to test our beliefs when we deal with the afterlife because it has such huge consequences.
Consider the following very brief influences of our world view: You would be 100% on 'solid ground' with number 6.
1. SUPERSTITION: accepting anything even if it sounds absurd e.g. that bad luck will come to you if you walk under a ladder- or in the afterlife context that you go to hell for eternity - for billions of years in pain - if you eat meat on Fridays or if you remarry after divorce.
2. 'BELIEFS', 'BLIND FAITH': - completely accepting beliefs without evidence or without testing them. One needs ?blind faith? in most religious writings which are usually thousands of years old. Extreme religious blind faith includes the religious suicide bomber who believes he/she will meet fifty virgins in paradise after he (or she) blows himself up and other innocent people.
3. 'HEARSAY' EVIDENCE: what somebody else told you about something which is not or cannot be independently substantiated. For example, a person who claims that his skepticism 'is valid' because of what a friend told him. This is not admitted as evidence in formal debates.
4. SUBJECTIVE EVIDENCE: Information and experiences which can never be independently confirmed. Religious writings are usually 'subjective' evidence which means they all could be wrong.
5. SUBJECTIVE AUTHORITY: relates to all authority dealing with subjective beliefs. For example, religious leaders have 'subjective' authority based on a claim that their authority derives from writings which are thousands of years old. This also relates to statements by religious leaders about religious beliefs- for example, declarations by archbishops, popes, mullahs, rabbis and other religious leaders - all would be regarded as subjective authority.
6. OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE: that which can be repeated over time and space, keeping variables constant and which yields the same results. There is formidable hard core objective and repeatable evidence for the existence of the afterlife and the paranormal. It is the best evidence. For this reason hard-core skeptics have been unable to rebut the existing objective evidence for the afterlife and the paranormal.
7. OBJECTIVE AUTHORITY: in context of the afterlife, it is when a body of knowledge has been proved to be 'objective and repeatable'.
8. WHEN OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE CLAIMS CONFLICT: in any inconsistency between the objective (e.g. science) and beliefs or theology, objective science prevails and will ALWAYS prevail to the extent of the inconsistency. Galileo?s scientific heliocentric view of our solar system prevailed over the mistaken subjective Biblical belief that it was the sun which revolves around the earth.
