Trailblazer
Veteran Member
To be clear, I do not consider the Bible to be evidence of an afterlife.Proof is probably the wrong word to use. evidence is what is lacking. As you have said, there is no way to establish that a heaven exists, other than old texts subject to interpretation and also containing some rather horrific morality. I do not know what sorts of evidence you feel you have, but I would think you are using fairly low standards of evidence. If that seems a bit harsh, that is not the intent. I'm trying to speak plainly and not load you up with "word salad".
I believe that the Writings of Baha'u'llah are evidence because I am a Baha'i, but I do not think they are the only evidence...
NDEs are some evidence but they are not the best evidence because those people, even if they were declared clinically dead, they were not dead long enough to know what happens in the spiritual world. They were looking beyond this life but they did not fully enter the spiritual world because if they had entered it, they could not have been resuscitated and come back to this life.
The best evidence for the afterlife are people who have had communications with spirits (souls) who have passed on. I understand how atheists feel about this evidence, but it is still the best evidence. There is no logical reason to discount these because there is no reason to think it is impossible for 'some people' to be able to communicate with those who exist in the spiritual world.
What makes these accounts of the afterlife (spiritual world) credible for me is that they all tell about the same story, in different ways, and it is no surprise to me that they align perfectly with the very little that Baha'u'llah revealed about the afterlife.
As a believer, I think it is important to know that God exists, but it might be even more important to know that there is an afterlife, and to know something about it, because the primary purpose of this earthly existence is to prepare for the afterlife.
The following three books depict the (afterlife) spiritual world.
The Afterlife Revealed
Private Dowding
Heaven and Hell
The book entitled Heaven and Hell is very sobering, but it might be the most important book anyone ever reads. I cannot say that I believe everything he wrote about actually exists in heaven or hell, but I think that the general idea of heaven and hell is accurately portrayed.
The primary point of contention I have with the author is that I do not believe that Jesus rules heaven; but the book was written in 1758, before the coming of Baha'u'llah, so it is understandable why this is what he perceived.