Reply #16: That's an extraordinary claim. Where's your extraordinary evidence? [View All]

It is well known that it is a logical impossibility to prove a negative such as X does not exist. In no case does absence of evidence constitute evidence of absence.

Epistemologically, the statement "The afterlife does not exist" can never be anything more that a statement of faith reflecting something that is believed to be true in spite of the lack of proof.

At the very least, there is a significant body of anecdotal evidence suggestive of some type of after-death existence, and while you are free to reject whatever evidence contradicts your preconceived dogma, you cannot provide one scrap of contrary evidence to support the non-existence of heaven. The best you can do is to reject the evidence that suggests an afterlife and then claim that the lack of evidence acceptable to you somehow constitutes some kind of "negative evidence". Logically, however, that position is not tenable.

From a purely objective standpoint, belief in the existence of an afterlife and belief in the non-existence of an afterlife are equally rational since neither is backed up by any concrete proof, and since in spite of the huge body of anecdotal evidence suggestive of an afterlife, that evidence is far from convincing.

Thus, whichever position a person takes on the question, that position is taken as an article faith, not as the result of objective proof.