Often skeptics will state that there is no evidence for the afterlife, or psychic phenomena, or God.
However, there is plenty of evidence for the afterlife and psychic phenomena.
There is also evidence of God. This evidence comes from mediums and people who have had veridical Near Death Experiences who obtain information that they could not have obtained with their normal senses. Some of this information is often verifiable and proves accurate. Therefore, the information they obtain that is not easily verified, such as information about the existence of God, may also be accurate. This is particularly true when many sources agree, and many such sources do agree that God exists.
When a skeptic who first denies there is any evidence is confronted with this evidence, the skeptic will say that he meant he is not convinced by that evidence. However, if a skeptic is going to say there is no convincing evidence for something when there is evidence that is widely considered to support it, rather than deny any evidence exists, he should explain why that evidence is not valid. In some cases the skeptic may be referring to a purely philosophical argument, for example a philosophical argument that God exists. But if a skeptic is going to dismiss a philosophical argument, he should also know what the argument is and be able to explain what part of the argument he disagrees with and why. Most of the attacks on philosophical arguments for the existence of God misstate those arguments.
The argument that "there is no evidence" or "it doesn't convince me", is actually a rhetorical device and not appropriate in a supposedly rational debate. If a skeptic can't explain why the evidence doesn't convince him, if he can't explain what is wrong with the evidence, then he probably doesn't really know what the evidence is, or he is not really trying to understand the evidence, or he has no valid argument against the evidence.
Why do skeptics insist on denying the evidence exists? Because if they actually discuss the evidence it becomes much harder to maintain that materialism is true. It is so much easier for the skeptic to deny the existence of evidence. It is easier for him to mislead than to explain why he believes in materialism when there is so much evidence against it.
Copyright © 2012 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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