Do I believe in the afterlife whether scientific or spiritual? I admit theres more to this world than the supposed hyper-rationalist and skeptics would want us to believe. Human experience should not necessarily be taken for the literal truth. It seems as if an afterlife could be possible though negative repercussions could result from this being accepted as true. People may view murder as more acceptable and abortion could be further restricted (exactly what the skeptics fear with their anti-belief in anything "spiritual").
The religious version of an afterlife is commonly a reward or hell. Personally, I think this version is nothing more than an attempt to control how other people live. The orthodox science view says that an afterlife is impossible and can't happen due to consciousness dying along with earthly body. Now this view seems almost too naive and simplistic in the way it attempts to explain away a phenomena that goes beyond current mainstream science. The numerous reports and communications can't all be put down to a natural cause because of the detail they go into. Whos to be so sure of this world to say that brain activity only exists in the brain? Perhaps supposedly brilliant modern neurology should look beyond the materialist explanation to a wider view of life. Is the consciousness really only to be limited to the organic brain material? In time, we could take more of a lesson from the pioneers of psychical research and look into the research ourselves.
American Society For Psychical Research