What follows is not typical of my other blogs. We’ll be looking at science, more precisely astronomy, with a little theology thrown in. What evidence do we get for an afterlife from these sources?
Our universe owes its existence to 31 universal constants, or mathematical formulas. They include gravitation, the speed of light, the Planck constant, and 28 others. Each of these is finely tuned. They must be exactly what they are, or there would never have been our universe. To take one example, if the Big Bang expansion had differed by 1 part in 1060, galaxies would never have formed. No universe. All scientists accept this.
Some argue that this fine-tuning could have evolved randomly—by chance. While others think that it points to a Mind behind the Big Bang that did the tuning, in other words, a creator.
Why does it matter to us which of these views is correct when we look for evidence of an afterlife? Or point out the delusions behind materialism? Is one of these theories—random evolution or intentional creation—more friendly to our cause than the other? This is how I see it.
Granted that the universe was designed and created by a Mind of unimaginable power (and perhaps assisted by a vast cohort of many lesser minds), what might be this Mind’s nature and purpose? As we scan the universe, we find nothing that compares to the minds we have. They are the pinnacle of everything we know. They have more value than the tremendous forces that swallow up whole suns or the rings of Saturn with all their beauty. What stands out most about our universe is the mind-friendly conditions that gave rise to us and presumably many other intelligent species on other planets. It’s hard to imagine anything that would fascinate and please the Creator so much as what we do with our minds, especially when free will is added with all its moral implications.
Given the value placed on the kind of minds we have, wouldn’t the Creator be interested in the emergence of stronger, wiser, and more loving minds to add value and happiness to our world? And would the Creator be pleased to reward good behavior along the way, if not in this world because it too often depends on conditions beyond our control, then in another where justice is better served? All this assumes that the Creator is more than a curator of cosmic games that it and its assistants entertain themselves with, and that they are lovingly disposed toward us and have our ultimate good and happiness at heart.
It’s at this point that faith has its say for each of us. Are we on board with such a Mind? Do we honor and even find hints of it inside our souls? Can we access it in deep meditation? Would not the creation of our world of flesh followed by a world of spirit—an afterlife—be consistent with such a Mind? And I have said nothing of our world’s beauty, from the scent of jasmine and song of the mockingbird to the grandeur of the Rockies or Niagara Falls.
How likely is this goodness and beauty in a universe that evolved by chance out of random forces, unplanned and unloved by a creator? Not at all likely, I’d say. What do you think?
Of course, all this stops short of the evidence we’ve been looking at from spirit sources. All I want to show here is that from a strictly scientific point of view, there is nothing that should undermine or hinder belief in an afterlife or the research we’ve been looking at over these many months. And that is good news.
If you have friends who have been seduced by the so-called multiverse theory, which claims the universal constants could have come together randomly (or by luck, as they admit), you might forward this to them.
Stafford Betty, Professor of Religious Studies, CSUB, (ret) is the author of When Did You Ever Become Less by Dying? and Heaven and Hell Unveiled. His novels include The Imprisoned Splendor, The Afterlife Therapist and Guardians of the Afterworld. His latest book, The Hell Dwellers: A Novel about the Dark Side of the Afterlife is coming in 2026. Stafford can be found at staffordbetty.com.
Stafford, I agree, and as I continually argue, one should start with the evidence for survival rather than evidence for God. Both science and religion seem to think that you have to prove God before considering survival. It is so much easier to reason the other way around.
following the death of my daughter in 1999 (suicide), I became interested in after death survival. When I visited England, I attended services at Spritualist churches , and on two occasions I had sessions with two locally acclaimed mediums, I also read “Hello from Heaven” which helped me recognize signs from my daughter. They included dreams, lights flashing, and animal appearances after I had asked for them (deer, moose,bear).
The sesssions with the medium were amazing, and through her I was able to connect with my daughter and confirm her continued existence, She came through with my father, who apparently was playing a piano, something he loved to do. One confirmation that she was communicating was that she mentioned the orange chocolate cookies that the firned I was with loved to eat. She mentioned names of friends. I was told she had a job, taking care of children in the Afterlife. She mentioned friends by name. She apologised for her suicide and told me we were the best parents we could have had.
I had one more reading, and this time my aunt came through, She explained that her broken hip wasn’t the cause of her death, it was a heart attack. She mentioned the plum tree in her garden, and the jam and marnalade she made. Then she talked about a “Kingfisher bird”. The medium wondered what that was about. I knew exactly: My mothe, her sister was in a nursing home where the names of the unites were named after birds. My mother was in “Kingfisher”. The nursing home was wanting to move her to a place that could take better care of her as her dementia was making care difficult for this nursing home. My aunt was clearly concerned about this move. Nowhere in the extensive communication I had via the two mediums was there a mention of God., just plenty of evidence of survival.
I appreciate your thoughtful writings. Because I appreciate them, I want to consider deeply what you’ve said. The argument that life must be the result of a Great Mind because x and y and z and 28 other “universal constants” were necessary for our current condition to exist seems weak to me since the very fact our current condition is what it is because previous conditions led to this moment. If I’m on the floor because I slipped on a banana peal can I conclude that the banana peal consciously created my fall? Certainly there are innumberable other conditions working together with the banana peal that ultimately resulted in my falling to the floor, but does adding conditions make any one of those conditions necessarily any more intentional or conscious? I don’t think so.
For me, I start with my own consciousness. I am a conscious being. I observe other conscious beings: human, dog, cat, dolphins, octopuses, horses, and so on. I posit the idea that perhaps conciousness is fundamental to the nature of reality. I don’t think I need to prove it anymore than I need to prove anything. My obsersations confirm this assumption about the nature of reality and that’s good enough for me. Someone recently asked me throught a text to help find his keys. I closed my eyes and instantly saw where they were located. I called him and within ten seconds he had his keys. I was able to perceive them because there is no separation between me and those keys.
When I was a child, I had a dream and just a few hours later, that dream happened in my waking state. Somehow I perceived a so-called “future” event “before” it happened. How could that happen? I don’t know, but perhaps everything happens in the here and the now.
January 6 of 2023, I woke from an altered state of consciousness in which I was One with all beings. I was in a room with several other people and we all were vibrating conscious energy communicating love telepathically. When I “awakened” from this state, I clearly “heard” 6:37. Knowing that I had planned the night before to buy Tesla stock that morning, I took the number 6:37 as a revelation of the perfect time to make my purchase. I initiated a buy of Tesla stock at 6:36:55 and immediately after making the purchase, the price rose and rose and rose. I made a nice profit from that purchase and when I look at a graph of the purchase price of TSLA historically, it hit this bottom exactly that day at that moment.
I am convinced to date that all that is has forever been and forever will be and the only real “fun” being had is for those of us enjoying the mystery of it all. I wouldn’t want to be “God” if God is somehow the only one aware of everything all at once, but God would possibly have the problem of having no one to play with. There’s nothing potentially lonlier than finding oneself alone and this is why certain philosophical notions that suggest I am the only thing that actually exists are so disturbing and I believe probably the opposite of what’s true. The Oneness of all things seems the most likely because it is the most satisfactory to my soul. Our lungs long for oxygen because oxygen exists and our tummies long for food and drink because they exist. I long for divine Oneness with all things because the divine Oneness is likely the nature of reality.
Brian, I was pleased to see you take me on. You wrote, “The argument that life must be the result of a Great Mind because x and y and z and 28 other ‘universal constants’ were necessary for our current condition to exist seems weak to me since the very fact our current condition is what it is because previous conditions led to this moment.”
Yes, but how could this moment have come about? Saying that it just did doesn’t help. The question we must address is how it could have. The only answer is that a Mind set up the formulas that we call the constants. The odds against them just randomly happening are too high.That’s the reasoning we need to face.
Stafford,
One can expand considerably upon the considerations you develop in your post above to further strengthen your conclusion, with which I am entirely in agreement, for – considered properly – our very existence is grounded in grace in a manner we cannot fully fathom. Most fundamentally, there is the miracle of Being itself. Then the presence of universal ordering principles – physical laws – mysteriously embedded in, but also outside the manifest world, which render this world a cosmos, rather than a chaos. Following this are the manifold characteristics of this cosmos, in the absence of which our physical existence would be impossible. Such include the universal fine-tuning of cosmological constants governing physical laws and the more particular life-supporting characteristics of our galaxy, sun, solar system, moon and earth, as well as those of our natural environment, including the presence of crucial elements and the crucial terrestrial cycles that regulate them. Then comes the miraculous ordering of life itself, including the irreducible and immensely complex and elegant structures and mechanisms of the cell, the formation of functional organs through cellular organization and specialization, and the comprehensive interrelation of the systems of the body that render possible the existence and continuance of our own particular biological life. Beyond this lies the profound mystery of consciousness, the organization of this consciousness in the form of unitive identity, rational competence, and the innate capacity for language. Finally, there is the reach of our intellectual capacities to types of absolute certainty and truth – such as in mathematics – and the subsequent coordination of these perceived truths with the experienced world.
Something of the same intuition is found in, of all places, the reflections of Sherlock Holmes. In a memorable scene in “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty,” Holmes pauses before a rose and states, in Watson’s narration:
“What a lovely thing a rose is!”
He walked past the couch to the open window and held up the drooping stalk of a moss-rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any keen interest in natural objects.
“There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,” said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. “It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.”
That seems to me very close to the heart of the matter. The evidence from ‘spirit sources’ must still be weighed on its own terms. But the cosmos itself, read rightly, does not argue against hope. It gives us not only necessity, but ‘extras’: flowers, beauty, consciousness, love, moral aspiration. And if goodness gives extras, then perhaps we do indeed have much to hope from the flowers.
Best,
Paul
I could not agree more, Paul. I can imagine the Creator encouraging assistants (millions of advanced souls) to design beautiful things, such as flowers, to brighten the lives of earth’s inhabitants, and others to plant the first seeds. I imagine the Creator as an overseer making sure that the creation goes as planned. And not only on earth, but on countless other planets where beauty flourishes due o their creative work.