Is There Scientific Evidence for Life After Death?

As Catholics, our hope is in God who promises us heaven and eternal life. We desire to be united with Him forever, for we believe that life continues even after death. As what the Catechism of the Catholic Church said,

"1026 By his death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ has "opened" heaven to us. The life of the blessed consists in the full and perfect possession of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He makes partners in His heavenly glorification those who have believed in Him and remained faithful to His will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ [1] ."

However, not everyone believes in heaven. There are skeptics and atheists who only believe in science and claim that heaven and after life are just myths. But, what if science actually proves the concept of "life after death"? A near death experience (NDE) is an experience of a patient who maintained their consciousness even while undergoing clinical deaths. And, these are verified and documented by the doctors and other personnel in hospital setting. 

There was once a man who had an NDE when he was a child, and he met his dead relatives. According to him,

“There were some presences there. There were some ladies… I didn’t know them at the time… They were so loving and so wonderful, and I just didn’t want to come back… I didn’t see any pictures of them until I was an adult, but then I said, ‘Oh, yeah.’… They were my great-grandmothers who had died years before I was born [2]”

There is another example of NDE where a blind woman was able to see while remaining consciousness in her clinical death. After suffering a cardiac arrest, she was able to witness how she was revived. As recounted by Psychiatrist Brian Weiss,

“A few days later, she told her doctor that she had observed the resuscitation team at work during her cardiac arrest. ‘No,’ he soothingly reassured her. ‘You were probably hallucinating because of the anoxia [lack of oxygen to the brain]. This can happen when the heart stops beating.

’But I saw your pen roll over to the window,’ she replied. Then she described the pen and other details of the resuscitation. The doctor was shocked. His patient had not only been comatose during the resuscitation, but she had also been blind for many years [2].”

The number of journals and research on NDE provide a scientific evidence for our belief in afterlife. More importantly, these resources open up the possibility of heaven, even for skeptics, which help us to participate in the eternal happiness that awaits for us if we are faithful to Him. As what St. Paul preached,

1 Corinthians 2:9

[9]But this is just as it has been written: "The eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love Him."

References:

[1]http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/1026.htm

[2]https://blog.magiscenter.com/blog/credible-near-death-experience-stories