Once I was asked if I had proof that an afterlife existed. I asked my questioner what he meant. He said he wanted to know that there was an afterlife the same way he knew Baghdad existed from the evening news. He wanted empirical evidence, proof that can be contacted, measured and manipulated with our senses. I told him I have no such evidence, but I told him I believe there is an afterlife as surely as I believe there is a God.

"That is not good enough," he protested. You see, a loved one of his had just died and my friend sat staring at the body for a very long time and wondering if his dear one still existed somewhere.

I asked him if he believed Baghdad existed. He said he certainly did, that he had seen it on the evening news. I asked him how he could be certain that they hadn't made the whole thing up. ... Baghdad, the war and all that. He said I was being absurd. "But doesn't it occur to you," I asked, "that you yourself have never been to Baghdad? You have no empirical evidence of that city's existence that you can call your own." I asked him why he trusted Katie Couric more than he trusted God. He said I was confusing him.

Everything we know has to be accepted with a degree of faith. My students are not required to go back and rediscover everything I teach them about history, philosophy or theology. They learn from what others have discovered and they learn to have open minds about what might be discovered. That's why they go to school. They learn to operate devices already invented, read documents that come from the research of others and learn to grasp masses of facts and concepts that they do not have to unearth.

We often have to say farewell to loved ones. We can choose to believe that we will never see them again or that they survive in another existence. We cannot pray effectively unless we believe "someone" is listening. When we see a lifeless corpse, we make a decision as to whether that person still lives, and then we live in the light of that decision. How we live now is of vast importance and if we live well, I believe the dying will take care of itself.

I believe that the God I worship is good. God does not do cruel or pointless things. I do not believe God would lead me through perhaps 80 years of life only to let me cease existing.

The next time you lose someone, or face death yourself, you have a choice as to your beliefs. You can believe we stop existing when we die or you can believe that your loved ones are in the hands of a loving, just and compassionate God. I have no empirical proof of an afterlife, but I believe that I will live forever, and that belief makes all the difference now.

The Rev. PAUL ISOM is a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United Church of Christ denominations. You can write to him in care of Faith & Values, Journal Star, 1 News Plaza, Peoria, IL 61643, send a fax to 686-3296 or send e-mail to isompnp@yahoo.com.

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