How can I be sure of life after death when we don’t see it nor we don’t have people who return and tell. So is life after death only a fanciful creation of believers for sake of not being afraid of death or is it for sure that it exists?  Besides, Stephen Hawking said life after death is impossible and after we die we are like a computer that stops working. How can we be sure of life after death?

We cannot be “sure” of life after death because we do not have personal experience.  We do not have empirical evidence that supports belief in life after death.  Yet, I personally do believe in life after death for a couple of reasons.  By belief is based not on empirical evidence, but on faith.  However, that faith is fact-based for sure.  First of all, I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and the Bible clearly tells us that we will experience life after death (1 Cor 15, for example).  This is NOT circular reasoning.  I believe in the inspiration of the Bible because of fulfilled prophecy, fulfilled type and foreshadow, historical and scientific accuracy of the Bible, and because of the supernatural miracles that Jesus did.  If the Bible is in fact inspired by God (and the evidence tells me beyond a reasonable doubt that it is), then there must be life after death as the inspired Bible tells me it is so.

The second reason I believe in life after death is because of the overwhelming evidence that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.  This is more direct evidence than my first reason.  If Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day, then, clearly, life after death is a reality.  The evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead is a slam dunk in my opinion.

Stephen Hawking is arguing based on a presupposition.  This is not a strong argument at all.  In other words, he assumes that there is no supernatural.  Then, having made that assumption, he concludes that there is no life after death, because this would be supernatural.  Like I said, this is an extremely weak argument.  He also assumes that we are like a computer.  This is the materialist assumption that the only real things are physical, measurable things.  But, again, this is an assumption.  I believe that it is a false assumption, based on my argument above.

What it comes down to is that Hawking simply states his opinion and the says that it is impossible that his opinion is wrong.  This is a fantastically weak argument in my opinion.

You have a choice between the presupositionally-based opinion of a dead person, or the Bible, with its massive evidence for being inspired.  I would go with the Bible.

John Oakes