"Why I am no longer a skeptic"

I don't think the evidence for anything is 'scientific'. It is simply data. An input to a process. The process itself may be scientific.

Topic for another thread really. But in reality the only thing I can actually know with any certainty is that I seem to exist. That's the bedrock. Anything else radiates out from that center with varying degrees of solidity. I mean I accept the idea of matter because it appears to be so present and real. But in reality no one knows the true nature of matter. Physics is all models. Models don't address the true nature of reality. It's turtles all the way down, right?

But that said, the nature of our reality is such that science at this point can manipulate and take apart certain building blocks of the reality. They can split water and make hydrogen and oxygen. At this point in time our "science" doesn't allow us to isolate a soul. It just doesn't. Proof for me is for science. Doesn't mean I don't dig all suggested possibilities of all the cool stuff we talk about here. But we can't split the soul like we can split water.

It's apples and oranges. Why does knowing have to be less than proof? I don't say it is. But I don't call knowing proof.