What Near-Death Experiences Tell Us
There is an afterlife, and a benign deity. At least, that’s the testament of tens of thousands (some say it’s now millions) of people all over the world who have had near-death experiences (NDEs) (an online collection of these reports is here).
Two books now at or near the top of the New York Times bestseller list are about NDEs. One is by Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon whose brain was attacked by a rare bacterial meningitis. It plunged him into a weeklong coma during which he had an extraordinary NDE involving an encounter with the deity. Alexander says the NDE had to be real because his brain was severely incapacitated by the meningitis and far from having sufficient capacity to produce such a vivid, elaborate experience. (His Daily Beast article based on the book now tallies 115,000 likes.)
The other current NDE bestseller is by Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent, the former being the father of Colton Burpo, who, when he was four years old, had an NDE during emergency surgery that also involved contact with the divine. Todd Burpo is a pastor, and his son’s NDE had a strongly Christian cast to it; Alexander, while formally Christian, was a pronounced skeptic before his NDE, and it had a decidedly nonsectarian character.
During his NDE, Alexander was guided by a mysterious, heavenly young woman, already something of an urban legend known as the butterfly girl. Four months after the NDE, he saw for the first time a photo of his biological sister (Alexander was adopted) who had died in 1998—and had an overpowering sense of recognition.
I suspect a lot of this animosity towards a belief in an afterlife is the result of social conditioning from higher education.
That environment worships science as the new religion, and it therefore cannot have any competitors. Alternatives to supposed science must be destroyed.
Look at how skeptics of Global Warming are lambasted as an example, as AGW has become an article of faith and any evidence to the contrary must be destroyed. The lengths they will argue towards defending their views against all criticism is astonishing sometimes.
Then you have a sizable component of the population that does not wish to be judged for their actions.
As long as they can cling to the idea that religion is inherently false, they have no conscience regarding their actions as it is all a here and now type of lifestyle and when you’re dead you are nothing.
This type of lifestyle will especially appeal to those who wish to stretch their adolescent behavior out into their 30′s.
Religions universally incorporate a belief system that acknowledges some sort of afterlife – hence the belief in an afterlife is inextricably linked to religion.
Religion is seen as fake by these types, and therefore all that religion touches on must likewise be diminished by these people.
This includes a belief in an afterlife.
Liberal academics don’t “worship science”. If they did, then they would be open to the possibility of transcendental consciousness just as real scientists can conceive of black holes, singularities, Einsteinian probabilities, etc., etc.
What they worship is their self-image of being “Realists” in the mid-19th century sense. Realism was a movement of parental rejectionists among the well-to-do which was prelude to Nihilism. It all boils down to the simple fact that most progressive “liberals” today are intellectually limited spoiled brats. They’re born of Boomers, who themselves grew up without challenge in the great American post-war pig-out. Engaged in T.S. Eliot’s “endless struggle to think well of themselves”, the modern “liberal” can’t conceive of anything beyond his own noosphere or indulgences.
Of course, science is not antithetical to religion at all. Science (and technology) as we know it emerged from the Judeo-Christian world view. Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism produced nothing but superstition. The Chinese, for example, invented the compass but it remained just an instrument of magic to them. To the Christians, it was a device that unlocked the seas to knowledge and exploration.
Science was invented by the pagan Greeks, it flourished for a time under Islam, and the Chinese were quite brilliant at practical applications for their technology. That they were surpassed by the West is another matter, but this change did not take place until secularism took hold, implying that a society dominated by religion cannot become scientifically and technologically advanced.
But as Pelaut said, what do you call thier hiding of actual contradictory scientific results, distorting the science they do collect, calling for the execution of pagans and blasphemers (AGW denialists)? Is that not fundamentalist religious behavior?
I suspect a lot of this animosity towards a belief in an afterlife is the result of social conditioning from higher education.
And I suspect that it’s because science as typically practised tends to be limited by definition to that which can be reproducible. And when it’s not reproducible it’s at least predictable: an inferred causal relationship is hypothesised between variables A and T; if A does ‘this’ then T does ‘that.’ Subsequent observation proives or disproves the conjecture.
Now the wonderful thing about science is that anyone can play; it isn’t about the credentials, affability, or bowling prowess of the scientist. It’s about what’s right. If you have actual proof of the afterlife (See Sagan below) the scientific community would be all over it.
You think you’re conservative scottch but you think like a lefty.
Leftists claim for example that we drive cars because we’re exploited by evil oil companies, that if not for their evil influence man would not be polluting because a “real” effort to invent or create engines that get 250 mpg would be here. The reality of course is that anyone even remotely connected to the industry is working on the problem because frankly, riches beyond the dreams of avarice awaits the inventors of hyper efficient engines.
Your argument has the same structure. Sub out evil oil companies and sub in scientists… sigh.
I’ve said for a long time the religious nutbars belong to the leftists. You guys make the same arguments, you both think it’s your duty to set terms for how the rest of us live, and so on. You guys argue only over who gets to wield control.
I suspect a lot of this animosity towards a belief in an afterlife is the result of social conditioning from higher education.
I disagree. I think the animosity towards a belief in an afterlife is based on a lack of tangible scientific evidence that human consciousness does, indeed, survive death of the physical body. Religions actually obfuscate things further due to their senseless prohibition of suicide.
The religious prohibition against suicide is logically self-contradictory and senseless. If we really do survive death of the physical body, this means that we are not really our bodies, but actually of some substrate that survives physical death. If so, our bodies are analogous to cars. We use cars to drive around and go places. However, we are not our cars. When a car gets old and starts falling apart (the cost and hassle of constant repairs), we think nothing of getting rid of the old car and either buying a new one, or moving to someplace where car ownership is not necessary (e.g. Tokyo, NYC, etc.).
The afterlife is analogous to getting rid of an old car and moving to someplace like Tokyo or NYC where car ownership is not necessary.
For some reason, most religions I know of do not look favorably of this view of the human body.
Understandably we feel bad when a young person with lots of potential (“he had his whole life in front of him – why did he do it?”) commits suicide. However, if someone has a terminal disease or simply is not physically or cognitively capable of living a full life of unlimited possibility and opportunity, I have no problem with such a person committing suicide. Indeed, it can be a rational choice. Certainly Hunter Thompson thought so.
The fallacy about the afterlife is the notion that it necessarily must be linked to religion. It does not. It is certainly plausible that human consciousness is of non-physical substrate, based on scientific principle yet to be discovered, and that it survives death of the physical body and that this process is purely “mechanistic” in the same manner as experiencing puberty or menopause.
Indeed, this is most likely to be the case if we really do survive physical death.
Linking a potential afterlife to religion is really about linking it to some concept of morality (how you survive death is based on some standard of moral behavior). Since the only meaningful concepts of morality are either the objective morality of Ayn Rand, or simply the contractual morality of the non-aggression principle (the libertarian version of “The Golden Rule”), the notion that afterlife survival being linked to such morality is highly unlikely.
After reading all three of these books, and doing a little reflection of my own, it occurred to me that perhaps Jesus wasn’t trying to teach us to love one another in order to get us into heaven. He was trying to teach us to love one another in order to get us a glimpse of heaven.
Dana, I’m with you. Not for nothing did Jesus often and in many ways proclaim that the kingdom of Heaven was among us.
“ In today’s world, one particular religion keeps producing terrorism and systematic persecution of people of other creeds. The evidence from NDE research is clear: the road to heaven is open to all, and the deity does not exclusively favor any category of people”
I’m not so sure thats a good thing….
Thats “the guilty go free” is such a source of stress and consternation in the human world, Christians have to invest heavily in a theological means for the acceptance of them, (forgiveness, non judgementalism) to keep their adherents from descending into cycles of soul-destroying revenge after revenge (like Islam?) .
The Idea that “God will sort it out” in the end is terribly undermined by the authors notion that “the deity does not exclusively favor any category of people”
Well, he damn well better.
Otherwise he’s about freaking useless AS a deity then, isn’t he?
To say that the deity does not exclude any category of people is not to say what may happen on the individual level.
Touche’ Good Sir…
My assumption that “acceptance” and “Forgiveness” were one and the same is in that context was incorrect.
Thank you for offering a different perspective (that Jihadist will rot in the hell they deserve)
While you focus on the generally universal probition against suicide, and correctly note how many religions do take the position that the physical being is basically a vessel we inhabit in this physical realm, you are not addressing why religions take a generally – though not always – negative stance towards suicide.
That stance usually has something to do with the belief that we are supposed to be learning something while in this world, and thst there are mysteries we cannot explain via science.
As my grandmother lay dying, she described seeing a beautiful garden.
A man who lived down the road who died at home described to people in attendance that he was seeing 2 men with chains who were coming for him and left this world screaming in terror.
I personally prefer to err on the side of caution. If I am wrong and there is no afterlife, what does it harm to try to be decent towards those you encounter in this life?
Abelard, the word you’re after to describe our bodies is “tent”. This life has a temporary body, the next life, has a permanent one.
2 Corinthians 5:1 Now we know that if the earthly TENT we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
2 Corinthians 5:4 For while we are in this TENT, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
2 Peter 1:13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the TENT of this body,
Great article David.
Suicide is probably frowned upon by whoever “calls the shots”–I can tell you firsthand that when you expire–you go someplace else—Ive been there and done that—I just dont have any other pertinent information, But! Isnt it comforting to look at death as a BIG step in some grander scheme?
“I knew you before you were. I made you.” Perhaps THAT is the reason for this cultural prohibition against suicide.
I am not a religious person. In fact, over the years it seems as though I’ve done my damndest to offend that One who loves me. I don’t understand it. I just accept it.
Don’t agree with you re:suicide because to the best of my knowledge, no society (even the stone age societies of New Guinea) and those societies that have never had an “organized” religion, have ever countenanced suicide.
CULTURALLY some societies have considered suicide an “honorable” thing to do (e.g., the Samurai ) in the event an individual “dishonored” something/someone or other, but that had nothing to do with religion.
I have no idea why suicide seems to have historically been unacceptable or frowned upon in just about all societies, primitive or otherwise. Maybe it’s because folks years ago just died rather quickly when infirm or disabled.
Yikes, Abelard, that was pretty silly. I’m having trouble believing that you are not just messing with us.
Thank you Mr. Hornik for this beautiful article! There are so many wise men throughout history who have been convinced of an afterlife, yet the spoiled brat extreme atheists of today think they know better. Intellectual pygmies often have the loudest voices.
I find it intriguing that NDE’s became common in the 1960′s because of the advances of medicine at that point. God works in mysterious ways, and I wonder if He intended NDE’s to become well known from that time onwards, when evil also began to run rampant and take over so many of our institutions and our culture. He might have offered NDE’s to us as a reassurance in these times when up is called down, and down is called up.
Many thanks! I didn’t get around to mentioning in the article that Eben Alexander’s full recovery from the disease was by all accounts medically miraculous and unexplainable. There are indications in his book that he was chosen for a mission and a message–I tend to believe it, based on his amazing story.
I’m not sure I’m fully skeptical, however, I would suggest watching an episode of the Original Twilight Zone called “The Hunt” with Arthur Honneycut.
“What happens when science demonstrates consciousness can exist outside the body?”
That’s not science, it’s science fiction and not very good science fiction at that.
That’s not a scientific rebuttal.
As Arthur C Clark put it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Do not let your limited knowledge bias you.
I direct your attention to theoretical physics,and in particular the search for the unifying theory. The problem is the forces that govern the universe on the atomic scale are at odds with the forces that govern the large objects; planets, solar systems, galaxies and so. It is obvious that they must work inconsonance, as the large objects are made up of the atomic. The theory that seems to hold the most promise is that there are multiple universes occupying the same space at the same time, and that time is always now (yesterday is now and tomorrow is also now). NDE may provide support for this theory.
May I point out that the persons with the NDE’s were still ALIVE. I was suckered into reading this because of the title….”What happens…..outside the body”. When that happens, please let me know. The illusion that “there is something else”…is itself an illusion of brain and it’s structure. It took millions of year for consciousness to elvolve. Any oxygenated blood that is left is sent to the brain (why you have a headache with a “hangover”), because the brain doesn’t want to die. It is pitiful to see the complex rationalizations and attacks on “liberalism” you guys have to do through to make yourselves feel better. Again, the persons who experience these NDE’s are still ALIVE, maybe barely alive, but alive. A dog dreams…maybe “dog consciousness” can exist outside of “dog brain” too, huh? Who knows what incredible “visuals” the brain may produce while fading out..doesn’t proove doodly squat; and you know what..I think you know this..what has really happened is that science has proven that consciousness cannot exist apart from brain..and you can’t accept it because it blows your religious stories out of the water..sorry for the reality therapy.
The concept that “something of the individual may survive after death” is in itself an ideation generated by a living brain. Where does the narrative “I” exist..in brain. We know that the dream is basicaly a disguised/encoded wish. the NDE is just that- a visually encoded synbolic presentation of the “great wish” of Religion..immortality. In short, YOU are the benevolent being, YOU are the Demon..in your dream. Once you believe that “spirit” can be separated from matter..all possibilities are open (Dualism)from the Greek Gods to New-Age “quantum quackery”, how can one say that one explanation is inferior or less true than another.(Monothesism)..By the way..I have been in Hospice near death, and I have seen the marvelous hallucinations of a dying brain..
Actually, no. I am no expert at this, but based on the accounts I have read many NDE’s have occurred on not a dying brain but on a brain that was medically dead, with no neurological activity at all. I agree that scientifically there is still no conclusive proof that NDE’s really are an indication of an afterlife when we are dead. But there is no scientific explanation for them that involves only biology as it is understood either. Your statements confirm the claims of the author and other posters here, that NDE’s seem to hit a raw nerve with atheists who dismiss them and attack those who believe in them without producing evidence to refute them.
No one can tell you when their conscious NDE occurred. They can’t tell you that it occurred when there was no brain activity at all, or before, or after recovery of measurable brain activity. All they can tell you is what they tell you, and there are no clocks to check in the NDE world. So to say that they occur when there’s no brain activity begs the question. It is not something that anyone can tell you with any knowledge.
NDES DO occur while all brain functioning has ceased, and it’s proved by innumerable cases of NDE experiencers accurately reporting what was happening in the operating room (sometimes outside of it) at the time of zero brain function. See talkbacks 29 and 30 below. You have to be very determined to categorically deny that anything is happening here, and to discount every single reported case of an NDE, even though they profoundly change people’s lives, including large numbers of peoples who were atheists, agnostics, skeptics etc. before the NDE and then changed all their views after having one. But, if a reductive, materialist outlook is so precious to you–clutch it tight!
“…on a brain that was medically dead, with noneurological activity at all”
You mean with no MEASURABLE neurological activity…Obviously they were “thinking” of something, or they would not have “remembered” it once they re-gained consciousnes.
In other words, being “medically” dead, verses ACTUALLY dead.
That whole wakin’ up and talking thing kinda dispells the “dead” idea.
The first clinical study of near-death experiences (NDEs) in cardiac arrest patients was by Pim van Lommel, a cardiologist from the Netherlands, and his team (The Lancet, 2001).[17] Of 344 patients who were successfully resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest, 62 (18%) expressed an intraoperative memory and among these, 41 (12%) experienced core NDEs, which included out-of-body experiences. According to Lommel, the patients remembered details of their conditions during their cardiac arrest despite being clinically dead with flatlined brain stem activity. Van Lommel concluded that his findings supported the theory that consciousness continued despite lack of neuronal activity in the brain. Van Lommel conjectured that continuity of consciousness may be achievable if the brain acted as a receiver for the information generated by memories and consciousness, which existed independently of the brain, just as radio, television and internet information existed independently of the instruments that received it.[16]
The reply about the Van Lommel study is taken from the Wikipedia article on “Near-Death Experiences.”
“Van Lommel concluded that his findings supported the theory that consciousness continued despite lack of neuronal activity in the brain”
You have to add the word MEASURABLE before neuronal…..a “flat line” on an external mesuring device/gadget/tool means nothing definitive, other than the tool cannot measure.
We all have the exact same shoe size, if you measure it in miles…
Less than one.
Depending on the resolution of the device you, it may say “zero” or “0.0″ but I damn sure still have a pair of feet regardless of what the “box” says.
The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
From the Wikipedia article on “Near-Death Experiences,” about a study that was published by The Lancet (one of the TOP medical journals):
The first clinical study of near-death experiences (NDEs) in cardiac arrest patients was by Pim van Lommel, a cardiologist from the Netherlands, and his team (The Lancet, 2001).[17] Of 344 patients who were successfully resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest, 62 (18%) expressed an intraoperative memory and among these, 41 (12%) experienced core NDEs, which included out-of-body experiences. According to Lommel, the patients remembered details of their conditions during their cardiac arrest despite being clinically dead with flatlined brain stem activity. Van Lommel concluded that his findings supported the theory that consciousness continued despite lack of neuronal activity in the brain. Van Lommel conjectured that continuity of consciousness may be achievable if the brain acted as a receiver for the information generated by memories and consciousness, which existed independently of the brain, just as radio, television and internet information existed independently of the instruments that received it.[16]
Personal subjective experiences tell science nothing–except that people have personal subjective experiences.
Whether it’s NDEs or reports of alien abductions, these things can’t be used as scientific evidence of the phenomena of deities or aliens because they can’t be witnessed and verified by others.
I prefer Carl Sagan’s test:
Be prepared.
If you ever experience an NDE and you meet up with God Almighty, ask Him for a mathematical proof of Goldbach’s Conjecture or the Reimann Hypothesis. An omniscient God should know all that, right?
Same thing if you ever encounter aliens from a UFO.
IOW, ask these deities or aliens about something that we humans couldn’t possibly already know. Then you would have objective proof that you didn’t invent it out of your own imagination.
Of course there is no guarantee you’ll get a chance to do that: http://www.amazon.com/To-Hell-Back-Maurice-Rawlings/dp/0840767587
Sinz: You say that NDEs can’t be used as scientific proof of the existence of a diety. While science, and those who have the mental capacity to understand some scientific principles, may explain phenomena that lesser intellects can only attribute to the workings of a diety, it does not prove that things which science is unable to explain were not caused by a diety.
“Sinz: You say that NDEs can’t be used as scientific proof of the existence of a diety.”
Yet.
The god of the burning bush and pillar of fire, the god whose angels mated with human women, this god had no demand for ‘faith’. He was obvious. He was definate. ‘Faith’ was not required.
The recent notion that god must remain a matter of ‘faith’ is just that–recent.
Man will find proof of god that will come from science.
Sources far better than the New York Times claim that grays have given technological help. They are what they are. Not demons, but rather soulless creatures and something to avoid.
“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
“Truth is what stands the test of experience.”
Albert Einstein
“Before you can investigate something you must first believe it is there!”
that one is mine
If one does not believe in God would he/she recognize God in an encounter? Or ET for that matter? A piece of under cooked pork, perhaps?
The Mayans and the Aztecs knew there is life after death but where did it get them?
Abraham knew there was life after death but he loved his son in this flesh still he OBEYED.
Human sacrifice the believers first knew then it became a ritual ,push comes to shove in spiritual death and it becomes the joy of seeing rich red blood and food for the very hungry tummy
The Demons BELIEVE and never doubt and shake and shiver. building strongholds against what makes them shake and shiver is the best they can do
Doubt is a gift to man so he can be born again in his thoughts ,feelings and his actions with his flesh body and how he treats the other
Another discussion of extracorporeal consciousness can be found in the book, We Are like a Brilliant Star. This book brings out that there are apparently analagous “senses” that are available to the soul, as well as, rational capacity, or mind, and memory. One has to ask also in what language or what form of verbal communication does consciousness relate to spiritual entities outside of material reality? What about all of these brain probes to try to find where memory is located in the brain? If the soul has vision, what do the eyes do? All of this is discussed in this book published a year ago and available at Amazon and other distributors.
You don’t have to be “near death” to have a so called out of body experience.
You don’t have to be stoned or otherwise chemically altered either.
The world we see and experience through our senses is a function of how we, as human beings, are constructed. “Objective” reality is, in fact, subjective.
Animals/insects “see” very different worlds as a function of the construction of their viewing lens, the eyeball. What and how they see is a function of what and how they need to see for their very specific survival.
So what’s real ?
We have gleaned some idea of principles and mathematical formulas that appear to govern life, but should acknowledge that, despite our alleged sophistication, the field is pretty wide open. Physicists are constantly reappraising and reformulating, astounded at what they find as they go more and more deeply into “it the all and everything”.
The universe continues to be what it is & doesn’t care about our “theories” about it. And the idea that consciousness is contained within cellular configuration within a single human being’s body might someday be ridiculed like the flat earthers.
I, a believer, accept the existence, and truth of miracles. They are earthly happening which do not obey natural laws; they are presentations of the supernatural. As a technically trained person, I am skeptical of all unproven statements. This is based on a long history of getting the wrong answer to my homework problems. There are infinities of sources for human error. Only God does not make mistakes.
After death, any existence is beyond the natural; ergo it must be supernatural. This, and birth, are the greatest transitions in being that any mortal will have. Science knows nothing of the before, or after. With modern communication, we are exposed to rare events, NDEs, which seem to bridge the two existences. While I believe these reinforce our faith, I do not believe they can be proven scientifically. They can emanate from human thinking, or one of two supernatural powers, good or evil. Two can be wrong, One can not. The acid test is what happens later, what are the fruits of the occurrence? Are people led to peace, love, kindness? Or do they make a buck, gain power?
In most cases, very good things, life defining changes, flow from the events. These miracles, reported down through the centuries, and the word of God, sustain my faith. If they were simply delusions, non reality, this would not occur. Should we question? Yes. But the totality of human experience, throughout all human history, seeks to grasp the truth, which we call God, by many names. It is reasonable that people who “come back” from death have met Him.
I grant you reductive science does have some difficulties with explaining the ghost in the machine–the Cartesian mind–but so far I think I’m more inclined to view the reported out of body consciousness phenomena as a sort of naturally occurring biologically induced LSD trip.
So what conception ever thought of does NOT have difficulties explaining all that consciousness stuff? The “soul” theory?
There is a single overriding error pervading every post here in. In some cases it is fatal to the argument of the poster. It is the confusion of ‘Religious Study’ with ‘Theology’.
Religion(s) are man made. They are the attempts by man, good, bad, ugly and flawed to communicate with God in accordance with man’s understanding and on, in some ways, man’s terms and conditions. They must all, to a greater or lesser extent, fail.
Theology, on the other hand, is the study of God. Period. Depending on who you are, this is available from a variety of sources. (full disclosure, I believe in the Judeo-Christian continuum explained in the Bible). God has never established a religion, not even Judaism. God has established bounds of human behavior and has offered covenants with those who follow His directions. God further offers love and salvation and ACCESS TO THE MYSTERIES in an ‘after life’, which itself is not defined. God only asks for faith and effort toward good behavior.
For those of a scientific bent (I am an engineer, old school, a study of the life’s and works of the founders of the various social schemes called religions, seem to be based on the very concepts offered by many of those who experienced NDE’s. (Is it possible that they too, were NDE survivors in their own right?)
Mr. Lindsey, many ‘scientific’ discoveries are made by collecting statistical data and doing the math from there. Where a clever medical, psychological, Theological (Specifically NOT a ‘Religious Studies person, who is really just a social anthropologist) and mathematical team (some one better than the AGW hacks) there could be some interesting results
ta
Blessing
The human body dies, slowly the body cools until it hits room temperature, processes and body functions cease and the only real way to measure actual death is brain wave activity which for the most part is electricity.
The body slowly discharges that electric charge as it begins to deteriorate until the electricity is gone.
That electricity is the brain wave activity the question is…is that electric discharge the soul, the spirit or just electric discharged like a dead battery.
Where does the electricity in the body and brain go at death?
Energy doesn’t disappear it changes into something else or joins the greater amount of electricity that surrounds us.
Perhaps that’s MeMaw in electric form running through the wire at the hospital after death or Dear old Dad in the lightning storms.
One thing for sure, one day we all will find the answer.
Myself @ 14.
PS. Please ignore typos and lapses of language, especially near the end of my post. I am blaming it on ‘Interuptus Caninus’ because they don’t argue back. LOL.
ta
The whole purpose of Christ in a nutshell was to make us alive to The Father in the spirit (God is Spirit). When the first man Adam sinned, he died spiritually to God and that deadness has been imparted to everyone born of woman ever since.
Where is reality? Most of the living dead (except those who have had NDE’s) would say it is right here in the physical. But God and His Christ would differ. They occupy reality. “My Kingdom is not of this world”. So when someone passes over and then comes back they have seen some partial yet undying truths. Things that never die so to speak.
Better for us us all yet, is to experience spiritual reality while alive in this body. Without having to physically “die”. Many have and do but that is a much longer article.
I think the difficulty in believing in the afterlife is that there’s little objective evidence for it. I don’t see it as a conspiracy by secular humanists so much as difficulty in taking things on faith. What would this immortal soul consist of? A person’s personality, habits, memories? We know that in alzheimer’s the memories and everything else can go, bit by bit. That supports the idea that those memories and functions of personality are encode in a physical system and that if the physical system goes, so does the personality and the memories. If the ghost survives death the it must survive without memories, habits or personality. Many cultures and religions believed in live after death but in wildly different forms. For the ancient Greeks it was a place of darkness and shades. For the Moslems…well you know all about that. You can believe what you want but the traditional Christian version of Hell is a bit, uh, severe for modern sensibilities.
I see there is very little comment about the one aspect of this that could scientifically prove anything other than that NDEs are simple dream experiences: the discussions with dead relatives and so forth. It is not proof of anything if someone describes a long-lost relative that he supposed hadn’t heard of…he could easily be remembering conversations his parents had when he was very small. A better bit of evidence would be some sort of interaction with someone who they very definitely could not have had interaction with or knowledge of, but again this doesn’t constitute proof. The subconscious mind is very capable of soaking up bits of information from odd sources and not letting the conscious mind in on it, and the difficulty of proving negative contact is not trivial. But whatever the problems, from a scientific perspective this is the better path to explore. This and Sagan’s method, mentioned above, are I believe the only way to make progress here.
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. NDEs are the new silly putty,slinka, hoola hoop of the intellectually challenged.
You are right, of course. In a few years NDEs will be explained in terms of oxygen deprivation to the brain or some such thing and hidden memories, just as reincarnation was found to be based on hidden memories.
I’m fairly open-minded about these questions, but I stopped reading this after the third paragraph. The author was already confidently talking about “contact with the divine” when nothing even approaching proof of “consciousness outside the body,” let alone “the divine,” had been given. It’s just another feel-good piece for religious folks who feel threatened by atheism.
No one has ever proved that unconscious mindless matter can assemble itself into conscious living organisms. This is atheism’s largest lack of proof.
Nor has anyone proven that a consciousness can exist eternally, nor that a nonmaterial entity can nonmaterially assemble, cause or create material entities, let alone living organisms (that’s redundant) out of unconscious mindless matter or out of nothing. That’s theism’s largest lack of proof.
You presume that there is a fundamental difference between them. Life and thought are not transcend ideals but a function of non-living, non-thinking matter. The structures of the body and brain that maintain life are not, themselves alive, as is evidenced by their material existence (and eventual breakdown into smaller non-living elements) following the death of the organism.
You haven’t read these books, have you?
There is simply no way science can even “measure” or “see” consciousness in a brain. All they can do is measure brain activity and then it is assumed that brain activity = consciousness .
But what if some form of awareness or consciousness is extant even though it cannot be measured (using present day technology)??
I am not saying that NDE is not real. I am just saying that science has a very long way to go to understand how the brain does what it does.
Note that science has not yet figured out why living things need to sleep. Yes, they have provided reasons why they THINK folks need sleep, but that’s it.
Also, note that if NDE is real, then you MUST believe that some people do in fact have psychic abilities. And if this is so, science has no way of “measuring,” via brain activity, what/how the brain is able to do this.
Science has a very long way to go to truly understand how the brain works.
That science has a long way to understanding the brain does not mean we should accept the plainly fantastical as true. One has nothing to do with the other.
We do know that “consciousness” as we conceive of it is not something that is a single, indivisible entity, but the sum total of certain activities of certain areas of the brain. If these areas are changed or damaged, consciousness is changed or damage. If these areas are destroyed, so is consciousness. Measuring brain activity would, therefore, be measuring consciousness; and its end would mean the end of consciousness.
This makes NDEs and, indeed, any kind of transcendent consciousness immensely unlikely; and in the absence of compelling evidence otherwise (i.e., more than anecdotes from patients and doctors) this should not be something on which we waste a great deal of our time.
I do not think what you’re saying is accurate.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors.html
This man’s consciousness came from somewhere. And that somewhere clearly isn’t his brain.
The article explains fairly clearly how the man still functions, and notes that considerable damage has been done to his faculties as a result of his disorder. Medical anomalies are fascinating, but they are just that – exceptions that prove the rule. Read any book by Oliver Sacks and you will see numerous examples of people whose consciousness has been fundamentally changed and at times destroyed by physical injuries or malformations of the brain.
Exceptions don’t ‘prove the rule’. The correct phrase is that the exception tests the rule. Too many exceptions, then there’s no rule.
His hydrocephalic condition may have brouth about the greater problem, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have a functioning human being whose remaning brain matter is crushed against the inside of his skull. He does not appear to have a frontal lobe…..yet he still has a ‘self’–even though the self is supposed to reside in a structure he lacks.
Azathoth – The very fact that something is anomalous implies a norm against which it is measured. Hence, by being an exception, it proves the rule against which exception is measured.
As for the rest, while the man may lack much of the frontal lobe, the article explained how, because his condition developed gradually over time, other areas of the brain adapted themselves to the functions of the destroyed areas. Although not completely, the subject is clearly impaired to a considerable degree. Again, it’s a fascinating case, but there is nothing more supernatural to it than the fact that a stroke or accident victim can learn to walk or talk again, despite extensive damage to the brain centers that control those functions.
I would like to remind those who are a little too strident about their scientific world view, that in the history of rational inquiry there are examples of things once thought to be “absurd”, “impossible”, or “imaginary”. Perhaps the prime example of this would be the square root of a negative number.
If one had the good fortune to first truly experience the awesome impossibility of this concept, but then see it so beautifully and rationally resolved by following Caspar Wessel’s thinking, then, I think, one would tend to be a little more cautious and wiser.
I don’t think it is a waste of time to study this recurring phenomenon, to think logically about its foundational questions, and to accept any necessary conclusions. Even if this line of investigation ever crosses the currently accepted boundaries of science, then this fact should be humbly and simply acknowledged.
Revelation 1
To the seven churches in the province of Asia:
Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits[a] before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
7 “Look, he is coming with the clouds,”[b]
and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”;
and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”[c]
So shall it be! Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
I believe far more proof for faith is coming but this may not be for the high minded scientist and atheist who may hold their nose up high in the air just like the third of the angels did to the True God when he began to love human flesh stink , but scientist and atheist may start believing in afterlife and they look forward to this event since another human feels like hell to them to meet the god of the 3rd of the angels , and they good good ego massage for the first few months if possible as they get lowered into the bottomless pit thanking their god they are free from the stink of animal flesh smoke from sacrifice and eating of flesh and blood christian cannibalism do , stubborn atheist unite to become intellectual on bottomlessness math problems
Good news
Eastern religions maybe on the front lines in war with asia nose high in the air atheist as we see this John addressing 7 lampstands in asia in the text above
There is a wonderful novel about this phenomenon by Connie Willis called “Passage.”
She posits a theory about NDE’s which sounds doesn’t rely on religion and is plausible. i have to wonder if any scientist followed up on it, but no scientist followed up on your speculations either.
Anyway, it’s a great novel and everyone who believes NDEs are supernatural should read it.
btw I am a religious person but your experience doesn’t prove anything.
Yippee! Finally, on the word of Eben-back-from-the-dead-you-betcha, “unconditional love”…means never having to say you’re sorry! Be ‘good’ according to one’s own definition of ‘good’ and everyone can count on meeting a ‘deity,’ a ‘being of light,’ who is “nonjudgmental; entirely accepting; a source of overwhelming love” who will welcome -everyone- into a heavenly eternity! Just how great is that!
Hitler was a piker compared to Josef Stalin…but since they believed themselves to be good, they’re both now shaking hands with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa, JonBenet Ramsey…chatting with Pharaoh, Haman, Antiochus Epiphanes, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot, well, they believed they were good, didn’t they? And, since scientists and ‘butterfly girl’ all agree, “nonjudgmental” is like, man, simply the bestest news evah!
Hey, wait a minute…Galatians 1:8, “But even if we (the apostles), or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!”
2 John 2:7, “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This (spirit) is (of) the deceiver and the antichrist.”
“I am trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him; ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be G-d.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would NOT be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic, on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of G-d: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and G-d. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
C.S. Lewis-Mere Christianity
Why is it so important to you that people be punished? that people be denied an afterlife?
Don’t put words in my mouth, O Knower of Everything In Front of Your Eyes;
People be punished? By me? Just how will *I* do that? I am quoting Scripture, which PROMISES punishment, or reward.
Deny them an afterlife? I am quoting Scripture, which PROMISES an afterlife, the point being, where?
I believe that people have experiences of all kinds, some that *may* have a root in the demonic…an acquaintance of mine, a Christian now after an occult background, tells me that UFO’s are demonic in origin, (I agree) designed to create confusion among men regarding G-d’s Word. There exists as much ‘proof’ for that assertion, as any NDE’er provides for theirs.
Like (former atheist) C.S. Lewis said, “We must make our choice…” My atheist mother did, hours before death, lighting up with a bright smile upon accepting Jesus the Christ as Savior. My atheist father died weeping.
Back to you.
But it seems to offend you that there might not be a place of eternal torment. That your scripture might be wrong. That maybe everyone ‘gets in’–whether or not they’ve professed love for Jesus.
I’m sorry that you think I’m offended; it must be my accent.
“Everyone” gets in? You don’t believe that anymore than I do. I’m concerned that people know both sides of the “Heaven” issue, because, after being brought up thinking “Jesus Christ” was a curse word, I discovered that what I had cut my teeth on consisted (mostly) of lies/deceit, and the prejudices of well-meaning people.
It’s interesting, that those who think the Bible is fairy tales and hogwash, exert themselves in argument; if I felt that way, I wouldn’t give it a second thought.
To answer the question posed in the title, “What happens when science demonstrates consciousness can exist outside the body?” the answer is simple:
“Science” (and by that, I mean mainstream scientists) will never, ever do that. Not because it can’t, or couldn’t, but because it won’t; even if it becomes faced with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.
“Science” has an agenda, and it will inexorably push that agenda, even when continuous streams of new discoveries prove that agenda wrong. (We all know what that agenda is.) If anyone dares to question the Dictates Of Science, he will be branded with all manner of slanderous ad hominem attacks, (which we also all know.)
“Science” (and by that, I mean mainstream scientists) will never, ever do that. Not because it can’t, or couldn’t, but because it won’t; even if it becomes faced with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.
The idea that somehow science is motivated against your religion is paranoid fantasy. Prove that the afterlife is real, and the physics community alone would spend the next 100 years and trillion$ in grant money figuring out how supersymmetry allows that to happen, because science is the business of figuring out how stuff works.
The problem is that some have twisted “science” and have used their credentials to grant them authority they should not have akin to some kind of religious priesthood.
All natural science can do is reveal consistencies in nature. It can’t define truth which is what the new priesthood claims and demands we accept.
The problem is that some have twisted “science” and have used their credentials to grant them authority they should not have akin to some kind of religious priesthood.
I’ve heard this claim before. I’ve never seen evidence of it. As near as I can tell the closest example is IPCC where the politicians are using the work of green activists and grey lit in an attempt to legitimise their positions. These are clearly seen by everyone, however, and are ineffective… e.g. Doha was an abject failure.
Do you have examples? I’d like to see them. My guess is that you don’t, that you are going to posit that climate change is a hoax, etc. thus yours is a position and statement that really isn’t general at all, but specific to a subject you don’t much like.
No examples of accredited “scientists” invoking science to end debate on their terms?
How about Carl Sagan predicting a nuclear winter due to the oil well fires in Gulf War I?
How about the numerous psychiatric experts back in the day (1950s-1970s) declaring the death penalty and prison to be unnecessary barbarism as socially destructive behavior was entirely due to environmental factors and could be ended via rehabilitative therapy?
How about the declarations which became public policy that gender differences were primarily due to social norms? I recall stories — actually in S.I. I believe — about how women would soon be playing in the NFL.
How about Paul Erlich and his The Population Bomb? Again, public policy was set on this man’s “scientific” claims.
These claims are laughable today but anyone who dared questions these “scientific” declarations then were labeled “backward”, “bigoted”, and “anti-science”.
It’s sort of like what happens to those who point out that voluntary homosexual behavior is always a choice.
Presuming, for the sake of argument that all the examples you cite are valid, they are of science being perverted by political considerations. What we are dealing with here strikes me as science being perverted by religious considerations, much like Intelligent Design. The latter is no better than the former. It still involves believing things that are not true for reasons of wishful thinking. This is inherently damaging, since it leaves believers unable to deal effectively with the real world.
Presuming, for the sake of argument that all the examples you cite are valid, they are of science being perverted by political considerations.
And that’s exactly what we are talking about. Science is not bad. Science is good. What has happened is that there are those, who have accreditation, who use the word “science” to get what they want.
What we are dealing with here strikes me as science being perverted by religious considerations,
It does appear they are setting themselves up as a priesthood with the ability to punish blasphemy.
much like Intelligent Design.
No, it is not at all like Intelligent Design. ID is a claim solely based on objective observations of nature and done with the understanding that these observations and the conclusions drawn from them may be challenged and possibly falsified.
Benjamin, I might have read your statement too quickly. I wouldn’t call the reports of NDE science.
OTOH, that doesn’t make them false or something to discount.
CALLING ALL DERISIVE, DISMISSIVE ATHEISTS here is the late leading cardiologist, Dr. Lloyd Rudy, who had no religious agenda whatsoever, expressing amazement at phenomena he saw in operating rooms and how they changed him into a believer in the spiritual, nonphysical realm. There is ABUNDANT evidence of NDEs occurring while brain functioning has totally shut down (such as, for example, during total anesthesia), and one famous case is the Pam Reynolds case. NDErs accurately report phenomena within the operating and sometimes OUTSIDE of it precisely at the time of total brain-shutdown and even clinical brain-death (however much some way want, or need, to believe that NDEs occur before or after brain-shutdown).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08
Snarling derisive type here. Wow. Some guy had something happen to him and he got religion. Golly. People having crap happen to them and getting religion is not exactly new stuff. And it doesn’t prove crap.
Sagan had it right. Get the ‘deity’ to hand you the answer to a mathematical proof of something man hasn’t solved, maybe a take it to the bank explanation re how the Higgs boson works. Indisputable proof of the JFK murder would at least act as a substitute. Then you’ll have something. Dead relatives? Big deal. Interesting, yes, but not proof of your god.
Note to Mr. Hornik: Two books now at or near the top of the New York Times bestseller list are about NDEs.
Big deal. Utter crap like “Communion” about aliens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitley_Strieber
also made it to the NYT bestseller list. Claiming that a book sells therefore it proves god or even “something must be going on” is absurd, a mix of argumentum ad verecundiam and argumentem ad populum. All you’re doing here is revving up the religous wingnuts with an article that begins with logical fallacies. You should know that these people aren’t capable of grasping that and have no idea what you’re doing. Shame. Even predators have a conscience.
Note to PJM owners: seriously? Do you not have authors who have anything even remotely reasonable to say to the broadbase republican voter in general? The article mix here suggests that you consider republicans as a mixture of religious fundies and constitutional conspiracy theorists.
Randomengineer:
Your scepticism of NDEs would be virtuous, except that it seems to be mixed with a bag of many other issues.
NDEs seem to be a recurring phenomenon, and like anything else in our natural environment, can be studied using the scientific method – dispassionately, logically, and with peer review. If this inquiry leads to domains outside the domain of science, then this fact can be calmly acknowledged, and the inquiry will necessarily stop.
I think it would be prudent and non-dogmatic to at least allow for the possibility that there may be other domains, outside the domain of science. Throwing scatological references at this phenomenon doesn’t help in thinking about it logically.
NDEs seem to be a recurring phenomenon, and like anything else in our natural environment, can be studied using the scientific method – dispassionately, logically, and with peer review.
Yawn.
When actual working scientists are studying this and have enough data to justify funding, it will happen, and not before. You can’t force “inquiry” upon the science community.
Since there is no serious inquiry I’m aware of at this point I would conclude that the most likely reason is because it’s simply crap.
Randomengineer:
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. It would be helpful when “actual working scientists” as you put it, looked at these phenomena, to systematise and sort this mountain of data. How else will the wheat, if any, be separated from the chaff?
No one is talking about “forcing” this study – I’m not clear how you conjectured this. It is clear that those who are dogmatically wedded to a strict materialist world-view will oppose such a study. However, healthy curiosity is part of inquiry, as is an open mind, and these two usually have the last word.
It is clear that those who are dogmatically wedded to a strict materialist world-view will oppose such a study.
No, this is not clear at all. It’s paranoid conjecture. There no scientists “dogmatically wedded to a materialist worldview.” That sounds like a christian apologist’s mumbo jumbo way of claiming some form of christian persecution, this time being aimed at the sciences. “The truth is out there, if only…”
What is clear is that claims of scientists being dogmatic has a lot in common with the claims of ancient alien “theorists.”
While it’s true that science has warts — after all there’s a lot of archaeological pushback against the notion of pre-Clovis europeans in north america — these warts have more in common with evidence than dogma.
Randomengineer:
I can only marvel at the range of your associations. I honestly don’t see how a rational discussion is possible here.
I honestly don’t see how a rational discussion is possible here.
It’s not. When the opening assertion is that “materialistic worldview” (whatrever that may be) is a fact, everything following it is nonsense by definition.
Randomengineer, you are aware that your expressed attitude here is emblematic of what Mark is talking about? You appear to have a high level of hostility towards this.
Randomengineer, you are aware that your expressed attitude here is emblematic
of what Mark is talking about?
“The lack of papers proving perpetual motion in journals like Physics A indicates a type of worldview that shows mainstream scientists are hostile. Embracing this or acknowledging that something really is there and needs to be investigated would destroy the worldview of smug mainstream scientists.”
That’s the claim I’m hearing being made. It’s pure absurdity, and on stilts.
Perpetual motion WAS researched, and found wanting. So no, this isn’t like that at all.
And re. no. 28 above, fortunately not all scientists are as you describe–such as the scientists who coauthored Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century, an amazing book that “systematically marshal[s] evidence for a variety of psychological phenomena that are extremely difficult, and in some cases clearly impossible, to account for in conventional physicalist terms.”
http://www.amazon.com/Irreducible-Mind-Toward-Psychology-Century/dp/1442202068/ref=as_li_wdgt_js_ex?&camp=212361&linkCode=wey&tag=reconcili-20&creative=380733
I’m sorry but the arguments and “proof’s offered put forward to advance the concept of NDE’s experiences all sound eerily similar to the “proofs” put forward by the endlessly ernest alien abductees over the years. Don’t get me wrong I do hope it’s true but as they said “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. I’ll stick with Cryonics for now thank you.
If there were literally MILLIONS of claims of alien abductions, mostly by mature, normal, sane, balanced people, then yes, one would have to think there’s something to it. But with NDEs, that is the case–millions of normal people report them, and there is a great deal of evidence that they’re real.
There are “MILLIONS of claims of alien abductions, mostly by mature, normal, sane, balanced people.” They are not believable because there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that their claims are true. Mature, normal, sensible, and balanced people – to the extent that such a thing exists at all – are perfectly capable of believing ridiculous and untrue things.
There are not millions of reports of alien abductions; there are thousands. The phenomenom is of a magnitude where questions about the psychological health and motives of the reporters are relevant. Nor, though, should the possibility of such a phenomenon–reasonably be speaking–be dismissed prima facie, since there is a very big universe out there and the possibility that humans are the only form of intelligent life is miniscule. However, none of this is remotely comparable to the situation with NDEs, which are occurring regularly to millions of people from all walks of life and are a familiar and abundantly documented phenomenon in the medical community.
One survey by advocates claimed 4 million abductees in America alone http://www.skepdic.com/aliens.html In any case, that millions claim to have experienced something is meaningless without evidence to back it up, and there is by definition no evidence to back up what is only known from anecdote. As I said, millions of people are perfectly capable of believing something that is untrue. 46% of Americans reject Darwinism in whole or in part. That doesn’t make them right.
Mr. Kerstein, responding to your “One survey…” post–I’m not informed on the subject of alien abductions but repeat that I see no reason to reject the possibility of such a phenomenon prima facie. Re. NDEs, the evidence that they are real experiences goes far beyond the anecdotal. A good place to start is Dr. Jeffrey Long’s book, mentioned in Hornik’s article, Evidence of an Afterlife. The Wikipidea article on Near-Death Experiences also gives fair summations of the different positions, including the skeptics; it briefly summarizing findings of known, scientific NDE researchers like Pim van Lommel, Sam Parnia, Jeffrey Long, Bruce Greyson and others, some of whom have conducted rigorous scientific experiments on NDEs, and gives the appropriate links. Simply to dismiss all this as “anecdotal” is willful and wishful.
I don’t think Wikipedia is a particularly reliable source, but even if it is accurate, there have also been scientists and doctors who claimed to have proved UFOs, ESP, ghosts, and innumerable other fantastical things. That in and of itself does not prove anything. Since no one can experience an NDE except the experiencer, there can – by definition – be no evidence that is not anecdotal.
If one of those was a respected neurosurgeon whose claim included verifiable aspects that were corroborated by objective third parties, would you discount them?
How about if a medical professor and former presidential physician wrote a book describing similar things?
There have always been people with credentials who believe nonsensical things. The question is whether the theory that NDEs has any scientific credibility. The answer is no. First, because it proposes a consciousness independent of the body, which does not exist. Second, because it presents no evidence other than hearsay and anecdote. Third, because it is unfalsifiable. In any event, NDEs are clearly real, in that the phenomenon exists; but most scientists believe, and I agree, that they are simply products of the mind in its death throes, and not a spiritual phenomenon.
First, because it proposes a consciousness independent of the body, which does not exist.
Benjamin, that is an assertion without evidence.
Kerstein — First, because it proposes a consciousness independent of the body, which does not exist.
Benjamin, that is an assertion without evidence.
Bill
Wrong. Kerstein is not making a claim. You are. Kerstein is saying that there has never been a shred of well, anything, much less evidence, suggesting consciousness exists outside the body, therefore we can safely assume that it doesn’t exist. This is the norm. We can also safely assume that unicorns (really pretty horses with a single spiral horn) don’t exist for the same reason. In science this is usually referred to as a “null hypothesis.”
For you to posit that unicorns DO exist, we just don’t see them, puts the burden of proof on the claimant (you.)
You have things exactly backwards. Kerstein was stating the null hypothesis.
Wrong. Kerstein is not making a claim. You are. Kerstein is saying that there has never been a shred of well, anything, much less evidence, suggesting consciousness exists outside the body,
What he was saying was First, because it proposes a consciousness independent of the body, which does not exist.
In science this is usually referred to as a “null hypothesis.”
I’m not really disagreeing with you. The point, though, is that just because something can’t be falsified or replicated doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or didn’t happen. Science has limits.
For you to posit that unicorns DO exist, we just don’t see them, puts the burden of proof on the claimant (you.)
If a whole lot of people told you they saw unicorns playing in the park and some of them included people with a reputation for good reasoning and who had a disincentive to make things up, would you discount what they say or would you investigate further?
I have no intention of arguing that which cannot be proved, but if anybody thinks medical science can state with certainty the threshold beyond which someone is brain-dead and short of which they are still alive, that person is, well, “brain dead”.
Matthew
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.
43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”
To the common person in need for comfort NDEs bring on faith so atheist have room to doubt and not shake their faith in atheism. But what about when heaven decides to bring heavenly power to the earth ? How will the response be?
All the “evidence” presented here are second-hand accounts of personal testimonies. This is not evidence at all. That people on the verge of death hallucinate a pleasant afterlife, or do so immediately following their revival, should not surprise us. It is not an uncommon phenomenon. Freezing to death, for example, is quite pleasant and even euphoric in its final stages, and the victim often feels warm and comfortable. In other cases, I would imagine the person involved (with the help of their understandably grateful families) simply made the story up and/or exaggerated it out of wishful thinking or a desire for attention. That, I would think, is the explanation for those who meet “miscarried sisters” and the like. None of this proves the existence of any “transcendent consciousness” of any kind.
In any event, believing in frivolous and unfalsifiable fantasies is not good for anyone, liberal or conservative. Why so many of us on the Right think that we will benefit from divorcing ourselves from reality is beyond me.
I can question and doubt the validity of these so-called experiences, and I do.
Dreams can be powerful, thought provoking, and even life changing without a near death experience. I am not impressed by the hoopla around them, because I EXPECT humans to have complex thoughts such as those.
They merely reveal and re-enforce a known, unique human trait… which is to imagine (or hope, wish, pray, what have you) a larger realm beyond our physical world. One beyond our comprehension, for a purpose greater than ourselves. Not one of mere explicable, understood (or to be eventually understood) physical dimensions, but one that will forever elude us to measure, as it relates to the mystery of our VALUE, beyond our bodies. This has been a historic human question, and the fact we are apparently hard-wired to ponder such thing, SHOULD be of interest to “science”, as such notions do little to ensure our basic (evolutionary) means of survival. In other words, they don’t seem to make “sense”, do they?
So WHY do we have them, oh rational and dispassionate masters of all that is fully explainable?
But the world of Pure Science, my friends, is not itself without the fantastically unbelievable, the unanswerable, and the utterly unimaginable.
Time Travel?
Some events accelerated or retarded, but not others, by MOVEMENT of objects?
Forget whatever chalkboard ”proof” an unkempt man with no socks can claim, ( in a secret language less than a dozen worldwide can speak, no less), you’re ultimately saying I could HAVE my son, AND die as an infant myself. Kill my father before I am born, and still have grandchildren.
Preposterous.
If all the matter in the universe was at some point compressed to a pinhead, where did that matter COME from? What external force held it so compressed? What was “surrounding” that pinhead and how was the “constraint” removed for this “big bang” to occur?
Ahh, I must BELIEVE that such things could occur.
Because now they say “dark matter” is 75% of the universe, and simply “must” be responsible for so much of what we CANT OTHERWISE RATIONALLY EXPLAIN.
So, “pure science” is saying:
Theories that are utterly, fantastically incomprehensable, are explicable through the 75% belief/existence of a “magic” we have no explanation for.
But the existence of a GOD makes so much LESS sense, we discount it immediately as superstition..
But the existence of a GOD makes so much LESS sense, we discount it immediately as superstition..
Dark matter doesn’t require intent.
That which does is superstition or worse; e.g. I don’t imagine my garden hose is plotting against me. Believing that it does or can is roughly analagous to believing in god(s.)
“Dark matter doesn’t require intent”
Seriously?
You cant support your worldview (or universe view) without the inexplicable.
You propose the irrational, and call it “Dark Matter” instead of “Fairy Dust”.
Sounds like a pretty “intentional” means of supporting your position when you don’t have a clue.
Verses another World View that says it must be “Divine”
Six of One, Half dozen of another.
Neither of you have a clue.
One of you is Honest about it.
You propose the irrational, and call it “Dark Matter” instead of “Fairy Dust”.
Learn some physics and we’ll chat in the future.
Meanwhile I’ll turn you on to my fave conservative physicist, czech Lubos Motls; hopefully you’ll learn to like his stuff:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/09/cresst-ii-joins-dark-matters-war-on.html
Benjamin Kerstein:
Cavalier dismissal of so many thousands of experiences, calling them “wishful thinking”, or “desire for attention”, suggests less than a careful judgement. The word here is, perhaps, “rash”.
Besides, not all NDEs are pleasant – some are distressing, even profoundly frightening:
http://iands.org/about-ndes/distressing-ndes.html
While healthy scepticism may be a useful tool, especially in this area, nevertheless, it is only a tool, not rigid dogma. Science remains the art of coming to necessary conclusions.
It would be rash to believe such fantastic claims without demanding extremely compelling evidence that they are true. Anecdotes from people in the most extreme physical and emotional states imaginable are simply not enough. The burden of proof lies on those making fantastical claims. It’s fine if they want to believe that what they experienced is actually a vision of the afterlife, but it does not place any responsibility on me to believe the same.
To Benjamin Kerstein and all the other skeptics who have posted: you need to deal with the fact that if you should become one of the millions who have an NDE, you will cease to be a skeptic. If you want science, this is scientifically established: people who have NDEs become believers in an afterlife and a deity, including if they were nonbelievers before the NDE.(And in the minority of cases where the NDE is distressing, they take it very seriously and try to overcome whatever was responsible for the bad experience, fully expecting to return to the transcendent realm eventually.) For example, Dr. Eben Alexander was a distinguished neurosurgeon, and he was also a profound skeptic verging on atheism, who sometimes went to church only to keep his family happy–before his NDE; he’s now, since his NDE, a profound theist and a 100% believer in the reality of what he experienced. So, folks, I would suggest–why not an open mind, and also–oh, yes–a bit of humility? I know that all this talk of a transcendent dimension is profoundly aversive to you, though I don’t know why. I think, though, that the skeptics, atheitsts, the derisive dismissers of so, so much transcendent experience (see, e.g., William James’s 19th-century classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience)–are control freaks. The idea that there are worlds beyond what you call “science” and “the brain” is scary and unsettling to you, so you harshly deny it. But I would suggest that a stance of “No matter what evidence you show, I will not be convinced” is certainly not “scientific” and not even intellectual in an honorable sense.
Yes John, we all get it — there’s all this vast proof of an afterlife and your god and nonbeliever scientists (bastards, all of them) who run everything are too scared that god is real (and why they’re scared is never conclusively demonstrated, merely asserted as some sort of understood wink wink fact.) Why, the infidels. It’s a conspiracy. They will never investigate. It will ruin them to discover they’ve always been wrong about everything. Blah blah blah.
Conservatives like you post here wondering WTF is wrong with society and why they don’t win anymore and the answer is that apparently they’re up to their eyebrows in nonsensical religious claptrap. It’s not society that’s wrong, dumbass; you’re nothing more than the latest version of the dimwitted UFO nutcase.
“you’re nothing more than the latest version of the dimwitted UFO nutcase”
I think belief in conventional religion existed before a belief in UFO’s
A more accurate statemment would be to call UFO believers the “latest version of of the dimwitted Jesus nutcase”
Just sayin’
I think belief in conventional religion existed before a belief in UFO’s
Probably not. It’s all the same thing, invoking “that from beyond” to explain that which we lack the knowledge to correctly understand. Lots of creation myths from hunter gatherers posited that man was the result of beings from the stars (not sure if algonquins are in this batch, but that mught be a place to start) thus UFOs and religion are and have been the same thing from the getgo.
There has always been a god of the gaps problem. One can imagine homo erectus regarding fire as magical until they figured out how to make it themselves. And why is this example used? Because it wasn’t that long back that mundane stuff like lightning wasn’t understood for what it was. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, after all, and what is magic if not god(s)?
“Lots of creation myths from hunter gatherers posited that man was the result of beings from the stars”
As opposed to those fine and plausible “facts” of the universe compressed, time travel, and “dark matter” to explain away your “that from beyond” theories that are EQUALLY UNBELIEVEABLE to a rational person.
I respect and appreciate the quest for “the real truth” but I’m not afraid of the possibility that we just cant know everything., because its not possible…
Like time travel.
Scientific phenomenon is not “believable” or “unbelievable.” They are proven or disproven. If they cannot be proven or disproven at a given time, then they are hypothesized and viewed as more or less likely to be true. It is only in the religious realm that one believes or does not believe. Faith is not an issue in science or reason.
Show me time travel.
Show me compressed matter.
Tell me you dont “believe in” those things, even without proof.
Explain why Einstein and Darwin BOTH had no “scientific” problem with the possibility of “God”
How much does “love” weigh.
The ”Science” view of how the universe came to be, and functions, is incompatible with any rational thought….it is equally “impossible” and “fantastically unbelieveable” as the strangest and most incomprehensible explanations of “religion”. It requires the suspension of disbelief, and the acceptance of that which makes no physical, possible sense.
When you say “70%” of it is “dark matter”, you admit you dont know what that is, or how you can even possibly “tell” its “70%”
Well then, its no different than me saying I’m 70% “in sin” or “70% redeemed”….can you DISPROVE my claims when I admid their is no known measurment of these “things” I simply “made up” to explain away my “beliefs”?
What you have is, a large formula on the chalkboard with a giant bubble in the middle called “insert miraculous impossibility HERE”
Nothing you “true believers” can say makes that go away.
Your “religion” is called “science” and its explanations for the universe are NO LESS “unbelieveable”, than any other…because it requires “faith” in physical imposibilities you cant explain, in order for it to “work”
Root – You aren’t making any sense. You say “show me dark matter” and then ask “how much does love weigh?” So, on the one hand, you reject anything you cannot see, and then attack science for being unable to measure the unseen. As I say elsewhere, time travel, dark matter, etc., are not without “proof.” They are theories and the proof is being sought. If it is not found, then they will be discarded. Science and logic postulate certain things by inference or because observations suggest them. If they cannot be proven, then they are thrown out. The geocentric theory of the universe, for example, was the best fit to the observations available to the ancients (or at least, to most of them). Over the centuries, however, more detailed observations proved it incorrect, and it was discarded in favor of heliocentrism. No one could step back from the solar system and view it from afar, so they did the best they could with the observations available to them. This has nothing to do with suspension of disbelief or anything else of the kind.
And FYI, Einstein was a Spinozan deist and Darwin was an atheist. Neither of them believed in a personal God.
What is most disturbing to me is that you simply dismiss out of hand one of the most extraordinary aspects of humanity. The fact that the ancient Greek atomists could create their theories, which are remarkably close to today’s physics, by simply OBSERVING THE WORLD, by noting, for example, that water slowly wears away rock, indicating that solid matter is in fact composed of much smaller particles clumped together, is extraordinary to me, and a testimony to the capacities of man to transcend his limitations. You would have us throw all this out as nothing more than black magic. Humanity deserves better advocates.
Taking this at a purely physical level, how could it work?
Say it IS a dream. Say all these people are simply dreaming these occurences.
What happens then when they don’t wake up? To the observer, it’s simply death. But the dreamer never gets to the end of the dream. Subjectively, that dream goes on forever.
Eternity encapsulated in the last bits of electicity in a dying brain.
No god, no spirituality. Just dreaming. Atheists dream, don’t they?
I remember reading about some big hospitals (can’t find the studies) where words or phrases were printed on large cards and set, printing side up on top of high cabinets in the emergency and operating rooms. These wordings were not observable from standing in the OR, the theory was (is) that someone “floating” above their body on the table would notice and upon being revived be able to repeat these postings. To date none have been able even though several patients reported NDE’s while “out”. This, were it to occure would constitute serious “evidence” but of course like UFO Abductions “evidence” never seems to make the cut. Till something like this takes place in a verifiable fashion NDE’s remain interesting folk lore, nothing more. Believe as you wish it’s your only inviolate (For now. “O’s” working on that one also) human right. Remember I also the story where a skeptic finds himself in conversation with God and the deity remarks, “Is my existence any less improbable as your own?”
I am not particularly moved by the NDE phenomena, nor that they give us any particular insight into anything. What I find significant is what they represent – the common desire of people to affirm that life continues past death in this one. There is evidence that a belief in afterlife is necessary for human thriving and long term survival. That is the important issue concerning faith and religion…….
Not to mention the rather interesting studies done at Duke (?) where volunteers are deprived of O2 levels by Carbon Dioxide gas and report very similar sensations and “visions” as reported by NDE’s. Studies are on going.
Interesting article. I always wonder – and have always wondered – why we’re here, why we live. The only answer that seems to satisfy is that we’re here to experience. Our lives are the reason.
CREED OF THE SKEPTICS: (1) I have decided in advance that no evidence that you present will convince me or even interest me. I call this the scientific method. (2) I know for a fact that physical matter is the determining force in the universe. Even though this has never been proved and there is evidence to the contrary that has convinced large numbers of scientists, it is an incontestable fact. I call this the scientific method.
CREED OF THE CREDULOUS: 1) Everything is true unless proven otherwise. 2) If someone believes in something, we are morally obligated to adopt that belief as well, no matter how ridiculous is might be. 3) We cannot prove or disprove that things exists beyond the physical or material realm, therefore, these things do exist. 4) Logic, reason, and science are evil.
Check out some of the scientific research on NDEs by Pim van Lommel, Jeffrey Long, Bruce Greyson, Sam Parnia, and quite a few others. You may find it interesting.
“If someone believes in something, we are morally obligated to adopt that belief as well, no matter how ridiculous is might be”
yeah, like time travel, “dark matter” and a compressed universe, right?
Phenomena like time travel, dark matter, etc., are theories, not settled scientific fact. Dark matter, for example, appears to be the most likely explanation for contradictory findings regarding the size and mass of the universe. It may exist, it may not; but scientists feel that observations indicate that something like it does, so they are trying to confirm their theories. That is not the same as believing something ridiculous with no evidence. We may discover no evidence at all of dark matter, or the contradictions that led to the development of the theory of dark matter may be resolved in other ways. In that case, the theory of dark matter will be discarded. This is part of why science is superior to faith: It is capable of assimilating its mistakes and using those mistakes to get closer to the truth. Faith demands absolute belief despite the absence of proof or the presence of contradictory evidence.
And “logic” is best described as:
Arriving at the WRONG conclusion, with CONFIDENCE
So, Socrates is immortal? Achilles can never catch up with the tortoise? Shall we throw reason on the woodpile because you make fun of it? What do we have left if we discard logic and reason? How else are we to make sense of the world around us? It is not a pleasant or comforting thought, but the truth is that all we have is our minds and their capacity for reason, and we discard both at our peril.
FAMOUS QUOTE from Sir John Eccles, leading 20th-century neurophysiologist:
I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition…. We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.