E-sabbath, just remember that you are debating with someone who proudly said, on page 5,
I predict Leroy will accuse me of insulting him by repeating his own words.
I won’t bother to answer the above posts. They are not genuine attempts to debate any issue.
The reason I started my NDE site was to put before the public the real story of near death experiences. I will be successful in this, and other NDEers are now coming forth to add their voices to the debate.
We grew tired of listening to the constant stream of misinformation put forth by skeptics. I don’t believe I ever heard in these so-called debates any specific information questioned about NDEs. Those elements of the NDE that will disprove the skeptical misinformation are always ignored, skipped over in an attempt to “shout down” the element by name calling. What are these elements? Try reading the NDEs you will see quickly.
The tone is the same, “science says there can be no such thing, so there can’t be such a thing.”
The religious people have their Bible, which is the supreme authority. The so-called scientists have their methods, pseudo-logic, and rules that are the supreme authority for them.
Each person is so locked into their doctrine nothing can shake their faith.
Nothing that is, except experience, which will come to all. So you will not read the NDEs, you will not even consider they have a reality beyond illusion.
I am the lucky one, I had the experience, I am free, I am safe, with no fear of death. I have no depression, very little negative thoughts. I am a very happy person.
Yes, I will remain ignorant of the dogma you preach and misinformation you spread through fear. I will stay ignorant of the negative, sterile, world you live in, and look to my experiences and intuition to lead me. I will also have compassion for you.
It is not a question of right or wrong with me, but a question of truth.
Now, in the name of honest debate, if you have any cites, studies, etc., to put forth showing you are correct in your assumptions that man is not spiritual, now is the time. I have been asking for proof for over two years, and not a single one has been produced.
Love
Yep, Leroy’s ignoring things again.
Eh. I had to try.
lekatt, these are not skeptics you speak of, these are not scientists, they are cynics, who deny the existance of anything that does not bolster their personal stance. It has nothing to do with science.
Scientists explore phenomenon to determine the laws that underlie the Universe. They necessarily have to be skeptical, otherwise they would arrive at false conclusions. Skeptics must question the validity of findings before accepting something as true; they cannot, by definition, take anecdotal experiences, concentric validation or the like as evidence for proof, only as evidence to stimulate exploration. They do not dismiss things out of hand, they do not deny the existance of a thing, but they may doubt it.
Cynics doubt everything, they believe, assume everything is false until proven otherwise to their satisfaction. They will deny even the obvious if it doesn’t fit their model. It is easy to sort out the scientists, skeptics and cynics who have posted here. It’s also unproductive to try to convince cynics.
Somemhere try to emulate Cecil. They want to be as sharp, as cutting edge, as knowledgable as Cecil, but they forget, Cecil is a scientist, and a skeptic. Let’s look as his approach:
Open-minded. Not accepting, but not rejecting; that’s what open-minded means. All the fancy stuff the wannabe’s say about ‘don’t open your mind too far, you never know what might fall in…’ and ‘without scientific proof, it’s just bunk’ and … well, I don’t think I need to go on, you get the idea. It’s all guilt-trips, ridicule and ego boosting. They pat themselves on the back because their religion out argued yours. Like it makes a difference.
Ready to go to IMHO yet?
Slight modification, Snakespirit: It is possible to believe something is true, personally, but withhold judgement professionally, and act as if it is false until proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Many of the people you label cynics may actually believe something, but be unable to prove it to the level of satisfaction they would need to defend it, and thus may be forced, by their own honesty, to admit and act as if it is not true.
After all, if you can’t question your own assumptions, what business do you have questioning the assumptions of others?
I read what you say Cecil said and I think, that’s good. But the problem is it just don’t happen in real life. It reminds me of the Christians who say they follow Jesus and ignore everything He said. Hypocrisy is the order of the day.
They claim they know things that are unknowable, they offer no studies or cites to back up their opinions, assumptions, and conjectures. They emanate a superior intelligent that does not reveal any facts. Oh, well. it is just people trying to understand. We are like in kindergarden, thinking we know everything.
I know they will have the same kind of experience as I did at some point in their lives. I just keep wondering why they are not interested enough to find out about it.
No, I am not going to post in IMHO. I will discuss the items of interest on my own board at Thanks for your e-mail. it is a new board and has almost no members yet. But is has all the bells and whistles this one does.
Love
One thing I haven’t done in this thread is to post an actually experience.
The skeptics won’t read them anyway, but here is a recent one.
It talks about the skeptics.
http://www.aleroy.com/board216.htm
If you read it you will understand more about NDEs.
Love
I understand completely now-yet another anecdote without evidence.
Anecdote is defined in my dictionary (Merriam-Webster) as:
“: a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident”
I even searched through several levels of synonyms. at no level did I find that this word indicated something false.
Again you strike out, nearly every post on this board is a anecdote.
You were shown solid evidence backed by scientists, doctors, and professional people in the Pam Reynolds surgery. How quickly we forget. Now if you have some proof other than your opinion that the NDE is false, please show it now.
Love
Good definition. And nowhere do you find that this word indicated something was automatically TRUE, did you? So why are you presenting them without question?
Here’s an even better def (itals & bold are mine):
Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t catch it the first, second, or fifty-eleventh time is has been said in this thread:
Anecdotes are scientifically worthless!
Now, if you would like to find out WHY, read the link verrrry carefully. We’ll wait; it might be worth your time.
First hand eye-witness accounts are permissible in courts of law. I don’t care what scientific dogma says about it, I live in the real world, not some made-up fantasy world of science. People are innocent until proven guilty in the real world. People are honest until proven different.
So-called science has it backwards, and for their own benefit. This way they get to say who is right and who is wrong. Can’t you see through that deception. Can’t you understand the failed logic in this approach.
Now, unless you have some study that can show everyone who tells their own story is lying, I suggest you admit your doctrine is only opinion and nothing else because that is what it is truly.
You see, in the real world people generally believe the experiences of others, especially when they are backed up with solid evidence as NDEs.
Sorry you have been duped so long that you think black is white. Your belief system is the same as any other religion. Our way or no way.
Love
Can I have your permission to use this as a sig, lekatt?
People, NDE’s exist. Read Kubler-Ross. But, I’m more interested in the cause of NDE’s and I’m not buying this ‘soul’ nonsense.
Read that, then read this: http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=7237.
This is a POWERFUL substance we’re talking about, goddamit. It’s the most powerful psychedelic known to man - and its in each and every one of us.
Lekatt, when you say that DMT causes some sort of ‘threshold of death’, which in turn results in a NDE, that is completely wrong. DMT has been given to volunteers hundreds of times in hospital conditions - all of them monitored - and none of them were ever at any point near death. The hospital staff would have otherwise intervened, obviously. People who claim that they couldn’t breathe or feel their heart, it only feels that way, and rightfully so.
You forgot how drugs work. If you take a little, you feel it a little. If you take a lot you feel it a lot. If you take a “little” DMT, you’ll have half of a “near death experience”. If you do a full dose, you’ll have a complete “near death experience”. Its clockwork.
Each DMT experience is entirely unique, so I imagine NDE’s are also. And remember, Lekatt, each description is entirely metaphorical, you would know. Just because one person describes the sound as “buzzing”, and another describes it as “wind”, there no arguing the fact - there is a loud and noticeable sound in both DMT trips and NDE’s. Merely a coincidence? I think not. Remember, language is severely limiting when it comes to altered states of consciousness.
There are many plausible reasons why some NDE descriptions do not include a loud sound:
1.) The person forgot about it.
2.) The person was too overwhelmed to notice it.
3.) The person didn’t think it was necessary to talk about. - the most likely.
Gee, maybe thet’s because they thought they were dying? Who wants to die…again? :smack:
DMT users know that the substance will not kill them.
Please, please, please, please, avoid using words like always. Who are you to judge all DMT users as being mindless addicts?
But, the irony kills me, thanks for a laugh.
Lekatt, despite years on these message boards, has somehow remained untouched by the rules of logic and evidence in a debate, and by knowledge of the scientific method. Since he categorically refuses to do anything except witness for his own undemonstrable worldview without acknowledging the stream of valid arguments presented to challenge his position, it is difficult to engage in a reasonable debate with him.
This is the summary of Lekatt’s weak position, I summarize it taking in mind the arguments and links provided by other posters even if they are not explicitly mentioned:
What the paranormalists call NDEs, OBEs, etc. are indeed experienced by some people
NDEs, OBEs, etc. may be triggered by known and testable physical/chemical causes (such as trauma, psychoactive drugs, etc.) indicating that a supernatural component is not necessary (nor elegant) to explain these experiences.
Here Lekatt’s belief system takes over and his message is simple: (the following is a paraphrase) “so what if these experiences may be explained as perfectly ordinary and explainable occurrences, MY experiences were special and are not explained by your petty, mortal tool called science, therefore NDEs, OBEs, etc. are real supernatural phenomena”.
When asked to support such arguments and failing, we are given Lekattoid gems such as the claim that science is a made-up fantasy world, and that he is right because he feels it.
Let’s go back a bit before the jumbled material you posted recently:
This is a highly simplified summary of the position I already stated earlier. Now, substitute “knowledge” for “science”, and “opinion” for “religion” and “spiritual”, and the argument should become a lot clearer: Knowledge is not about feelings and beliefs, indeed not. It’s about the facts or demonstrable approximations thereof. Got any?
Science is the sum total, progressing every day, of what we know empirically and demonstrably. Religion is a dogmatic expression of belief, or faith. Articles of faith have thus far proved to be non-demonstrable, meaning that religion (and “spirituality”, since it is in the same epistemological boat) are NOT items of knowledge, but of opinion. And you can hold whatever opinion you want without anyone worrying about it.
What you can’t do is pervert the strictures of logic and reason to try support factually a position that you are not able to support as fact because it consists only of opinion. This approach is ignorant of the most basic tenets of theory of knowledge, debate, and reason (I won’t even mention critical thinking since you have shown repeatedly what you think of that and the scientific method).
Now, perhaps you will respond adequately to even a few of the dozens of arguments levelled at you? If you will, please start with this one:
Interesting – so why do psychologists and psychiatrists employ the scientific method, are peer-reviewed by other scientists of other disciplines, and obtain results that prove replicable? And, even more importantly, what’s the point of investigating NDEs scientifically if according to you they are not in the domain of science? Bit counter-productive to engage in such work, don’t you think? Even more counter-productive to cite such work!
Your above quote indicates an embarrassingly poor understanding of psychology and psychiatry, not to mention the phenomena in question such as NDEs. Support your statement with a valid argument, if you please. Notice I said “argument”, not anecdotal drivel of how you were an alcoholic or “almost” died. Perhaps you could start by reading my earlier posts, in which I addressed psychology, psychiatry, and supernatural phenomena and how we may or may not know about them sufficiently to speak in an authoritative manner.
This is true if you grant that whereas we have extremely strong evidence of the physical world and its mechanisms, we have none whatsoever of the spiritual world (despite the flawed science, wrong conclusions, or outright propaganda that advances claims regarding the paranornal as “real”). So, as I said in my earlier posts, the “spiritual” is at present a fictional concept. It is a mere opinion unless you can demonstrate otherwise (we are all ears, especially the sceptics among us who hunger for this sort of evidence).
Prove it please. I invested several coffee breaks last week to write responses that tackle similar (much better informed) claims to yours, that you repeat above without a single shred of evidence. Clearly (and yet again) you aren’t taking material that other posters provide in good faith seriously. You’re simply interested in witnessing for your system of belief.
Opinion is not knowledge. Knowledge is demonstrable and opinion is not. I put it to you that 83% of Americans (if the figure is accurate) are wrong. If they are not, all they need to do is simply demonstrate that their “feelings”, “intuitions”, “interactions with the spirit world”, etc. are real and not imagination at work, misunderstood but perfectly ordinary phenomena, the product of delusions, or the effect of drugs/illness, etc.
The foolish “a lot of people can’t be wrong” fallacy was already addressed in my previous reply. Perhaps it’s time you did some catching up, not the 17% of Americans who base their judgement on demonstrable fact as opposed to personal tales.
Did you know I won the Nobel Peace Prize? What do you mean I didn’t really win it? I’m telling you right here, how can you dispute it? And I picked up an Oscar for best actor too. I can find neither the awards nor the money, but I have very strong feelings that I won them. I believe I won them. What will you do to prove me right or wrong?
Well, this kind of statement explains more than your others. Are you at the stage of unconditional love? Do you feel and understand it?
Yes, and if an eyewitness said that he saw a pink elephant flying in the sky, it would take a lot more than just his account to convince anyone else that the pink elephant was real.
I would ask to use this as a sig, but lambchops beat me to it. It’s just a shame that you’re probably blind to the irony of what you said.
People are not innocent until proven guilty. Being proven guilty doesn’t make an innocent person suddenly guilty. Instead, it convinces other people that the already-guilty person is, in fact, guilty. The phrase that you were looking for is “Presumed innocent until proven guilty”. This is analogous to how science works. Unusual claims are “presumed false until demonstrated to be true”.
Likewise with honesty. I’ll assume that you’re honest . . . until you try to convince me that you saw a flying, pink elephant. Then I’ll assume that you are either lying, or that you have been deceived.
Nope, but perhaps all of your own failed logic has desensitized me to seeing it
There is a difference between opinion and verifiable facts. Your belief that NDEs are real is an opinion, because you are unable to demonstrate that you had anything more than a chemically-induced hallucination. You can quote anecdotes all day long, but without properly controlled studies, there’s really no point. And believe me, we don’t want a controlled study just because it makes things more difficult for you. We want a controlled study because that’s the only thing that can factor out other causes.
I mean, how do you know that what you experienced wasn’t just a chemically-induced hallucination? Were you having someone monitor your brain activity and chemistry?
People generally believe the experiences of others if they are reasonable based on the beliefs the person already has. NDEs do not have solid evidence. There is a huge difference between “anecdotes” and “solid evidence”.
An collection of anecdotes would be 100 people all claiming to have seen a flying, pink elephant. Even if 1000 people claimed to see such an elephant, I wouldn’t believe them. Oh, I’d believe that they saw something, but without being able to dissect the elephant myself and/or closely monitor its ability to fly in a controlled setting, I would assume that they were fooled into believing something that could be explained by more ordinary means.
I view NDEs the same way. I don’t doubt that people who experience NDEs experienced something. I just don’t believe that it was their soul leaving their body, or anything else supernatural.
If that were the case, then we’d still believe that the sun orbits the earth. Science is very open to change. It just also requires more than anecdotes before it can make changes to the laws of physics, and souls that can perceive and think outside of a human body would require a rewrite of the laws of physics.
I’m sorry, but that’s something I’m not willing to do with nothing more than people’s word that they’re right.
I see we had a good turn-out over night. I also see you are blind to what I say, can’t understand.
I want to leave this thread with a few observations.
If the irrational view that all people are wrong until science proves them right is so good, why isn’t that in our Constitution. It is the exact opposite, you know. Everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty. Can you imagine science taking over control of our country, and forcing its laws on the public.
It would become wholesale torture, killing and experimenting on human beings, the same thing that is being done to animals right now in the name of science. I sure hope you wake-up before we reach that point.
There is a complete absence of morality in science. No feelings, emotions, no compassion. It will not be accepted by the general public.
Walk your blind, dead end path. You will see the light at some point.
Love
Still nothing concrete to say, eh?
er, that was not supposed to be the post in its entirety.
I meant to add that your anti-science diatribe is simplistic and clumsy, and hardly deserves being addressed, but I will suggest you to consider that ethics do play an important role in science, if not in the innards of the mechanisms of the scientific method.
Other than that, the method works. Your attack does not really invalidate the fact that it is to date the best system to distill models and information from the confusion of what, simply, exists. You can’t demonstrate the existence of the supernatural and paranormal and your claims are unverified, which is why you seem to go over the same ground repeatedly in these threads. Pending better support, all you can really argue on at the moment is your faith, which is not an acceptable manner to demonstrate factually your esoteric arguments.
Isn’t that the sum of his entire posting history? 
You just described yourself perfectly.