Actually- yeah, because
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just because nothing happened to him YET didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be something happen if he was dead long enough, OR
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maybe the “soul-sleep” interpretation of the Bible is right.
Note that the subject of said prayers is carefully left unspecified. 
What interpretation is that?
Researchers will disagree with you. I really didn’t expect you to study NDEs and find out for yourself.
This is, on one hand, a great point–but on the other hand, at some point a demonstration of omnipotence is so convincing that a tricksy alien may as well be a God.
For example, for an omnipotent God, it would be trivial to make the stars tonight spell out, “Lay down your weapons, for I am God!” It woudl be trivial to make the message instead be the most inspiring, beautiful, and persuasive bit of theological poetry ever written. It would be trivial to have the message appear to each human in the primary language they can read, and for those who cannot read, it would be trivial to allow them to hear the poem spoken by the stars. It would be trivial for an omniscient God to think of an even more persuasive form of proof of its existence, if its desire was to provide every human being with adequate proof. Such a God would know what would convince each one of us and could, using special omnipotence powers, provide us with that proof.
If an alien civilization could do the same, then that alien civilization may as well be God for all practical purposes.
The only problem with such an event would be the question of insanity. How would you distinguish between the perception of such an event and the total retreat into a fantasy world? As long as my secondary experiences (talking to others, looking at photographs of the event, etc.) were consistent, I’d probably conclude that it had actually happened.
Again, though, proving Its existence is the easy part. If an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God wants me to believe that omnibenevolent bit, it’s going to have some hard questions to answer. Being omnipotent, of course, they won’t be that hard :).
Daniel
It’s been many, many years since I read about these two religions, so forgive me if I got it wrong. The point is what it is, yes? :dubious:
Btw, the “proof”/“evidence”/“rationale”, whatever that is good enough to convince me of God (specifically YHWH Elohim- Father, Son & Spirit), though YMMV…
the emergence of something out of nothing,
the emergence of order out of chaos,
the emergence of organisms out of inorganic material,
the emergence of sentient animal life out of insentient organisms,
the emergence of humanity out of sentient animal life,
the emergence of the Israelite/Jewish people out of humanity,
the emergence of Jesus out of the Israelite/Jewish people.
As I said, YMMV.
Good grief. From YOUR OWN CITE:
“By all known standards Pam Reynolds was clinically dead and remained that way for many minutes.”
Emphasis mine.
This account of course also simply glosses over the fact that the observations she has of what the operating room people were saying all come from times that were demonstrably merely under general (and as often happens, she might well have not been fully under). There is no evidence at all given that she actually had any experiences during those few minutes when she was brain dead. The actual procedure, from when she was put under to when she was put in recovery took HOURS.
Hey All!
I’m very tired at the moment and so I must hit the sack. I wanted to respond to each of you but am about to drop over. Sorry.
I will say that you folks sure are smart! (Converting you may be tougher than I thought.
But you guys in some of your comments almost seem more like piranhas than people that sincerely seek the truth. Have any of you ever considered going on a Vision Quest?
Good nite!!
Ok, i’m confused to all hell, now.
I’m saying that people’s lives are often changed when the have an NDE. You’re saying i’m wrong on NDEs, but i’m* agreeing* with you. What I am saying is not that NDEs don’t actually change people at all, but that major events as a whole change people. Would you like cites for support groups for diabetes? For those who’ve lost a limb?
I study psychology at university. That included (by choice) a module on parapsychology. I studied NDEs for an exam - one of my *final * exams. I’ve done research, mon ami (of course, we won’t know how well until my results come through )
Cite me up some researchers who disagree - cite me up some that show NDEs effect people significantly more than any other major traumatic event. You seem confident, i’m sure you know of some. But then of course I wouldn’t expect you to actually agree with someone who doesn’t share your basic premise. That would be the act of an open-minded person.
How long for?
That one’s soul is unconscious or non-existent until Christ returns and raises the dead. It is held in varying forms by Seventh-Day Adventists, Armstrongists,
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christadelphians.
Oh- to give credit where credit is due, I think I derived this from G. K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man.
As I noted, don’t you see that you are mainly just self-sealingly explaining away the existence of skeptics rather than addressing skepticism?
The skeptical points stand or fall on their own regardless of whether there exist any skeptics to put them forth. Whether or not we are “piranhas” or “insincere” as people, the ISSUES still matter.
Have you ever considered doing in depth research on the arguments about god, from both sides? Have you ever considered researching the origins of modern religion, and finding out where they and their practices really came from? Have you ever considered researching other religions, not just the big ones, but ancient extinct religions and splinter groups and regional groups, and tried to figure out why they were wrong and you were right? If you go on a Vision Quest looking for god, then most likely anything you find you attribute to god. Learning without interpretive bias is much more useful.
If we seem like piranhas it’s because we’ve seen these arguments time and time again, presented in the same way every time, and we can guess how it’s going to go. Arguing against them, and getting absolutely no where with the person making the claim gets a little old.
Do you have any proof there once was nothing?
The Universe clearly tends to chaos. We have managed a small local ‘order effect’ on one planet, but it’s a continuous battle.
How old do you think the Universe is? In a time frame of billions of years, life could have arisen and evolved.
The theory of evolution also explains animal life and humanity.
What is the significance of the Israelite/Jewish people?
Since the Jewish religion denies Jesus was God, I don’t see how that helps either.
Converting to what exactly? Do you have a well-defined God scenario you feel we should adopt? Or would you be satisfied if all non-theists became just some variety of theist or other?
I wonder if you attach spiritual significance to well-ordered salt crystals forming from the chaotic locations of salt molecule in sea water? You may well feel all such natural processes are miraculous. How then do you feel about the crystals dissolving when salinity or temperature conditions change again? Is this emergence of chaos out of order just as spiritually significant? If so, how did you decide on your examples?
I notice nobody here is seriously considering the possibility of polytheism. If there are many gods and they don’t always get along or have the same agenda/aims/desires, that would explain a whole lot about the universe.
Nor is anybody questioning the basic assumption that God would be interested in human beings or human affairs. If I had an ant farm, I would feed the ants out of a basic sense of responsibility and/or care for my property. I might derive some esthetic pleasure from the ants, some entertainment from watching them go about their business, perhaps even some sadistic pleasure from occasionally burning them with a magnifying glass. But I wouldn’t pass moral judgments on their behavior, I wouldn’t expect them to worship me, I wouldn’t even worry about whether they like me or are even aware of my existence.
Nor is anybody questioning the assumption that evidence of the existence of an afterlife (e.g., NDEs) is relevant to proving the existence of God. It isn’t. There is no logically necessary connection between God and the afterlife; either could exist without the other. In the Hindu/Buddhist world-view, the afterlife is reincarnation, which is neither a gift nor a curse from the gods, but simply part of the nature of things. No deity is involved in karmic judgment – your soul finds the incarnation appropriate to its karma like water finding its own level.
Monotheism, an interested deity, and a deity who provides a personal (and morally relevant) afterlife are basic assumptions of the Yahvist/Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam – except that the Jewish conception of an afterlife is rather different and much less important than in the other two). But to discuss the OP properly on its merits, we need to be willing to think outside the Yahvist paradigm.
Converting implies we were not once religious. Our indoctranation was complete. Eventually the fatal flaws of religion became too obvious to ignore. Atheists do not seek to become non believers. Critical thinking demands it.