The Bible
Please respond to the rest of my post instead of just adding your opinion.
Your experiences cannot be independently remotely verified, and remain opinion until they can.
Admit you were wrong about theories, etc. or provide new evidence to support your point.
Thanks Joe for a kind, informative post.
I was not aware of the “two separate entities” of evolution. But the knowledge of this bothers me even more. Now evolution can be taught as fact in schools, meaning the observed evolution, while, in the by, giving credence to the Theory of Evolution.
Reminds me of TV commercials. My main concern is that for some reason depression, anxiety, and suicides are growing at an alarming rate, according to the news. In the past spiritual practices helped curbed these problems somewhat. Discounting and laughing, ridiculing and fake debunking of spiritual practices push this option further away while offering nothing in return.
Now, do I have a methodology of discovering truth. Yes, But I don’t know how to explain it to skeptics. Suffice it to say: “Ye shall know truth by its peace and calm.” Yoda.
Love
Leroy
Considering that we’ve had people chime in with “NDE” stories, who do not fall into that grouping, it’s is blatantly obvious that this is incorrect.
Since you’re back onto the topic of NDEs, care to answer my questions now?:
-
Is there any evidence that Pam Reynold’s mind didn’t create the dream-like memories while it was still opperating, or while “shutting down” or “starting up?”
-
Do you believe it is impossible for someone to dream of floating out of their body, looking down to see it, and conversing with a “being of light,” the same conditions that you have described as identifying NDEs?
Your avoidance of answering these questions is rather telling. Could you simply answer them, here, in your own words? I’ve read through all the “documentation” you’ve presented, and saw nothing addressing either of these, so I’d appreciate it if you could set it straight, here. Thanks…
Jesus, after saving the prostitute, said, “Ye judge after the flesh, but I judge no man.”
Um that wasn’t what he was asking, you already said Jesus does not judge, but you made the claim that “god” does not judge, Svt4Him asked for a cite and you did not provide one.
Hi MEBuckner
I won’t copy your long post, just to say I agree with the religionists when they say, “no one has known any creature to be anything other than what it is,” no one has observed man evolving from a lower species. The trail may point south, but it doesn’t go there, at least, not yet.
To the others: many times I give answers that are not acceptible to posters, they may think I avoid them, or they may think I don’t know. But I do give answers, the ones I think are right.
I am not obligated to answer any questions, and certainly not “what if” questions.
I will continue to answer serious posts with questions that don’t answer themselves.
Love
Leroy
It’s like that with everything is science, though. We can observe gravity affecting things, and there is also gravitational theory, which attempts to explain how gravity works.
In science, theories are considered better than facts. Facts are merely observable things, after all. Anyone can observe stuff. It’s the theories that tie everything together and explain how things work, using observable facts as their groundwork.
It’s probably the common usage of “theory = guess” that leads people to think that theories are somehow lacking when compared with facts. However, the scientific usage of the term “theory” is significantly different than common usage. “Guess” couldn’t be further from the reality of what a scientific theory is.
Theories are the pinnacles of science. They are what science strives for.
Two issues here. One is the assumption that spiritual practices reduce the suicide rate. Is there any reason to link the two? It’s true that suicide rates have increased over the past century, but I don’t see any evidence that it has anything to do with a weakening of the “spirituality” of people.
The other issue is that debunking spiritual practices offers nothing in return. I feel that it offers quite a bit in return. Knowledge, for one thing.
Maybe that’s just part of who I am, though. I enjoy the persuit of knowledge, and if certain spiritual beliefs are demonstrated to be patently false because of that persuit, well, so be it. I still feel that I have gained more than I have lost.
“if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”
Jesus was the son of god, AFAIK, therefore, not god.
I mean spiritual practices, not religious doctrine, a big difference.
There is actually more scientific proof now than ever before that the spirit world exists. I have not seen skeptics debunk any spiritual practices successfully. It is the skeptics that have no real proof.
http://www.ndeweb.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=65&post=730#POST730
Love
Leroy
Not this again…
The burden of proof is on those who make the claims
Thank you once again lekatt for showing us how not to make an atheist believe.
Mainstream Christian philosophy says Jesus was part of the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and thus he was God.
I hardly think that a study of spirituality among the terminally ill with less than three months to live is applicable to the population at large.
No, it is those who claim that the spirit world exists who have no real proof. Please show me some proof.
I responded to this link earlier in the thread. In a nutshell, that study only examines which factors determine whether or not a person experiences a NDE. The study in no way examines whether NDEs are or are not spiritual in nature. They mention that a spiritual cause for NDEs “should be discussed”. Those are the exact words used. No mention of whether a spiritual cause is even likely to be valid. Just that it should be discussed.
I really have to wonder which part of that study you’re wanting us to look at, since none of it seems to help your case. Maybe I missed something.
You haven’t answered either of my questions (With the caveat that you did reply to one of them with a question, which didn’t answer my question). You have not given answers. You make assertions, then refuse to back them up.
You claim that NDEs are real, that you have proof, and then you refuse to answer the questions about that “proof” that are too dificult for you. If you have “proof,” then both of those two questions would have to have answers already accounted for. If you can’t answer either of them, then you do not have proof, you have speculation.
It’s hilarious that you’re saying skeptics have not debunked any of your claims, when you refuse to show the very portions of your claims that would allow it to be debunked. You are, in essence, saying you’re right, refusing to show your processes, and then saying that since nobody can find fault in your (unseen) processes, you must be right. Bullshit.
You claim to have proof. Show it. Answer the questions.
This is really pretty funny, given your obsession with the idea that life after death has been “proven”. You even claim that your belief in an afterlife is not a question of “faith”, but of hard-headed empirical evidence.
By definition, you haven’t observed what will happen to you after you die. Even if, for the sake of argument, we accept that NDE’s are something more than the random neural firings of an oxygen-deprived brain, how do you know that the state of peace and bliss you describe is permanent? Clearly, you haven’t observed what it’s like to be permanently dead. Maybe everyone experiences the tunnel of light and the feeling of peace and universal love…for ten minutes. Then, people who espouse heretical notions like God never judges anyone are cast screaming into the lake of fire to be tormented for all eternity. (Maybe that little touch of bliss is just to make the subsequent eternity of damnation all the worse.) You don’t believe that–and neither do I–but can you prove it isn’t true, to the standards of proof that you apply to facts you don’t want to accept?
You believe what you want to believe–indeed, you admit this, and apparently glory in it. But believing what you want to believe doesn’t make you a seeker for the truth, it makes you a seeker for what makes you comfortable.
Jesus said: “I and the Father are One.”
People distressed by death are not that much different than those distressed by life. It is hope for a better future that helps us through the troubles of today.
I believe you are the first skeptic to honestly state what the research points out. No, spirituality can not be proven, as yet. But with this research we have the “opportunity” to consider spirituality as an answer. The research shows NDEs are not caused by the dying/dead physical body. That is a great beginning. Thirty years ago Dr. Raymond Moody lost his job for pointing that out. NDEers have been saying that all along.
Now we are ready for the varification of information brought back by the experiencers. The University of Virginia is doing some research on this part. How far along? I don’t know.
Thank you for your honestly in reading and understanding the report. You are a friend of truth.
Love
Leroy
Where’s Athanasius when you need him?!? 
Seriously, Ryle, what you allege (presumably as a debating point) in the quote above was the view of a few heretical sects in the early church, none of which survive. The two I’m certain took that perspective were the Monarchists and the Arians.
In today’s world, Jesus is seen as (a) a compete fabrication who never existed; (b) a human being with (i) megalomaniac delusions, (ii) a great deal of mystical insight, or (iii) both of the above, who was (x) killed as a political activist, (y) the victim of his own eschatological tenets, or (z) a religious teacher convred into a God J.G. by his later followers; or (c) the Second Person of the Trinity incarnate as a human being – God living among us as one of us. Ain’t nobody left who thinks he was God’s special emissary but not God in and of himself.
In saying Son of God, even in the Hebrew where it’s used to mean “man loyal to God” or something quite similar in the O.T., you’re not using a relational genitive but rather an incorporative, not “GWB was the son of GHWB” (relational) but “The Beaver was the son of the Cleaver family in 1950s TV.” If one construes “Tom Daschle is the leader of the Senate Democrats” to imply that Sen. Daschle is not himself a Senate Democrat, since they are defined as people who follow him, and he as the man who leads them, one has played a semantic game of misconstruing how “of” can be used in English, not made a valid point.
As for the basic OP question, the answer is, “You can’t.” Only the Holy Spirit can cause belief, according to Christian doctrine since the days of my namesake; nothing I or 10,000 Screaming Evangelists (yeah, band name :smack: ) can do will instill it. Therefore, what we’re told to do as believers is to live lives that show Christ to our fellow men by how we behave and how we care, making it evident what the Source of our motivation is, but otherwise not overtly preaching Him except as answer to a question. This process “opens the door” for the Spirit to work in the hearts and minds of those with whom we come in contact.
I’m not very good at it; I’m too argumentative, too intellectually oriented, and lately too irritable at people whose Bibles evidently have shoulder-stocks and target scopes. But I do try.