Hi! Can we have a few moments of your time to talk to you about the Jehovah’s Witnesses?..
@ MEB
::: concedes point :::
::: casually wonders if MEB could be persuaded to edit his post to insert sane between “nobody” and “left” :::
I assume you’re real name is Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John (or possibly Paul or something else), but I giggle every time I see you say this. I think I missed the Book of Polycarp… 
As for the evolution debate… I’m not going to get deeply into it, except for these two points:
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I went to a salad bar yesterday, and saw evidence of evolution. Man is able to speed up the process through artificial selection, but the mechanism is the same.
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Biology doesn’t make any sense without evolution. If we don’t teach evolution, we force students to memorize everything without any sort of relation. “Why do cells have these complex mechanisms for exchanging genetic information, some of which (such as transposition) can often lead to errors in the genome? What purpose do they serve?” “I’m sorry, I can’t explain that. There’s a simple explanation for what they’re there for which would make their existance make perfect sense, but it would be wrong for me to teach you this scientific explanation which has left other evidence which will seem completely unrelated when I teach it next week.”
:smack: Doh! Just did a web search. Please ignore that comment
Your friend must think God is stupid if he sends GOOD people to hell.
Get a Cruden’s Concordance and look up HELL. The translation is wrong. I was just telling this to a dumb Christian today who never heard of SHEOL.
HELL is Roman paganism.
Dal Timgar
Not to pile on, but this s the Islamic take on Jesus as well.
Don’t normally answer posts like this, where the poster asks and answers his own questions.
But ran across an article about skeptics and felt it applied.
http://www.near-death.com/discussions/0014.html
Love
Leroy
The problem with threads is that there are so many ways to go, although I’ll try to not veer too far off the OP. People have brought up some interesting points. My dad’s a pastor along with some uncles and a grandpa so I guess you could say I was “indoctrined” in the christain faith from an early age. I saw many different approaches to God and became determined to not be take the emotional, filled feared, not ask any questions so as not to possibly change as one came to more rational conclusions path. I try to make my belief based on reason, although it is hard to not have one’s viewpoints based on emotional responses, especially to early experiences. I’ve wondered at times which comes first, reason or emotion. Do we draw an emotional conclusion and try to reason our way to it more often that not? Myabe that’s what belief is about, the emotional state that leads us to feel we know something that is awfully hard for anyone to reason themselves out of for how does one reason with emotion that is based on a lifetime of experiences? The thing is I think we do have some control over what we believe, and this is simply the choice in making oneself open to other ideas, other people, other experiences. For example I could say I think chrisatinity is best so I don’t need to read about any other religion, I don’t need to expose myself to other ideas, other people with different views and experiences. I know christains who live this way, who are so caught up in fear of their world being shaken that this is how they live, but to me that is not living in faith. It is living in fear which seems the opposite of faith. What kind of faith doesn’t think the quest for truth leads to God? If it does then we should seek it with our whole heart using all our facilities including reason. Isn’t that what having a desire to follow God is all about, seeking him with all of our being? Sorry for going off somewhat. This has more to do with attitudes I’ve encountered elsewhere than here and I have the need to vent at times. Anyway that is how we can choose to allow our believes to change, by being open to experiences different than the ones that shaped those believes in the first place. It seems you are trying to do this, and that is highly commendable, and is bascially the path to God if he exists, simple, honest seeking. I try to honestly seek truth, despite misgivings from my mom about being led astray, and I have become a different person by choosing to try look at different ideas and challenge my own. My life has defintely been enriched, and it’s nice not to live in fear of the world too. One more note. I don’t think faith involves being blind to reason, having to let go of one’s logic. To me faith is about things we do not know so we take a step of faith. I notice some people talk about acting as if there is a God even if one doesn’t believe there is. I can see why some people think this is not being true to your reason and therefore wrong. I say always be honest. It is possible to take a step of faith even if one doesn’t believe without being intellectually dishonestas one starts out with that premise. Say I don’t believe there is a God, but I’ll pray and see what happens. To be scientific how does one test laws one can’t see like gravity? Drop an apple, take a step out of bed. I don’t fully understand gravity, but I have faith it is there and act on that faith every day with unfailing results so far. If I allow myself to be open as you seem to be doing then maybe someday I’ll come to the belief that there is not God. So far my experience of seeing God work in people’s lifes on a very personal level and a more worldwide level such as Mother Theresa and Ghandi to name a couple has led me to believe there is a good being working in this world. There are people who have come to a belief from an intellectual seeking. One person I like more and more who came to a faith later in life is C.S. Lewis. He might be an interesting read, if you haven’t read him already, to answer some questions on the existance of God.
I beleive in paragraphs… thou not in god…
I always see a million and one mistakes after I post, even though I tend to read it over a couple of times before posting. Something about the small box I think. Oh well, hopefully it’s still mostly intelligable.
I always see a million and one mistakes after I post, even though I tend to read it over a couple of times before posting. Something about the small box I think. Oh well, hopefully it’s still mostly intelligable.
And now I’ve posted the same thing twice. Paragraphs would be good too. I think I’ll go sort some papers now.
Why dont they allow editing of posts in this forum ? Wierd… makes it harder to correct mistakes.
And as always, it’s completely wrong, and relies entirely upon strawman assertions of skeptic beliefs. To address your article:
- No such claim has been made.
- No such claim has been made, appart from the empirical witnessed activity occuring while concious and ceasing when dead.
- No such claim has been made in regards to the first half, and we seem to be carrying on a bit too much debating for the second half to be true, either.
- No such claim has been made (Note that this is different from the much more accurate “there is no solid evidence that conciousness survives death”). At most, this can be reasoned as a default state; no solid evidence has been presented to even indicate this might be true, so it is reasonable to assume, lacking evidence of it’s existance, that it is false, until such time as evidence is presented.
- Untrue. My skepticism applies evenly, regardless of how much I want something to be true or not. This is the typical skeptic stance.
- No such claim has been made. Though this seems to be a strawman argument against bringing in evidence against certain claims of NDEs; For example, pointing out that NDE-like experiences can happen without dying, and therefor, the experience itself is not indicative of NDEs being true, without further evidence to support it.
- No such claim has been made.
- Untrue. Solid evidence of NDEs/afterlife has not been presented, or has been thoroughly debunked, so it can’t be said to be taken “regardless” of the evidence. Anecdotal evidence has been demonstrated many times to be unreliable.
- Untrue. First, circumstantial evidence hardly helps your cause, as there are many other conclusions that can be drawn from the same circumstantial evidence, which do not rely upon NDEs. And second, the fact that NDE-like experiences can be induced by things such as drugs and GLOC are used to demonstrate only that such experiences themselves are not proof of an afterlife, as they can be achieved without death involved.
- No such claim has been made.
- You have no room to brag on this one. You’ve been slinging Ad Hominems and similar attacks with the best of them.
Ironically, several of those could be applied to you, if we change the wording slightly to address NDE-believers, instead of skeptics. Especially the refusal to address evidence, facts, and questions that are opposing your viewpoint. And since we’re on the topic:
- 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?
Oh, wonderful - Leroy:
(12) Have not stopped beating their wives.
I haven’t seen this many strawmen since the Wizard of Oz auditions.
Aww, damn, I missed one
You guys are doing exactly what the article says you do.
Bravo!
Phoenix Dragon rebutted the article’s points one by one. How is that “doing exactly what the article says [we] do”?
Oh, Lekatt.
I've posted before that my own research into the mind-brain connection, more specifically my monitoring of the human NonCorporealConsciousnessField, *has* given me proof of near-death-experiences.
However, only those people with Actualized MetaConsciousMinds are capable of perceiving this evidence. An UnActualized person could no more see my evidence then they could see radio waves.
James Randi is not Actualized. Thus, I cannot claim the million dollars.
But, my evidence has been sufficient to convince those of my fellow Etheric Scientists who doubted the existence of the phenomenon.
That is how science and skepticism really work.
1 We do not assume we know everything. If we knew everything there would be no point in our many researches. A true scientist delights in just how much humanity does not know. It is all the more territory for us to explore.
2 I assume nothing when it comes to death or consciousness. I make a multitude of repeated observations. I simultaneously record as much as possible. I form hypotheses based on the data. I test the hypotheses through experimentation. I verify the results of these experiments by statistical analysis. I determine whether my results are reproducible by other scientists conducting the same experiment.
3 I believe as a matter of my personal faith, in an afterlife. As a scientist, I have no evidence indicating its existence or nonexistence.
4 I make no claims about death, NCCF’s, or the human mind in general without evidence. I hold a doctorate in EtherPsychology. I have done more hours of field observation than I can count. I have had my findings published in peer-reviewed journals. I have NEVER claimed expertise I don’t have.
5 I apply my standards of proof to any claim. If a product makes a claim(Lose 20 pounds in 48 hours!), I want evidence. If a politician makes a claim(My budget will reduce taxes and the deficit), I want evidence. When an individual claims an extraordinary experience, I want evidence.
6 I don’t respond to claims that haven’t been made.
7 I have never argued that an afterlife “contradicts established theories of nature.”. For one thing, I don’t know what a “theory of nature” is. Would that be biology? Chemistry? Physics? If physics, would that be Newtonian, relativity. or quantum physics?
8 As I have already said, I do believe in afterlife. I have never made any scientific claims regarding its existence or lack thereof.
9 I have proven that most NDEs are hallucinations. But in some cases, the NCCF does leave the physical body and then return.
10 Huh? I have proof that the NDEs exist. I have no proof regarding werewolves. I make no claim to the existence of werewolves or the lack thereof.
11 I have never resorted to personal attacks. My goal in such debate is not beat my opponent down, but to raise him up, to rip away the plastic veil covered in cheap sequins and show him the true sky with its thousand shining wonders.
The one thing that would force this Atheist to believe is if someday we had contact with an alien species who was in possession of a Bible. Not our Bible, but their own documentation of a Jesus/Moses/Mohammad type of character brought to them from someone they refer to as “God”.
Granted: The Bible that the alien species had would not have to match up word for word (how could it?), but the main themes would have to match.
Exception: If the alien species was anything like humans, then they too would be looking to the sky for answers, and may invent beings to explain such events as floods, famines, and disease.