If God Made Me, He Knows I Can't Believe in Him

Great Debates
281

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
No, it musn’t be because of that at all.

You’re saying that neither their minds were physically altered and that reality didn’t change, and so they must have made a decision. Nope. Certainly those things are so. But reality doesn’t need to change; all that’s needed is our view of reality to change.
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There I’m quite in agreement with you. If our view of reality changes, that’s quite sufficient to produce our changes in beliefs. However, changes in perceptions of reality can come about in numerous ways. In some cases external stimulus produces the desired result. However, in many cases, it results from purely internal circumstances. For example, a man may wake up in the morning believing that he lives in good economic circumstances. However, if something occurs which makes him angry, he may channel that anger into resentment of others more wealthy than him, and soon be believes that he lives in bad economic circumstances. Many beliefs can change under the influence of our emotions, and obviously emotions are just one of many possible sources of mental turmoil. But the point is that in that example, the man didn’t change his beliefs because he discovered new facts.

My previous example with the Republicans and Saddam illustrates an even more important point, and one more relevant to this thread. If someone has an ideology, they often change their beliefs to meet the needs of the ideology. Hence those who were firmly attached to the Republican leadership generally chose to believe whatever that leadership told them, even if it meant believing the opposite of what they believed a short time before. Since the Republicans seesawed on the Saddam issue not just once but several times, it’s unlikely that all of them were merely reacting to new information about Saddam.

282

[QUOTE=ITR champion]
There I’m quite in agreement with you. If our view of reality changes, that’s quite sufficient to produce our changes in beliefs. However, changes in perceptions of reality can come about in numerous ways. In some cases external stimulus produces the desired result. However, in many cases, it results from purely internal circumstances. For example, a man may wake up in the morning believing that he lives in good economic circumstances. However, if something occurs which makes him angry, he may channel that anger into resentment of others more wealthy than him, and soon be believes that he lives in bad economic circumstances. Many beliefs can change under the influence of our emotions, and obviously emotions are just one of many possible sources of mental turmoil. But the point is that in that example, the man didn’t change his beliefs because he discovered new facts.
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(my bolding)

Is that not an external stimulus?

You have yet to prove they chose to believe those things. I’m not familiar with that seesawing, but i’ll assume you’re correct and not ask for a cite; it didn’t necessarily have to be new information about Saddam. It could just be the same information presented in a different way; plenty of opinion pieces in whatever media could account for such flip-flopping. Plus of course it could be that they didn’t think it through at one point, and later came to a different conclusion.

I think rather that when people have an ideology, they are more likely to view and trust people who share that ideology, and so come to a common set of beliefs. But I still see no evidence that you can choose your beliefs at all. All you do is react to external stimulus. You yourself don’t get a say, other than to choose what stimulus to expose yourself to, but that as well is the result of some outside influence.

283

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
But do you believe in jesus or god? Do you believe in the supernatural or in some of the ideas an ancient human had?
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I don’t believe in symbols or doctrine or anything I haven’t personally experienced. I couldn’t possibly tell you what I have experienced, you wouldn’t believe it anyway. So if you wish to know, really wish to know, about life, and all the trappings start walking the path of unconditional love. Learn to love, yourself and all others. If you don’t know how, just ask. Someone will show/tell you.

284

[QUOTE=lekatt]
I don’t believe in symbols or doctrine or anything I haven’t personally experienced. I couldn’t possibly tell you what I have experienced, you wouldn’t believe it anyway. So if you wish to know, really wish to know, about life, and all the trappings start walking the path of unconditional love. Learn to love, yourself and all others. If you don’t know how, just ask. Someone will show/tell you.
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Here’s how it works-first you tell us about your experiences, the we decide whether or not we believe them.
Unless you are claiming you can now read our minds.

285

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Here’s how it works-first you tell us about your experiences, the we decide whether or not we believe them.
Unless you are claiming you can now read our minds.
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No, I don’t read minds either, but my experience tells me the answer will be don’t believe no matter what.

286

[QUOTE=lekatt]
No, I don’t read minds either, but my experience tells me the answer will be don’t believe no matter what.
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If all you’ve got is conjecture based on wishful thinking and anecdotes, you might be right. If you actually have evidence, that evidence will be examined. IMHO, on the other hand, anyone saying, “I could come forth with proof(or evidence) but I won’t because you wouldn’t believe me anyway!” should be dismissed out of hand.

287

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
If all you’ve got is conjecture based on wishful thinking and anecdotes, you might be right. If you actually have evidence, that evidence will be examined. IMHO, on the other hand, anyone saying, “I could come forth with proof(or evidence) but I won’t because you wouldn’t believe me anyway!” should be dismissed out of hand.
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I have shown you real evidence, through real research, by real scientists, working at real universities many times. All I can say is you have a real short memory.

288

[QUOTE=lekatt]
I have shown you real evidence, through real research, by real scientists, working at real universities many times. All I can say is you have a real short memory.
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You continue to repeat this claim without having actually done this on any occasion. You have posted references to a few studies in which people reported and interpreted anecdotes. I agree that the real medical people have poked around a number of genuinely reported events and published some interesting speculation. However, every time you have claimed that there was a real scientific study, when we have examined your claim we find that it has been nothing more than interpretations of anecdotes. There has been no scientific study that has produced evidence for us to examine and your repeated attempts to make that false claim are silly.

289

[QUOTE=lekatt]
I don’t believe in symbols or doctrine or anything I haven’t personally experienced. I couldn’t possibly tell you what I have experienced, you wouldn’t believe it anyway. So if you wish to know, really wish to know, about life, and all the trappings start walking the path of unconditional love. Learn to love, yourself and all others. If you don’t know how, just ask. Someone will show/tell you.
[/QUOTE]

You’re going to have to come up with more than that, lekatt. You and the other “unconditional love” folks can’t even come to an agreement on what “love” is. If you mean a supernatural power, say “god.” If you mean, “everything that feels good to me but may be chapping everyone else’s ass” say, “new age crystal-waving religion that only means something to me.” Your communication skills leave much to be desired.

290

[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Is that not an external stimulus?
[/QUOTE]
Minor nitpick: on rare occasions I have changed my opinion due to purely internal speculation - based on a review of internal facts and spending some time in wandering thought that leads me down a deductive path I have not followed before, which leads to an epiphany of sorts that dramatically revises my opinions and perspective. So, I would hazard that “external” stimulus is not strictly required to alter an opinion or belief.

Now, of course, once I have my epiphany, I have no choice but to believe my resulting conclusion, just as I had no choice but to believe my previous belief before that. But I did have the choice whether or no to think about the belief in question, so through that avenue, there is a certain amount of choice involved in maintaining/changing beliefs.

And I know a lot of people who make choices just like this, quite often; they choose not to entertain notions that might challenge their existing beliefs. One supposes that if you were to do the opposite, and refuse to dismiss notions that are contradictory to your current beliefs, then you would be at least open to changes to your beliefs, were that the goal.

(You would also be open to being scammed mercilessly, were you to throw wide your credibility indiscriminately enough, though, so I’d encourage caution.)

291

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
You’re going to have to come up with more than that, lekatt. You and the other “unconditional love” folks can’t even come to an agreement on what “love” is. If you mean a supernatural power, say “god.” If you mean, “everything that feels good to me but may be chapping everyone else’s ass” say, “new age crystal-waving religion that only means something to me.” Your communication skills leave much to be desired.
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I said what I intended to say, but it has nothing to do with what you posted.

292

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
You continue to repeat this claim without having actually done this on any occasion. You have posted references to a few studies in which people reported and interpreted anecdotes. I agree that the real medical people have poked around a number of genuinely reported events and published some interesting speculation. However, every time you have claimed that there was a real scientific study, when we have examined your claim we find that it has been nothing more than interpretations of anecdotes. There has been no scientific study that has produced evidence for us to examine and your repeated attempts to make that false claim are silly.
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As I said before Tom, if you have a problem with the research that shows consciousness continues to live after the death of the brain and body, best take it up with the good doctors who published the research. I am just the messenger.

You see it is not my claim, it is the claim of the researchers.

293

[QUOTE=lekatt]
As I said before Tom, if you have a problem with the research that shows consciousness continues to live after the death of the brain and body, best take it up with the good doctors who published the research. I am just the messenger.

You see it is not my claim, it is the claim of the researchers.
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You are misquoting them for your own purposes. No researcher has claimed that he has demonstrated consciousness in a brain death state. Several of have inferred that it might be the case, but not one of them has demonstrated that situation.

You are free to believe what you wish. As long as you falsely claim things that have not been demonstrated, I will continue to correct your posts for the audience at home.

294

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
You are misquoting them for your own purposes. No researcher has claimed that he has demonstrated consciousness in a brain death state. Several of have inferred that it might be the case, but not one of them has demonstrated that situation.

You are free to believe what you wish. As long as you falsely claim things that have not been demonstrated, I will continue to correct your posts for the audience at home.
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Dr. Sam Parnia: “During cardiac arrest brainstem activity is rapidly lost. It should not be able to sustain such lucid processes or allow the formation of lasting memories.”

Pim Van Lommel’s well-known research study published in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, also notes that cerebral activity flatlines within 4 to 20 seconds of cardiac arrest.

“How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? . . . Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience. NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation. In our prospective study of patients that were clinically dead (flat EEG, showing no electrical activity in the cortex and loss of brain stem function evidenced by fixed dilated pupils and absence of the gag reflex) the patients report a clear consciousness, in which cognitive functioning, emotion, sense of identity, or memory from early childhood occurred, as well as perceptions from a position out and above their ‘dead’ body.” (Van Lommel, Van Wees, Meyers, Elfferich (2001). Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands. Lancet.)

The Dying Brain Theory also doesn’t explain why only 18% of those who are brought back from clinical death experience an NDE, while the remaining 82% do not. Even under the exact same conditions.

“Our most striking finding was that Near-Death Experiences do not have a physical or medical root. After all, 100 per cent of the patients suffered a shortage of oxygen, 100 per cent were given morphine-like medications, 100 per cent were victims of severe stress, so those are plainly not the reasons why 18 per cent had Near-Death Experiences and 82 percent didn’t. If they had been triggered by any one of those things, everyone would have had Near-Death Experiences.” (Van Lommel 1995)

295

I guess that just makes them special! :rolleyes:

296

I wonder if Parnia and Van Lommel interrogated their subjects about their NDEs within 4 to 20 microseconds of the cardiac arrest? Or do you suppose that they might have waited some time afterwards, perhaps allowing the brain time to restart first, with whatever dreams and fantasies a restarting brain might have?

The science here doesn’t support the conclusion drawn; the conclusion isn’t science.
Of course, based on the longer quote: preconceptions much? He’s already decided that NDEs are real, and is blindly ignoring the other likely explanations. Methinks it’s time for a double-blind study, 'cause there’s clearly plenty of tester bias here!

This isn’t science; it’s an opinon commentary.
And I like how the fact that only 18% of the subjects reported NDEs is supposed to somehow support that NDEs are real. Hey, chemotheraphy doesn’t cure 100% of cancer patients! Why, it must have no effect at all then, and as for those that do get better: demons did it. Definitely. (Somebody should mention to these boys that they’re nowhere near to having controlled for every factor or eliminated all sources of contamination.

This isn’t science; this is just flailing around desperately (as one tends to do when they haven’t a leg to stand on).

297

lekatt, you are simply repeatring the studies that we already know and thay I am willing to accept in terms of brain flat-line.

What I have noted on every occasion, and which you carefully talk around in the hopes that no one will notice, is that the OBE experiences have never been demonstrated to have occurred during the flat-line time period and could just as easily have occurred before the brain went flat-line or after the brain was revived. While several of your doctors would very much like the various events to have occurred during flat-line, not one of them has actually provided a timeline that demonstrated that the OBE occurred during flat-line.

The best documented case that has been published is that of Pam Reytnolds by Dr. Sabom and every single event in the OR that she describes was ongoing before her brain was “stopped” or continuing after her brain was “restarted.”

Note, again, that I have not made any argument that the events cannot have occurred during flat-line. I am simply pointing out that you always want them to have occurred during flat-line and not one of them is documented to have done so, yet you continue to repeat your unsubstantiated claim as though it has been proven when it has not.

298

There are several operations which require that the patient be brought to a state of clinical death. In one brain operation, the surgical team lowered the patient’s body temperature to something like 35 F, and drained all of the blood. The heart was stopped, and the operation took over an hour. Then, the blood was pumped back in, the heart restarted, and the body warmed. I wonder what this patient reported-there was a long period of no brain wave activity.

299

[QUOTE=begbert2]
Minor nitpick: on rare occasions I have changed my opinion due to purely internal speculation - based on a review of internal facts and spending some time in wandering thought that leads me down a deductive path I have not followed before, which leads to an epiphany of sorts that dramatically revises my opinions and perspective. So, I would hazard that “external” stimulus is not strictly required to alter an opinion or belief.

Now, of course, once I have my epiphany, I have no choice but to believe my resulting conclusion, just as I had no choice but to believe my previous belief before that. But I did have the choice whether or no to think about the belief in question, so through that avenue, there is a certain amount of choice involved in maintaining/changing beliefs.

And I know a lot of people who make choices just like this, quite often; they choose not to entertain notions that might challenge their existing beliefs. One supposes that if you were to do the opposite, and refuse to dismiss notions that are contradictory to your current beliefs, then you would be at least open to changes to your beliefs, were that the goal.

(You would also be open to being scammed mercilessly, were you to throw wide your credibility indiscriminately enough, though, so I’d encourage caution.)
[/QUOTE]
Fair points. I would say that behind people’s periods of introspection there’s still some external stimulus involved, even if that was long ago and you’re only now thinking about it. But you’re right, you could consider thinking about it to be an internal stimulus with the same effect. I’d say also that it is these stimuli that will affect your judgement as to choosing whether to think about things, so even there you don’t really have a choice to think about it or not. Either way, i’d still say you don’t have any choice in what your beliefs are.

300

[QUOTE=lekatt]
The Dying Brain Theory also doesn’t explain why only 18% of those who are brought back from clinical death experience an NDE, while the remaining 82% do not. Even under the exact same conditions.

“Our most striking finding was that Near-Death Experiences do not have a physical or medical root. After all, 100 per cent of the patients suffered a shortage of oxygen, 100 per cent were given morphine-like medications, 100 per cent were victims of severe stress, so those are plainly not the reasons why 18 per cent had Near-Death Experiences and 82 percent didn’t. If they had been triggered by any one of those things, everyone would have had Near-Death Experiences.” (Van Lommel 1995)
[/QUOTE]
Something of a mistake here; you seem to be applying the percentages from one study to all people everywhere, which seems a bit… rushed. But ah well.

I have an explanation for the difference; people are different. I’ve not had an NDE, but I have had some minor experience with drugs, and I can tell you that when it comes to the brain people can be affected quite differently with the same general situation. Plus I seem to recall you’ve suggested before that more people than those who recall NDEs actually have them; that actually people might just forget them. Couldn’t this also be used to explain this discrepancy?