# Judgement Day - an athiest has questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 13, 2003, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748 "2003-02-13T03:19:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/121 "2003-02-18T15:44:47Z")
What? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/122 "2003-02-18T15:56:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > **First, if you are the arbiter of what constitutes justification, then the world is in serious trouble.** Fortunately for the world, I’m not such an arbiter. If we accept the claims of everyone who says, “I believe it, and so it is true”, then we’ll quickly find ourselves accepting mutually exclusive propositions. We also won’t be able to get anything done; if past experience is any guide, there are very few limits on the kinds of claims people can make. > [@](#): > > **Second, demands for evidence vary so widely in their details that the demands of any one person is suspect.** This doesn’t make any sense. The parts of eyewitness accounts most likely to be valid are those that are shared between witnesses. However, we must acknowledge the following: 1. The aspects of NDE’s most commonly present are known to also be the result of brain malfunction, whether through injury, intoxication, or oxygen deprivation. 2. Accounts of NDE’s are so widespread that the quality of any such account is suspect. Allowing eyewitnessess to speak to one another about their experiences inevitably results in their stories becoming more uniform and less trustworthy. 3. I see no reason to give **lekatt** ’s claims any more weight than tales of alien abductions. The evidence in both sorts of cases is the same. Can we utterly rule out alien abductions? No, but I see no reason to give any credence to them. > [@](#): > > **Third, you are violating Ockham’s Razor by introducing the unnecessary entity of directional causation.** Causality is not only generally accepted, but is necessary to virtually all human accomplishments and conclusions. I fail to see how I am multiplying entities unnecessarily. With the given evidence, **lekatt** ’s experiences can be explained by the phenomenon of hallucination. Positing additional causes is not justified. > [@](#): > > \*\*Can we return to the topic, please? \*\* I believe it was Judgment Day, was it not? If I recall, you were making various unsubstantiated claims about the nature of God’s judgment and attempting to back them up by selectively quoting from the New Testament. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/123 "2003-02-18T16:30:18Z")
One of the joys of Ockham’s razor: If you accept the significance of NDEs, then positing hallucinations is adding entities. If you don’t, then positing divine influence is. Until we can get a uniform ground state of what exists, what doesn’t, and what might, with scaled probabilities of what might exist, Ockham’s razor shouldn’t be shared. More hygenic that way. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/124 "2003-02-18T17:41:20Z")
Your point is interesting. I don’t agree with your argument, however. If we accept the idea of hallucinations, attributing NDE’s to them is much simpler than attributing them to divine influence. Believing that a NDE is the experience of a “soul” entering an “afterlife” (for lack of more precise terms) brings up even more questions. What exactly _is_ a soul? Why does it have a relationship with the body? What is the nature of that relationship? What is the afterlife, and what is its connection with the soul? We need far more entities to explain NDE’s as souls’ divine experiences than as malfunctions of the brain. (Additionally: is it spelled ‘Occam’ or ‘Ockham’? I’ve seen it written both ways.) ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/125 "2003-02-18T18:33:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Your point is interesting. I don’t agree with your argument, however. If we accept the idea of hallucinations, attributing NDE’s to them is much simpler than attributing them to divine influence. And if you accept the idea of God, then it is simpler to believe that someone saw Him rather than hallucinating something which acted like Him. My point is that unless two people presuppose the exact same things, O’s Razor isn’t helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/126 "2003-02-18T18:34:38Z")
He was William of Ockham, England. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/127 "2003-02-18T18:45:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertliguori \* > **And if you accept the idea of God, then it is simpler to believe that someone saw Him rather than hallucinating something which acted like Him.** What? A person hovers on the brink of death, in a physical state quite similar to conditions known to produce hallucinations. They experience a sense of pleasure/joy/happiness (which is a known effect of oxygen deprivation and concussions) and perceive things that generally match their religious beliefs. The simplest explanation is that they hallucinated. I believe in the Queen of England, Robert Urich, and Jim Henson. But if I experience them dancing a waltz in the middle of my room while I’m lying in bed with a high fever, I’m not going to assume that they were there, I’m going to assume I was delirious. I will of course consider the possibility that they were there, but without some lingering evidence that they were, the simplest explanation is that I imagined them. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/128 "2003-02-18T18:47:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*He was William of Ockham, England. \*\* His name is spelled either way in biographies. Was there ever a clear spelling? I’m reminded of Shakespeare spelling his name a variety of ways, and I suspect the gentleman in question may have done so as well. Occam or Ockham? ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/129 "2003-02-18T18:51:06Z")
> [@](#): > > **robertliguori** : > > My point is that unless two people presuppose the exact same things, O’s Razor isn’t helpful. > [@](#): > > **Libertarian** : > > He was William of Ockham, England. I have no argument with these statements. I just wanted to say you guys gave me a moment of confusion, as I thought **Lib** was correcting **robert** rather than answering **TVAA**. “Nivver go beyond need when y’re multiplyin’ entities, y’great fool ye…” Billy O’Razor, Ireland ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/130 "2003-02-18T19:32:43Z")
Vorlon wrote: > [@](#): > > What? A person hovers on the brink of death, in a physical state quite similar to conditions known to produce hallucinations. They experience a sense of pleasure/joy/happiness (which is a known effect of oxygen deprivation and concussions) and perceive things that generally match their religious beliefs. The simplest explanation is that they hallucinated. A man decided to try an experiment. He mixed water with whiskey and drank it. The water and whiskey made him drunk. The next day, he mixed water with gin and drank it. The water and gin also made him drunk. On the third day, he mixed water with vodka and drank it. Sure enough, the water and vodka made him drunk. The following day, the man reviewed his data and pondered his experiment. He noticed that water was the common element each day, and that no matter which of the beverages he mixed with water — whiskey, gin, or vodka — he got drunk. He concluded, therefore, that what was making him drunk was the common element, water. Ockham’s Razor does not demand that we oversimplify. It does not even discuss simplification, but multiplication. One famous oversimplification is that of the Razor itself. People who have heard about it third-hand without reading anything about his nominalism, his theology, or his Christology, offer it up as a bruised paraphrase: “the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.” That is nothing like what he in fact said: “do not multiply entities beyond necessity”. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/131 "2003-02-18T19:36:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TVAA \* > \*\*His name is spelled either way in biographies. > > Was there ever a clear spelling? I’m reminded of Shakespeare spelling his name a variety of ways, and I suspect the gentleman in question may have done so as well. > > Occam or Ockham? \*\* [Ockham](http://www.findaproperty.co.uk/cgi-bin/area.pl?areaid=0270&opt=map) ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/132 "2003-02-18T21:51:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TVAA \* > \*\*Fortunately for the world, I’m not such an arbiter. > > If we accept the claims of everyone who says, “I believe it, and so it is true”, then we’ll quickly find ourselves accepting mutually exclusive propositions. We also won’t be able to get anything done; if past experience is any guide, there are very few limits on the kinds of claims people can make. > > This doesn’t make any sense. The parts of eyewitness accounts most likely to be valid are those that are shared between witnesses. However, we must acknowledge the following: > > 1. The aspects of NDE’s most commonly present are known to also be the result of brain malfunction, whether through injury, intoxication, or oxygen deprivation. > > 2. Accounts of NDE’s are so widespread that the quality of any such account is suspect. Allowing eyewitnessess to speak to one another about their experiences inevitably results in their stories becoming more uniform and less trustworthy. > > 3. I see no reason to give **lekatt** ’s claims any more weight than tales of alien abductions. The evidence in both sorts of cases is the same. Can we utterly rule out alien abductions? No, but I see no reason to give any credence to them. > > Causality is not only generally accepted, but is necessary to virtually all human accomplishments and conclusions. I fail to see how I am multiplying entities unnecessarily. > > With the given evidence, **lekatt** ’s experiences can be explained by the phenomenon of hallucination. Positing additional causes is not justified. > > I believe it was Judgment Day, was it not? If I recall, you were making various unsubstantiated claims about the nature of God’s judgment and attempting to back them up by selectively quoting from the New Testament. \*\* I can tell you know little about NDEs by your posts. There is a great deal of evidence NDEs are real. Scientific studies show that, and many more scientists are working on metaphysical events than ever before because of them. [http://ndeweb.com/wildcard](http://ndeweb.com/wildcard) start here and follow the links, use the search engines to find a lot more, at Duke University, University of Virginia, and University of Colorado. NDEs directly impact this thread, if new knowledge is available, then the old will not be returned to in tramatic events. Love Leroy ---
**Author:** ![Iamthat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Iamthat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamthat)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/133 "2003-02-18T22:03:59Z")
posted by **TVAA** > [@](#): > > If God is real, then knowledge about God assists you in dealing with the world. If God isn’t real, then “knowledge” about God (other than His unreality and assigned characteristics) isn’t useful. If god isn’t real then knowledge about god isn’t real, meaning it isn’t **knowledge**. However if god doesn’t exist but concepts of god do, those concepts can have value and can be useful. The devil might not exist, but concepts about the devil are useful. Nothing doesn’t exist but the concept is useful. Non-existence doesn’t exist but the idea has use and value. Of course, What is value?, What is use? ---
**Author:** ![Iamthat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Iamthat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iamthat)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/134 "2003-02-18T22:20:38Z")
Interesting link/site **lekatt** ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2003, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/135 "2003-02-18T22:46:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Libertarian \* > \*\*A man decided to try an experiment. He mixed water with whiskey and drank it. The water and whiskey made him drunk. The next day, he mixed water with gin and drank it. The water and gin also made him drunk. On the third day, he mixed water with vodka and drank it. Sure enough, the water and vodka made him drunk. The following day, the man reviewed his data and pondered his experiment. He noticed that water was the common element each day, and that no matter which of the beverages he mixed with water — whiskey, gin, or vodka — he got drunk. He concluded, therefore, that what was making him drunk was the common element, water. \*\* If the man had been less ignorant, he would have realized that alcohol was also a common ingredient. If the man had been less of an idiot, he would have realized that he had drunken water many times previously without becoming drunk. He would then have concluded that the simplest explanation for his experiences was that the alcohol was responsible. > [@](#): > > **Ockham’s Razor does not demand that we oversimplify. It does not even discuss simplification, but multiplication.** If we oversimplify, we’re not describing the situation accurately, so Ockham’s reasoning would forbid us from doing so. The point is not simplification, but simplicity: Ockham avoided using explanations that were more complex than they needed to be. **Libertarian** ’s statements are correct, but misleading in the greater sense. Once again, he’s missed the point. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/136 "2003-02-19T05:17:23Z")
I have examined **lekatt** ’s linked site. It is quite possibly the poorest logical argument I have ever had the displeasure of reading. I don’t have the strength to rebutt it now. I shall do so tomorrow. [sigh] ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/137 "2003-02-19T08:45:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TVAA \* > \*\*I have examined **lekatt** ’s linked site. > > It is quite possibly the poorest logical argument I have ever had the displeasure of reading. > > I don’t have the strength to rebutt it now. I shall do so tomorrow. > > [sigh] \*\* If you’re talking about the controlled studies I linked to don’t bother telling me about them, I have read them, and there were more than one. You need to email the scientists, professors and doctors that conducted them and tell them what the problem is, I am sure they will bow to your superior knowledge on these things. Love Leroy ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/138 "2003-02-19T13:52:50Z")
Why is it that people trying to prove the validity of religious belief cite scientists when their findings help them and ignore them when they don’t? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2003, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/139 "2003-02-19T15:08:39Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t have the strength to rebutt it now. I shall do so tomorrow. Phaedrus?? Is that you? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2003, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748/140 "2003-02-21T02:03:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*Consciousness has never been observed. > Neither has it been weighed or measured. > The source of consciousness is unknown. > It’s location, within or without the body, has never been discovered. > No one has determined what consciousness consists of, or contains. > And, there’s not one single bit of scientific proof that consciousness is biological. \*\*Ignoring several minor grammatical errors, there are still several things wrong with these sentences. In what way is consciousness not observed? I can observe awareness of things in virtually everyone I meet. Not weighed? Plenty of massless things exist, ideas among them. I don’t recall anyone ever weighing pain, but who suggests that pain requires complex metaphysics to understand? Well, if you damage people’s brains, it affects their consciousness. People have had almost every other part of the body cut into and replaced, yet they generally retain their consciousness. And as far as I can tell, no one is ever conscious without a brain. I’d say there’s plenty of evidence suggesting the brain is the source of consciousness. If there were only a little bit of scientific proof that consciousness is biological, there wouldn’t be anything to debate. (Being a little bit proven is like being a little bit pregnant.) > [@](#): > > \*\*True, we don’t know what it is, only that it exists. Consciousness remains undefined. \*\* If we know only that consciousness exists, there wouldn’t be anything else we could say about it. The concept is quite well defined: [consciousness](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=consciousness) [conscious](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=conscious) > [@](#): > > \*\* No matter how hard or long scientists look in the brain for things like consciousness, memory, mind, personality, dreams, NDEs, OBEs, etc. they will not be found. The brain is not the source of these events. \*\* Aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves? I’m willing to consider the possibility that the brain isn’t the source of these phenonema (although the results of brain stimulation would be difficult to explain if that’s the case), but I see no grounds for discarding the possibility. > [@](#): > > \*\*Albert Einstein was one of the most intelligent and prolific contributors to the field of science in the twentieth-century. His brain was donated to science for studies of how he acquired such great intelligence. But researchers found that Einstein’s brain was smaller than most, and contained nothing unusual. It did, however, contain a larger number of synapses, the minute space between one nerve cell and another nerve cell, through which nerve impulses are transmitted from one to the other. He had more “connections” than the average person, more “channels” for his consciousness to use. The more you use your brain, the more synapses develop. \*\* Oh brother. The site is quite right in saying that Einstein’s brain didn’t show any obvious abnormalities. His neural networks did seem unusually complex and dense. The rest of this is gibberish. From the argument presented, it would seem that the more connections between neurons, the better one could think, but this simply isn’t the case. Rudimentary understanding of neural net theory is grossly lacking here. Regarding the Pam Reynolds story: it’s not uncommon for patients to report remembering things that happened during surgery. In some cases, they also report floating above their bodies. However, no one has ever been able to demonstrate that they actually saw anything. Doctors have placed signs on the top of lights in operating rooms, yet patients who have had NDE’s didn’t report seeing them. It’s also difficult to determine _when_ the patient had such an experience. The patient could have had the experiences while recovering, yet the experiences could be of leaving the body during surgery. Without a context, there’s no way of associating the experiences with any particular time frame. The third section, where the author declares “I believe this is as conclusive as proof gets”, is too painful to begin arguing against. First, that isn’t proof; at best, it’s evidence. Skeptics are neither for nor against any specific claim; instead, they doubt everything and demand evidence for all claims. Skeptics don’t need to prove anything; nor do those who not only doubt but disbelieve the supernatural nature of NDE’s. The individuals making the extraordinary claims that these phenomena indicate that the nature of the universe is fundamentally different from what is generally accepted need to present evidence and strong arguments. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/judgement-day-an-athiest-has-questions/154748.md?page=6)