From the recounting/link:
huh… seems almost to answer itself. And I see nothing of anyone taking a pulse - only a quiet knowing…
Sigh…
I’m glad that you found purpose and meaning in your attempt and ended up pursuing a different course. I do, however, in the interest of truth and honesty hope you can examine that event and acknowledge all you had was a “knowing” and not any proof of death… (that I saw)
I will not be lured into reading that whole thing - I’m not game to manipulations.
This is the kind of fucking outrageous arrogance that wins you no friends here. Do you really think the only reason people disagree with you is because they are afraid of the truth? You are mighty sure about your own infallibility. Try taking a more modest attitude toward your knowledge of the truth–you’ll find entertaining the possibility that you might be wrong on occasion makes your mind more open. I have never seen you seriously consider a piece of evidence against your position. Maybe you should reconsider just who, exactly, is afraid of critically examining their own views.
You misinterpret my words. On my web site I have considered all the possible evidence against spirituality in great detail, at least all that I am aware of, if there is more I will be happy to consider it. Now fear doesn’t keep people from believing what they want to believe, but fear freezes the mind and the body if it is strong enough, into non-consideration and non-action respectively. Note the post where **Anomalous Reading ** says " I will not be lured into reading that whole thing - I’m not game to manipulations." This is the kind of fear I am talking about. You can’t have an open discussion if the posters will not read the posts or links.
I will be very happy to discuss any evidence you may have to the contrary of the spiritual nature of mankind. I prefer to consider only one thing at a time so concentration is better, but it’s your choice.
I have posted on this board for years and have seen very few people with opposing views that will even read the material. Then most only as far as they can find some assumed problem. It seems to me if people believe in something based on the best evidence they will not be hesitant to discuss that evidence with others, and if they find better evidence to change their beliefs. That’s what science is all about, at least good science. Near death experiencers do just that, through their experience they find evidence that allows them to change their lives for the better. They check out that evidence in the reality of living and then they tell others.
OK let’s debate, discuss, and learn.
lekatt I think you and I have some beliefs in common. Not intending to be snarky or harsh, but IMHO an adult manner would be not insisting that unscientific data is scientific. I expect discussions with people who share some of my spiritual beliefs to be very different from those who strongly disagree. I come here to discuss with the more eloquent and informed atheists to challenge and refine my own beliefs, and occasionally to challenge an argument i think has holes in it. I don’t come to prove anything to them. I know when I enter a thread that the kind of evidence they will ask for isn’t available.
It’s only reasonable to expect skeptics to reject subjective experiences as solid evidence and proof. Insisting that you know something based on your experiences and lots of anecdotal evidence doesn’t cut it here , nor should you expect it to.
I am not sure how to answer. While I have been accused of what you say it has not happened. Where I have said there is scientific evidence I have provided links to such and shown that it is published in scientific journals. Where I have given personal opinions or personal experience I have stated such. Most of the objections are to personal experiences. True, most personal experiences are not verifiable, however, many near death experiences have been verified and are called veridical NDEs. There are being collected by researchers, one such study is below:
So, unless you can supply a sample of what you are talking about I am at a loss to comment further.
My critics are not only atheists, but theists as well. My goal is to educate, not to change the minds of anyone. The world is changing very fast now, I hope we can continue to cope with it in the future.
Let’s say it’s a coincidence that I just found and read (most of) a similar experience to yours at http://www.ski-zermatt.com/love on Monday.
I read the transcript of the doc that had the stroke, too.
Too much unexplained in this world leaves me unwilling to ignore the possiblities. I like exploring them. Even if I don’t believe or agree with them - I can believe they were real for others.
I believe you learned something important with your experience.
Where did that thought come from? It wasn’t the way you saw it. The way you saw it caused a deep hurt in you. I have seen things that way, too.
Something else (or someone) showed you another way to see things and you not only got it, you embraced it as a better way to understand. It let the hurt go but left the lesson of it for you.
And that is why I wrote my experience out, finally. My perspective changed. Others might need to know what had happen to me.
I have found others that experienced like events in their lives. They are different enough to be individually unique but they are enough the same, in location, feeling, and contacts, to let me know others have been where I was.
Others have understood what you have, too. [/COLOR]
Let’s say it’s a coincidence that I just found and read (most of) a similar experience to yours at http://www.ski-zermatt.com/love on Monday.
I read the transcript of the doc that had the stroke, too.
Too much unexplained in this world leaves me unwilling to ignore the possiblities. I like exploring them. Even if I don’t believe or agree with them - I can believe they were real for others.
I believe you learned something important with your experience.
Where did that thought come from? It wasn’t the way you saw it. The way you saw it caused a deep hurt in you. I have seen things that way, too.
Something else (or someone) showed you another way to see things and you not only got it, you embraced it as a better way to understand. It let the hurt go but left the lesson of it for you.
And that is why I wrote my experience out, finally. My perspective changed. Others might need to know what had happen to me.
I have found others that experienced like events in their lives. They are different enough to be individually unique but they are enough the same, in location, feeling, and contacts, to let me know others have been where I was.
Others have understood what you have, too. [/COLOR]
Let’s say it’s a coincidence that I just found and read (most of) a similar experience to yours at http://www.ski-zermatt.com/love on Monday.
I read the transcript of the doc that had the stroke, too.
Too much unexplained in this world leaves me unwilling to ignore the possiblities. I like exploring them. Even if I don’t believe or agree with them - I can believe they were real for others.
I believe you learned something important with your experience.
Where did that thought come from? It wasn’t the way you saw it. The way you saw it caused a deep hurt in you. I have seen things that way, too.
Something else (or someone) showed you another way to see things and you not only got it, you embraced it as a better way to understand. It let the hurt go but left the lesson of it for you.
And that is why I wrote my experience out, finally. My perspective changed. Others might need to know what had happen to me.
I have found others that experienced like events in their lives. They are different enough to be individually unique but they are enough the same, in location, feeling, and contacts, to let me know others have been where I was.
Others have understood what you have, too. [/COLOR]
Let’s say it’s a coincidence that I just found and read (most of) a similar experience to yours at http://www.ski-zermatt.com/love on Monday.
I read the transcript of the doc that had the stroke, too.
Too much unexplained in this world leaves me unwilling to ignore the possiblities. I like exploring them. Even if I don’t believe or agree with them - I can believe they were real for others.
I believe you learned something important with your experience.
Where did that thought come from? It wasn’t the way you saw it. The way you saw it caused a deep hurt in you. I have seen things that way, too.
Something else (or someone) showed you another way to see things and you not only got it, you embraced it as a better way to understand. It let the hurt go but left the lesson of it for you.
And that is why I wrote my experience out, finally. My perspective changed. Others might need to know what had happen to me.
I have found others that experienced like events in their lives. They are different enough to be individually unique but they are enough the same, in location, feeling, and contacts, to let me know others have been where I was.
Others have understood what you experienced, too. [/COLOR]
I think that the main reason people haven’t much discussed damage to the body that doesn’t damage the mind is simply because it doesn’t cause a problem with the, shall we call it “computer” analogy for sentience.
First off, various kinds of damage to the body have nothing to do with the brain, such as weak bones, tendonitis, liver damage, loss of digits or limbs, etc. I think that all parties can agree that these don’t pose a problem for any even halfway sensible model of how the soul and body interact, so we can leave those alone.
More interesting are cases where control of the body seems to be lost due to what appears to be damage of the brain or mind, despite the fact that in other respects, the mind seems reasonably intact. This appears to be what you’re describing regarding your stepfather’s condition.
In the ‘computer’ analogy, we’d explain this with the example of there being more than one program running at once and interacting with one another, and then the program that controls the limbs, say, starts to have problems. Of course, this won’t necessarily cause problems with the ‘cognition’ program, or even the “heart and lung operation” program, since the programs are at least partially separate.
That’s the rough analogy, anyway.
You made some typos with your quote tags; that sometime produces blank posts. If you quote your blank posts and look, you’ll see the posts you made are there, just not displayed.
Thank you!
I appreciate your point of view. I understood the example. But if the body has no soul, if it can’t communicate and doesn’t function why don’t we just bury it when it stops working?
Step dad couldn’t say a thing. In the last days, even blinking wouldn’t work. He couldn’t keep his word in mind to spell right.
My point was that even what appears to be a worthless hulk of flesh has some thing in it we recognize as a life. That is the difference between dead and a non-working body. It still has some “one” in it. Self or soul, it’s still there.
Even “mostly dead”, or “better off dead” are not “dead”. It’s not just a beatiing heart and breathing lungs, it is the object whose existence you question.
Inner most self or soul or spirit, it is there until it’s not. When it’s gone there is no doubt that all you have left is meat and bones.
I could totally beat up Innermost Self. I’m bigger than he is.
…sorry, please continue.
I don’t understand what your point is. I mean, I really don’t. Nobody is simply measuring the value of a person by their ability to move their body. The emergent effect of the functioning of the brain, which we call an innermost self, a mind, a ‘soul’ - whichever you call it, it’s there, as surely as your browser is appearing on your computer screen, and there is nothing that we as people value more. The fact that it’s housed in and caused by the brain doesn’t make it less valuable; it makes the brain more valuable. The fact that your self is not eternal doesn’t make it less valuable, it makes it more valuable, because every minute you have counts all the more for there being a limited number of them.
The ‘worthless hulk of flesh’ only becomes worthless when that spark of life is gone. Until then, until it departs or is extinguished, the body housing it is that of a person, with all the value and worth that implies.
I admit I am not very agile with words. I didn’t mean to confuse the issue.
If you don’t believe in a soul or inner most self then a nonfunctioning body does not contain an entity to be preserved and cared for, it’s just a hulk. There is “nobody” in there.
It’s the soul or self or spark of life the body holds that is precious. It’s the inner and invisible person that we love, not the body that they exist in.
Call it what you will, it’s unique, self aware and invisible, but you know it’s there and connnected to the life of the body in some way still unexplained.
Except, like I said, nobody thinks that living people are just “hulks”. Nobody at all. I don’t think people have separate souls, but I can certanly see the difference between your average living man and a corpse.
I still believe in a “spark of life”, you see. I just think it’s not removable. It’s a function of the body, and while the body has that spark, that body is valuable. The life and personality that that body exhibits is what we love, not the body itself. You just can’t have the one without the other, is all.
I’ll happily call it a “spark of life”, or a “mind”, or a “consciousness”, or even an “innermost self”. I’m less happy about words like “spirit” or “soul”, becuase those connote something that can get up and wander around outside the body, which I see as being about as likely as your browser hopping out of your computer screen and floating around the room. (Which is just silly.)
The idea that you have to believe the spark of life is separate and immortal to believe it has value is a mistake; in actuality there’s nothing about an imagined permanence that makes life more special than it already is.
I had hoped there would be more discussion of the “I” and its ability to continue to live after the death of the body. This is not a new concept, it has been held by many since the beginning of recorded history. We now have some research on this subject that indicates this is true. Perhaps as time goes by it will become accepted.
I believe we live, “I” lives after the body ceases to function.
While I believe I died, my uncle isn’t sure if he died. Three doctors said he was too close to dead to save.
When he was 12 he had a severe cranial fracture. There was no external damage and he appeared ok for awhile. A couple days later his head hurt badly and his folks took him to the hospital. This was in 1954.
The doctors told his mother he was dying. There was swelling inside the skull. There was nothing they could do. Another doctor came out to tell her he would try to operate anyway. His mother told him it was the longest 45 minutes of her life.
My uncle said he was watching the doctors from the upper corner of the room his body was in. He was out of his body. He said he was held in a bright light where he felt loved, safe and peaceful.
He knew what the three doctors were saying as they decided they would not work on him. He heard them say he was too far gone. They didn’t want the mark on their records that someone died on their table. A fourth doctor came in and examined my uncle’s body. He said he would try to relieve the pressure.
The Uncle says he heard their words with no ears. He knew he had no ears because he could see his body down beneath him. He later told some kids in school he got to see his brain, but they didn’t understand what he was trying to share. There were no mirrors in the room. He watched from above it, in the safety of the light that held him with no pain and no fear.
The surgury that was done took place with no anestetic because they were afraid to put him under. There was a local used where they cut his scalp. Part of the skull bone was removed. It was later replaced with a metal plate. He says he saw it all. He saw them cut his scalp, saw open his skull and lay back the bone. He saw his brain where it was exposed. They removed the bone, released the swelling, then tacked the skin back. All of a sudden, he was back in his body looking up at them.
I told him that I believe that the part of him that watched is the part of us that does not die. He pointed out that it could see, hear and had a memory, too, because he remembered what he saw and heard after he was back in his body. I agreed with him and shared my experiences.
For me there is no doubt that self exists beyond death and without a body. It remembers love and life and learning. It’s alive and aware as an individual entity.
My uncle and I had never talked about our experiences before. He said he got tired of people thinking he was crazy. I agreed. But we believe each other. We have years of knowing the other is honest. We trust each other.
This is just another personal experience to you. For you, I am just written words. He is just second hand words. For us it was a confirmation. Something we couldn’t explain, but was real to us, was real to another we trusted. We are not insane.
Somethings you won’t understand until you “grow up”. We have all heard that. I believe there are somethings you won’t understand until your body dies and you don’t. I think that 1 Corinthians 13, taken as a whole, says about the same thing.
1 Corinthians 15 is Paul’s take on life after death. Verse 51 is interesting, but the whole chapter bears study with a good translation and Strong’s concordence.
Have fun!
NOTDEADNOW You echo my thoughts and feelings, but we have both seen the light, felt the love, and found peace. I am very glad you have decided to post your experiences here. Love.