K
I agree with everything you say. You've been very straight forward about it. It also seems historically clear that the more people believe in God the more screwed-up we become in this world. That's because we keep on inventing our own gods without really having mastered the technique but nevertheless feel IT can somehow rearrange reality in our favor.
As for the NDE. It must definitely be the most incredible experience. But it's been researched many times and remains the ultimate psychosomatic event in life. It's the coda at the end of the final movement whose themes were composed by you throughout your life. One would expect its impact to be one of extremes containing tremendous images of all kinds. It is after all the ultimate trauma of transition and as such has all the power to invoke divinity; God in this scenario may be merely one of its overwhelming contents - if GOD is what you always believed in.
re
Lekatt,
That's all well and good. (Well, presumably. I won't be able to shuffle through all the links in detail till later.) But it has little to do with what I said.
Reality Is. I am hardly one to deny its breadth; on the contrary, I am quite comfortable affirming that common sense ought to dictate there are infinite levels and dimensions of it we do not understand.
This in and of itself does absolutely nothing in terms of making your own reckoning up of things more coherent.
God is too big a concept to wrap your human mind around. The question of God is beyond knowing by its very nature. Thus there is no way you can know if it exists or not. You don't even understand what "it" is. You just have "faith." But in what *exactly*, and why?
If you do try to bring it down to a humanly comprehensible level (God's a big invisible person who has Human Feelings and Loves us all etc.) -- your arguments will quickly veer into bizarre and entirely unsupported imaginative fantasy, based on scripture and a regurgitation of prominent cultural ideas that have been saturating your brain since childhood.
Take this "we can't find the source of the brainwaves" business as an example. That's interesting. I don't doubt that we can't. I'm sure there are a lot of mysteries yet to be understood just as once we couldn't fathom that the world was not flat.
But this does nothing to support any kind of specific religious worldview. At all. It suffices to say "we don't understand where this comes from." Period. Acknowledging that there are things nobody presently understands is not a good way to illustrate that you DO understand those very same things, and God exists and Love is All You Need, etc., ad nauseam. My point is that neither of us do understand. Difference being that I can accept that, whereas you prefer to embrace highly absurd hypotheses on blind faith, indulging your own (probably highly emotional) whimsies and imaginings as evidence -- just by themselves -- of a Certified cosmic reality.
I mean, what's the rush? We'll figure things out if we care to. Not everything, but human progress speaks for itself. Stubbornly adhering to some kind of Judeo-Christian dogma does not contribute to that progess.
Understand that I am assuming you're coming from a roughly traditionalist Judeo-Christian standpoint for the sake of my own argument. If this does not characterize your philosophical position accurately, accept my apologies, don't take it personally. The traditionalist Judeo-Christian standpoint represents one of my biggest sources of contention so I argue against my intellectual experience with that mentality, as opposed to your personal mentality, which I know nothing of other than the couple of posts on this thread.
K
K.
When you have had a chance to actually read the evidence compiled by research scientists I will be happy to discuss it with you. The real evidence is solid and well documented, not just the typical skeptical assumptions you are posting here.
We are not talking about religion, we are talking about real research.
Love
Not Too Swift wrote:K
I agree with everything you say. You've been very straight forward about it. It also seems historically clear that the more people believe in God the more screwed-up we become in this world. That's because we keep on inventing our own gods without really having mastered the technique but nevertheless feel IT can somehow rearrange reality in our favor.
As for the NDE. It must definitely be the most incredible experience. But it's been researched many times and remains the ultimate psychosomatic event in life. It's the coda at the end of the final movement whose themes were composed by you throughout your life. One would expect its impact to be one of extremes containing tremendous images of all kinds. It is after all the ultimate trauma of transition and as such has all the power to invoke divinity; God in this scenario may be merely one of its overwhelming contents - if GOD is what you always believed in.
Considering the NDE, research has shown and is showing there is nothing psychosomatic about near death experiences. I doubt you could give even a close description of what one contains. Read the research material then you can go on in denial. Humor the ignorants.
Love
Quote:
I doubt you could give even a close description of what one contains
I suppose like everyone else I will have to wait to know what it contains and when I do, it's not likely that I can post a description of it anywhere.
Not Too Swift wrote:Quote:
I doubt you could give even a close description of what one contains
I suppose like everyone else I will have to wait to know what it contains and when I do, it's not likely that I can post a description of it anywhere.
There are hundreds of them posted on the internet.
My site has over 200, just read them if you want to know what they contain.
http://www.aleroy.com/board00.htm
Love
Lekatt,
I have read your links. They have no bearing on my points at all.
In any case, there's plenty within the links which are open to debate on their own terms, even if it
were a relevant counterpoint to my posts. For example, within one of them, we have Dr. Chris Freeman saying:
Quote: (...) there (i)s no proof that the experiences reported by the patients actually occurred when the brain was shut down.
"We know that memories are extremely fallible. We are quite good at knowing that something happened, but we are very poor at knowing when it happened.
"It is quite possible that these experiences happened during the recovery, or just before the cardiac arrest. To say that they happened when the brain was shut down, I think there is little evidence for that at all."
And it warrants mentioning that nothing about the typical NDE refutes any of the entirely reasonable "skepticism" raised by another contributor on this thread.
However, to me and the points I was making, that's all entirely tangential. If you can't see that, you are entirely miscomprehending what I've written.
You are free to address what I've actually posted anytime, of course.
K.
K. wrote:Lekatt,
I have read your links. They have no bearing on my points at all.
In any case, there's plenty within the links which are open to debate on their own terms, even if it
were a relevant counterpoint to my posts. For example, within one of them, we have Dr. Chris Freeman saying:
Quote: (...) there (i)s no proof that the experiences reported by the patients actually occurred when the brain was shut down.
"We know that memories are extremely fallible. We are quite good at knowing that something happened, but we are very poor at knowing when it happened.
"It is quite possible that these experiences happened during the recovery, or just before the cardiac arrest. To say that they happened when the brain was shut down, I think there is little evidence for that at all."
And it warrants mentioning that nothing about the typical NDE refutes any of the entirely reasonable "skepticism" raised by another contributor on this thread.
However, to me and the points I was making, that's all entirely tangential. If you can't see that, you are entirely miscomprehending what I've written.
You are free to address what I've actually posted anytime, of course.
K.
You did not read the material. There are several documented studies showing the brain was entirely dead when the NDE took place.
There was also research showing the same thing.
Please read the material. I don't know where you got that quote, perhaps you could give me a link to it.
Love
re
Lekatt wrote:Lekatt,
You did not read the material. There are several documented studies showing the brain was entirely dead when the NDE took place.
There was also research showing the same thing.
Please read the material. I don't know where you got that quote, perhaps you could give me a link to it.
I quote material from your own links back to you, you fail to recognize the material, and then you're bold enough to suggest that
I'm lying about having read that material. Fascinating.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/986177.stm
Again, none of this material is directly relevant to what I've posted in terms of providing any kind of counterpoint. As it stands, it borders on non-sequiter.
I have no problem with you discussing NDEs, but it's entirely tangential, at least unless you expend the effort to specifically illustrate the manner in which you believe it functions as a counterpoint to my posts.
K.
Re: re
K. wrote:Lekatt wrote:Lekatt,
You did not read the material. There are several documented studies showing the brain was entirely dead when the NDE took place.
There was also research showing the same thing.
Please read the material. I don't know where you got that quote, perhaps you could give me a link to it.
I quote material from your own links back to you, you fail to recognize the material, and then you're bold enough to suggest that
I'm lying about having read that material. Fascinating.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/986177.stm
Again, none of this material is directly relevant to what I've posted in terms of providing any kind of counterpoint. As it stands, it borders on non-sequiter.
I have no problem with you discussing NDEs, but it's entirely tangential, at least unless you expend the effort to specifically illustrate the manner in which you believe it functions as a counterpoint to my posts.
K.
Just wanted readers to realize you quoted the skeptical part and not the research in question.
Quote:The full quote is:
"Oxygen levels
None of the patients were found to be receiving low oxygen levels - which some scientists believe may be responsible for so-called "near-death" experiences.
Lead researcher Dr Sam Parnia, of Southampton General Hospital, said nobody fully understands how brain cells generate thoughts.
He said it might be that the mind or consciousness is independent of the brain.
He said: "When we examine brain cells we see that brain cells are like any other cells, they can produce proteins and chemicals, but they are not really capable of producing the subjective phenomenon of thought that we have.
"The brain is definitely needed to manifest the mind, a bit like how a television set can take what essentially are waves in the air and translate them into picture and sound."
Scepticism
Dr Chris Freeman, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Royal Edinburgh Hospital, said there was no proof that the experiences reported by the patients actually occurred when the brain was shut down.
"We know that memories are extremely fallible. We are quite good at knowing that something happened, but we are very poor at knowing when it happened.
"It is quite possible that these experiences happened during the recovery, or just before the cardiac arrest. To say that they happened when the brain was shut down, I think there is little evidence for that at all."
Now it is not uncommon for skeptics to misread or not read at all material showing them wrong. As for whether this addresses your post, of course, it does. Skeptics come into Religious and Spiritual posting areas and claim how silly (your word) the people are for believing. Skeptics offer no studies or evidence that God is not real, just their opinions. In debates one must offer something greater than an opinion.
I have offered material that shows strong evidence consciousness continues after death. Also that many people having these experiences were in the persence of God. I know I was. One part of the material was about Veridical NDEs, those are experiences that have been verified.
In the Pam Reynolds experience, she had all the blood removed from her head for a period of about 2 hours during surgery. When she was revived she told an accurate detail of what happened during the surgery, including describing the tools and quoting the conversations. This surgery was so highly experimental that it was totally videotaped and all measurements studied. It was made into a documentary for TV and a book was written about it. Your skeptical friend in the quote above was shown to be wrong. That is only one of the experiences I list.
Now I don't really care if you read the material or not. I don't care if you remain a skeptic the rest of your life. But I do care when you and other skeptics, having no knowledge of NDEs, present people who believe in God and spiritual things as ignorant. So please just stop doing it.
Love
The God worshipped by religion does not exist. The God defined by the dictionary does not exist. Though there are spirits and you can call any spirit God or an angel. Just goes to show there are different definitions as to what is considered God in existence truely.
Why the question is always: "Prove that God exists"!!!
In the same way I will ask: "Prove that God doesn't exist"!!
Could you??
Re: re
Lekatt wrote:I have offered material that shows strong evidence consciousness continues after death.
Thanks, I suppose. I never disputed or otherwise addressed this. Your links support my own points just as well as they support yours.
Lekatt wrote:Also that many people having these experiences were in the persence of God.
The material does nothing to "show" this at all. You're referring to subjective/emotional claims made by select subjects after the fact.
Lekatt wrote:When she was revived she told an accurate detail of what happened during the surgery, including describing the tools and quoting the conversations. This surgery was so highly experimental that it was totally videotaped and all measurements studied. It was made into a documentary for TV and a book was written about it.
Again, what is your point? Or, what is it that I've posted that you're addressing, specifically, in telling me this?
Lekatt wrote:Now I don't really care if you read the material or not. I don't care if you remain a skeptic the rest of your life. But I do care when you and other skeptics, having no knowledge of NDEs, present people who believe in God and spiritual things as ignorant. So please just stop doing it.
I don't think people who believe in God and "spiritual things" are "ignorant." I mean, ignorant of what, exactly? Ignorance is not a part of my charges per se, and such a broad base of "beliefs" ("I believe in 'spiritual things') is too vague and insubstantial to even really criticize.
I do think that anyone who claims a belief in something as foggy as "God and spiritual things" is -- usually -- the type of person who is prone to taking highly selective bits of information, reading very imaginatively into them, and then pretending (to themselves as much as others) that those selective bits of information prove all kinds of things that they don't. And that -- in your case -- have not even been articulated to begin with.
Your only point seems to be that "God and spiritual stuff is real." That is too abstract to address in particular detail, much less be meaningfully skeptical about. I suggest that you go back and read the thread more carefully.
K.
re
Cyanure wrote:Why the question is always: "Prove that God exists"!!!
In the same way I will ask: "Prove that God doesn't exist"!!
Could you??
Nobody can even clearly articulate what they think God is. Again, part of my point is that the concept represents something that is beyond the scope of our intellect and imagination. If one can't even clearly articulate what it IS they're arguing exists, the burden of proof rests on them, but they're going to have a hard time proving something they can't even meaningfully define. It's a completely abstract discussion based entirely on one's imagination and a regurgitation of whatever theology a person was weaned on.
K.
K,
what is love? Does it exist? Can you describe love?
I'm not making a statement about what God is, simply that love is an abstract concept many people have experienced in one form or another. Does the burden of proof lie on the lovers of the world to prove that what they feel is actually there? Certainly those who seek out and cultivate the experience of love will often experience it to a greater level than those who do not.
re
Re: Love & God
Love is a feeling, or combination of feelings, characterized (I'd say) primarily by a combination of fondness and desire. You can point to potential examples of love and debate whether or not they qualify. But the thing doesn't exist in and of itself -- it's a description of an effect of a combination of feelings.
I've yet to encounter anybody who argues that "God" is just a description of an effect of a combination of feelings. Though, in the case of Lekatt, say, that's what I'm estimating it to be pretty exactly.
But in any case, my contention is not that God does decidedly not exist. Indeed, I agree, and it is central to my point, that there's no way to sensibly argue such a thing, because the object of the debate is far too abstract -- representing by nature something outside the scope of our intellect -- to even satisfactorily qualify, let alone measure, prove, or, indeed, "know."
I too experience first-hand the breadth and depth of reality and my possibly temporary, possible not-so-temporary existence within it. And I am humbled by it, I am in awe of it. It is beyond my imagination, and my imagination is not a weak one. I recognize these feelings of awe -- as feelings. Not as proofs, or evidence, or a foundation for rational ideas. But as vague things too tremendously full of possibility to consider being anywhere close to adequately understood or absorbed. If there's an "explanation" for reality that the human mind can grasp (unlikely), it may be an explanation that would please my human mind, make it feel happy and secure. Then again, it might not be an explanation that makes me happy or secure at all. I don't know, and I'm not arrogant enough to pretend I do.
My point is that deep sensations, strange experiences, impacting emotional phenomena -- these things do not equal proof of "God." They do not equal evidence of "God." And they do not make the concept of "God" a more sensible or apprehensible one that only "believers" really "get."
And -- far more importantly to my central point -- they certainly do not validate anything in the Bible, the Qu'ran, etc., or have any legitimate bearing upon the validity of the worldviews derived from such texts. That's where the real contention comes in on my part. If you (or Lekatt) are only pushing to leave it at "I just have faith that I was personally created by a being who loves me and that life continues after death and that's about it," I'm not actually uncomfortable with that. Since we don't know, why not be optimistic on a level our human mind can apprehend, right? I'd only add that faith is -- by nature -- not rational, and would classify it as an intellectual and emotional defense mechanism. Perhaps it's too important a mechanism to start poking around beneath the control panel, though.
K.
Sign Related wrote:The God worshipped by religion does not exist. The God defined by the dictionary does not exist. Though there are spirits and you can call any spirit God or an angel. Just goes to show there are different definitions as to what is considered God in existence truely.
Whether you call the ocean, large or small, deep or shallow, wild or calm it does not effect the existence of the ocean. So it is with God. Matters not what people think about God, or if this thinking is widely diverse.
That is why truth is so important. We may believe in anything or nothing, it doesn't matter. Only what is true matters.
Love
Re: re
K. wrote:Re: Love & God
Love is a feeling, or combination of feelings, characterized (I'd say) primarily by a combination of fondness and desire. You can point to potential examples of love and debate whether or not they qualify. But the thing doesn't exist in and of itself -- it's a description of an effect of a combination of feelings.
I've yet to encounter anybody who argues that "God" is just a description of an effect of a combination of feelings. Though, in the case of Lekatt, say, that's what I'm estimating it to be pretty exactly.
But in any case, my contention is not that God does decidedly not exist. Indeed, I agree, and it is central to my point, that there's no way to sensibly argue such a thing, because the object of the debate is far too abstract -- representing by nature something outside the scope of our intellect -- to even satisfactorily qualify, let alone measure, prove, or, indeed, "know."
I too experience first-hand the breadth and depth of reality and my possibly temporary, possible not-so-temporary existence within it. And I am humbled by it, I am in awe of it. It is beyond my imagination, and my imagination is not a weak one. I recognize these feelings of awe -- as feelings. Not as proofs, or evidence, or a foundation for rational ideas. But as vague things too tremendously full of possibility to consider being anywhere close to adequately understood or absorbed. If there's an "explanation" for reality that the human mind can grasp (unlikely), it may be an explanation that would please my human mind, make it feel happy and secure. Then again, it might not be an explanation that makes me happy or secure at all. I don't know, and I'm not arrogant enough to pretend I do.
My point is that deep sensations, strange experiences, impacting emotional phenomena -- these things do not equal proof of "God." They do not equal evidence of "God." And they do not make the concept of "God" a more sensible or apprehensible one that only "believers" really "get."
And -- far more importantly to my central point -- they certainly do not validate anything in the Bible, the Qu'ran, etc., or have any legitimate bearing upon the validity of the worldviews derived from such texts. That's where the real contention comes in on my part. If you (or Lekatt) are only pushing to leave it at "I just have faith that I was personally created by a being who loves me and that life continues after death and that's about it," I'm not actually uncomfortable with that. Since we don't know, why not be optimistic on a level our human mind can apprehend, right? I'd only add that faith is -- by nature -- not rational, and would classify it as an intellectual and emotional defense mechanism. Perhaps it's too important a mechanism to start poking around beneath the control panel, though.
K.
Whenever you find time to read the experiences of others, then you will have some grasp on what they are talking about. Your posts are personal opinion and you are entitled to your opinions, but your definitions fall short of the mark.
Love
I guess if I do have an NDE that I could subsequently describe it would mean that modern medicine pulled me back from the brink that God expected me to cross over.
Quote:Why the question is always: "Prove that God exists"!!!
In the same way I will ask: "Prove that God doesn't exist"!!
Could you??
How can one disprove an existence of a kind that never existed? You can't just come up with a speculation, one that you can't prove yourself, and challenge others to disprove it because you want to believe it. By your argument which is radically bogus, you can prove anything IF one can't disprove it. Of course there may not be anything THERE to disprove in the first place. So, how does one DISPROVE the non-existence of an entity that never existed, one for which even the most miniscule proof was never allocated? This total lack of evidence as to God's existence leads to complete stalemate and a very corrupt "prove me wrong" response. Personal speculations and wish fulfillment are simply not on the same level as working hard to "disprove" a scientific theory. It also goes into the deep-end of incomprehensibility as to why if there is a God, IT would NEED US to prove his existence in the first place. If you put God in the PERSONAL realm, He then exists in your heart exempt of objectivity, probability, proof or necessity of any kind, the "necessity" of His existence being in ourselves. Yet to many, God speaks in the SILENT majesty of an inter-galactic iceberg. But it is really us humans that speak FOR IT usually as THE ENDORSER of justification for actions that we as mere mortals are not qualified to "expound" ourselves and so we create a "Sacred Non-Entity" who doesn't talk back. If IT does exist maybe its on the very edge of an accelerating universe, trying to bronco bust a horse HE can't handle.
Quote:How can one disprove an existence of a kind that never existed?
Please prove that He never existed.
