Why can’t Creationists teach an alternative? Are the ‘free thinkers’ - atheists scared of som

reply to post by Deaf Alien

Don't worry, I'm looking at it but it has a definite 'angle' so to speak.

Headings...

NDE Biblical Support
Past Lives of Jesus Christ
Edgar Cayce's NDEs and Revelations
NDEs and pets.

There isn't a great deal of self-skepticism here.

The only decent article I've read so far is one saying "The Only Compelling Proof Is Verified Out-Of-Body Perception" which is true and even that can have naturalistic explanations a lot of the time.

For instance we can notice things that escape our awareness. The amount of information that the brain is taking in and processing in order to minimalise the things we need to be aware of is vast. You will actually know all the contents of the room you are in in great detail and this information can be unlocked. Autistic people can't filter this information and as such can be easily stress and volatile. But back to the NDEs, if the things people see are a hallucination brought on by the trauma of dying, then the brain may draw on knowledge of the surroundings that the individual isn't actually initially aware of - this is why even normal hallucinations can seem completely real, vivid and detailed.

Much of these anecdotes about visions outside of the body are things within the room that if the person cannot actually see, they can hear or even smell. Dialogue of doctors or people looking after you, the yapp of a dog right up to surgery implements.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Welfhard]

reply to post by Welfhard


I see where you are talking about. I mainly focused on Scientific Evidence of Survival. I just basically ignored the other headings. But there is Skeptical Arguments heading. Some neuroscientists are quoted in there.

That website is one of my favorites. Some articles may appear to have an 'angle' to them, but at least the website is more unbiased than the rest.


Like I said, they include all researches from all different areas, including different faiths.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Deaf Alien]

reply to post by Deaf Alien


What we need to see is a website out of a university doing study on NDEs and OBEs. I know that much of the experience is replicable in the lap, particularly the sensations that scientists have been able to replicate in people who've actually had NDEs.

The tunnel vision is simple. Blood is cut off or ceases to the eyeballs. The retinas die from the outside-edge inward (because the outside is the farthest from the blood supply). This causes the field of vision to shrink into blackness while the centre remains light - the light at the end of the tunnel. Bada bing bada boom!

Feeling of great peace/at rest is the fear centre shutting down. Stuff like this.

I didn't think you believed in this stuff. There is not any more real evidence for it than divining, mediums or aura readers.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Welfhard]

Originally posted by Welfhard
But that is just an assumption with no supporting evidence. It's also an assumption that we don't need to make AND logically goes against what is known about the brain.

You are experiencing the evidence right now.

Originally posted by Welfhard
If the mind uses the brain as a conduit to the world then the world should not be able to alter the mind, only the brain...

Certain medical treatments involve the cutting of the corpus callosum and what happens is that the hemispheres can't communicate properly so a persons awareness, consciousness, personality, memories and will become hemisphere dependant - they are different.

All your saying is that altering the brain can alter the perception of the mind.

I agree.

Just as getting drunk impacts your mind because it poisons your brain.

The point is that something has to be feeling and observing these changes from outside of the brain itself.

The ironic thing is that I can't actually prove that YOU have a mind...

I can't see your brain react to stimulus but only you know that you have a mind...

reply to post by Jezus

You are experiencing the evidence right now.

All my experience proves is that the mind exists. To say that it's not of the brain is an assumption made only on faith.

All your saying is that altering the brain can alter the perception of the mind.

That's not what I'm saying at all! How can two individual, discrete, autonomous entities operate separate parts of the body with regard of the other's will? - It's like two people in one body, or rather two minds in one body.

This happens in split brain patients.

We are not talking about perception here.

We are talking about will, awareness, personality and consciousness.

This makes your soul model impossible.

Just as getting drunk impacts your mind because it poisons your brain.

You fail to explain how the damaged or altered brain could possibly impact the mind if the mind is separate from and superior to the brain.

The point is that something has to be feeling and observing these changes from outside of the brain itself.

You have yet to demonstrate why that has to be so.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Welfhard]

reply to post by Welfhard

You fail to explain how the damaged or altered brain could possibly impact the mind if the mind is separate from and superior to the brain.

This is like looking outside through a dirty window. Your perception is affected by that of course.

I have been looking for a good NDE thread on ATS. So, far I have not found a good one. Just a few little threads here and there. I will be working on a NDE thread that includes pros and cons.

Thanks for the discussion. I really enjoyed it. I suppose this discussion isn't really that far away from the topic because it utimately shows intelligence in the universe.

reply to post by Deaf Alien

This is like looking outside through a dirty window. Your perception is affected by that of course.

But that is perception, perception is not the same thing as the mind, or character (brain damage) or decision making ability (drunkenness). Perception can't affect the mind, itself in this way.

reply to post by Welfhard


No.

What is meant here is that you, as an observer, sees things differently when certain things are affected.

Like in my example of an observer looking through a dirty window or glasses. You are still the same being, and yet you see things differently.

Originally posted by Welfhard
All my experience proves is that the mind exists. To say that it's not of the brain is an assumption made only on faith.

The idea that the mind is "part" of the brain is an assumption based on faith.

Their is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the conscious observer is some how within the flesh of the brain...

Originally posted by Welfhard
That's not what I'm saying at all! How can two individual, discrete, autonomous entities operate separate parts of the body with regard of the other's will? - It's like two people in one body, or rather two minds in one body.

All you are saying is that the physical make up of the brain can change the mind's perception of itself as two separate entities.

Just as complete destruction of the brain removes the minds ability to use the body it is attached too.

However the idea that the consciousness is destroyed with the brain is a complete assumption based on speculation.

Originally posted by Welfhard
You fail to explain how the damaged or altered brain could possibly impact the mind if the mind is separate from and superior to the brain.

I think I might have found part of the mental block here.

You think I'm saying that the mind is some how superior to the brain.

The damaged or altered brain can impact the mind because the mind is limited in its communication with the physical world by its interaction with the brain.

The mind has to "go through" the brain in order to experience the physical body. Any damage to the brain will impact the consciousness as long as it is still using the body as a vehicle.

Even your memories of physical interaction exist within your brain, but I'm not talking about memories, I'm talking about the entity that actually felt the feelings of the memory...

Dreams and reality are perceptively the same to the brain.

The mind is the entity attempting to distinguish the difference.

Again, the ironic thing is I can't really say for sure that the same is for you...

I just assume you are actually experiencing reality and not just a biological robot.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Jezus]

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Jezus]

reply to post by Deaf Alien

No.

What is meant here is that you, as an observer, sees things differently when certain things are affected.

No.

I as an observer will see (or experience to be broader) things differently when my brain is alter, but that seeing cannot alter my mind, personality, character, consciousness, etc..

Like in my example of an observer looking through a dirty window or glasses. You are still the same being, and yet you see things differently.

And yet altering the brain does change people (their 'being'). It is not a matter of perception when a specific bit of brain damage causes a person to permanently become easier to anger.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Welfhard]

reply to post by Jezus

The idea that the mind is "part" of the brain is an assumption based on faith.

Their is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the conscious observer is some how within the flesh of the brain..

Except the entire field of neuroscience which demonstrates to the contrary, that brain damage will cause deficits in not just sense and perception but personality, character, awareness and nature of consciousness.

All you are saying is that the physical make up of the brain can change the mind's perception of itself as two separate entities.

More baseless assumptions!

By that you are saying that a soul can operate two separate brains but operate them against each other. By this logic, a mind can operate more than one body at one time because as you describe the brain is a tool of control over a body for a soul.

The scientific model of conscious doesn't need a fraction as many assumptions. Why ask Occam what he thinks about this?

The damaged or altered brain can impact the mind because the mind is limited in its communication with the physical world by its interaction with the brain.

That isn't an impact, that's a restriction. Surely if the brain doesn't contain and produce the mind then the mind should be immune to the effects the world has on the brain bar a restriction of it's ability to interact with the world.

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Welfhard]

Originally posted by Conclusion
reply to post by NatureBoy

 

6 a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : conjecture c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject

Well one of us is wrong.

You are correct, you are wrong. (Have fun parsing that sentence ).

You conveniently skipped over the definition of a theory in science:

5 : a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena

A scientific theory is not "just a theory"; it is a "scientific theory".

[edit on 22/8/2009 by rnaa]

Originally posted by The Matrix Traveller
reply to post by EdCase512

 

Perhaps You would be incapable of understanding ???

Sorry but I am not interested in coming down into the gutter to brawl...

Look don't fret, you will no doubt have all your answers, on the day you take your last breath.

So don't be impatient, for that day to come.

You may bring it on quicker than you think, being under all that stress...

Lighten up and take a deep breath, or even have a laugh...

You take Life way too seriously...

Take a break, or have a holiday or just have a Laugh or two...

If you don't enjoy a confrontational debating style, maybe a site designed to promote peaceful conflict (now there's a mouthful) is not for you.
Requesting someone to "put up or shut up" (gutter term, you like ?) is a very valid gambit.
You have absolutely zero information on my capabilities for understanding, beyond the fact that in "type" I tend to be direct and open.
Again presumption, I may possess all the knowledge I need, or want. I may not.
Since a little cuddly confrontation is relaxing, I hardly need to stop fretting, nor worry about stress.
Finally, again you presume to know me. Laugh ? holiday ? Maybe I am on one doing the other as I push the buttons that make you squeak....
Only I can really know.

Anyways.......about those drawings ? I am waiting still......

Please enlighten us poor, poor primates

Originally posted by Conclusion
reply to post by OldThinker

 

I think science has become a religion. Any thoughts on this?

Science is not religion, but it does fulfill a function in the mythic structure that religion once held in default of a better candidate. A society's mythic structure fulfills four basic functions. See Joseph Campbell's work: "The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology".

Science has pretty much taken over the "cosmological" dimension or function of myth that religious myths have performed since antiquity.

Art still holds sway as the master of the "metaphysical" function as well, but I suppose that for some Science is fulfilling this role too.

Secular law has mostly taken over the "sociological" function.

Religious thought has fundamentally forfeited its rightful place as the "pedagogical" dimension of our mythic structure. The more religion continues to insist that it continues to be master of the other three functions, the more it is abandoning its true worth to society and the more it is seen as irrelevant. And that is a significant problem. The symptoms of a sick society are all around and there is nothing else to perform the societal integration that religion 'should' be doing.

Reply to certain rash assertions by Jezus

Originally posted by Jezus

Originally posted by Vinci
Jezuz: If you put a bullet between someone's eyes, they (hopefully for them) will not respond. All of their memories, thoughts, and ability to observe the universe, cease. There has never been a proven return of consciousness once the entire brain is dead. That is what we know.

There is absolutely no evidence of that.

Excuse me?

What Vinci says is incontrovertible, unless your definition of 'someone' completely excludes their physical being.

I understand you're trying to articulate a mentalist position here, but you cannot deny what is being stated. You may justifiably argue for the existence of something - mind, soul, spirit - that outlives the body. Maybe that - and its memories, thoughts, and ability to observe the universe - does not cease. That's another story.

Originally posted by Jezus
We know... consciousness leaves the physical body, but there is absolutely no reason to believe it ceases to exist.

True. Neither is there any reason to believe it persists.

Originally posted by Jezus
The idea that the mind is "part" of the brain is an assumption based on faith.

Are you saying the assumption that mind is not part of the brain is not so based? Please show us your evidence for a disembodied mind, soul, spirit or whatever we're calling it today.

Originally posted by Jezus
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the conscious observer is somehow within the flesh of the brain...

As Welfhard has pointed out, there is actually rather a lot of - admittedly circumstantial - evidence for this. There is, however, none whatsoever for your position. It is entirely faith-based.

Or - wait a minute - is this your evidence?

Originally posted by Jezus
Every time you think, you force you brain to admit that it is not YOU. Every single thought you have is the evidence that YOU are separate from your brain and the physical reality.

Descartes would have been proud of you. But... what say you to this?

With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by these credulous minds - namely, that a thought comes when "it" wishes, and not when "I" wish; so that it is a perversion of the facts of the case to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate "think." One thinks; but that this "one" is precisely the famous old "ego," is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an "immediate certainty. Source

Originally posted by Jezus
I just assume you are actually experiencing reality and not just a biological robot.

Why make assumptions for which there is no evidence? If 'I think, therefore I am' is unsound (see Nietzsche above, and he is surely right), why do you imagine 'I think you think, therefore you are' is any more legitimate?

Originally posted by Jezus
I really don't know why a person would think that the driver needs a vehicle to exist.

Rather obviously, it is because if there were no vehicle, there is no driver; a person may have driving skills, but a driver is found only at the wheel of a vehicle.

Now, why do you think a vehicle needs a driver to exist?

Originally posted by OldThinker

Originally posted by Edrick

Originally posted by OldThinker
reply to post by Edrick

 

???

I'm sorry friend, did i studder?

OT

Ok, i'll bite...

1. Yes

2. Till my lawn no longer violates city ordinances... (below 18 inches)

-Edrick

The next time you cut that lawn, i want you to imagine REAL HARD that that mower just popped into existence, that their was no engineer, no manufacturing....

Than ask your self, am I more complex, than a mower?

Thx for answering friend!

OT

I just visited a friend that has two mowers that "popped into existence" with no help from an engineer or a manufacturing plant.

He has two sheep that wander freely around his 5 acre spread and keep the grass in beautiful shape.

Originally posted by tungus

Originally posted by chiron613
reply to post by tungus

 

Well, for starters, there's algebra. There's also astronomy - not discovered by Muslims, but certainly developed and advanced by them. Why do you think so many stars have Arabic names?

Under Islam, science flourished while Europe wallowed in the Dark Ages.

There is a book called "Why I am not a Muslim" and it talks about Islam and sciences among other things. Page 273:

"There is the persistent myth that Islam encouraged science...Orthodoxy has always been suspicious of 'knowledge for its own sake', and unfettered intellectual inquiry is deemed dangerous to the fate."

"To give Islam credit for Averroes and so many other illustrious thinkers who, passed half their life in prison, in forced hiding, in disgrace, whose books were burned and whose books wittings almost suppressed by theological authority, is as if one were to ascribe to the Inquisition the discoveries of Galileo, and the whole scientific development which it was not able to prevent."

It is true that the Arabs preserved the knowledge of the Greeks, Ancient Egyptians and Hindus but this was done in spite of Islam not because of it. It just wasn't as good as eradicating free thinkers in its time as the Christian Church was, that's all.


[edit on 18-8-2009 by tungus]

That is an extremely narrow-minded judgment and misses the point of the attribution.

The Muslim world gave rise to the discovery (or invention or whatever) of Algebra, the concept of the number zero, and scientific thought towards the practice of medicine, chemistry and physics just as the Christian world gave rise to Galileo and Copernicus. Even Newton's scientific work grew out of his fanatical interest in Alchemy, a fanaticism he shared with many we now consider great thinkers and scientists. And the ideas of Alchemy were also developed in the Muslim world.

No claim is made that it was specifically the Islamic or the Christian or the Jewish religions that gave rise to these ideas. It was the societies that the respective religions dominated that provided an incubating environment.

Originally posted by The Matrix Traveller

Originally posted by Okiminletsdoit!
Ok,here's a question for creationists :

without reference to the bible prove that god exists.

You see our (yours and mine) definitions of God or a god, may be much different ???

So it is you who have to define what God or god is, in your terms, or interpretation for anyone to answer you....

If your ability to prove that God exists depends on someone else's definition of God just means that you cannot prove it and you are aware that thousands before you have tried and failed.

Don't rely on someone else's God. Rely on your own. Prove your own God exists other than in your own mind, then we can all see the light and understand why our definitions of God are flawed.

And it goes with out saying (so I'll say it) that defining God as a bent piece of wire and pointing to a paper clip is neither a sufficient definition of God nor a proof of existence.

reply to post by rnaa


In simpler terms.

God exists (or not) because I believe him/her/it does (or not).

Anything beyond this is simply fluff for the sake of control (organized religion)

A desperate desire to belong (many, many people)

A need to absolve oneself of responsibility for ones own actions (many, many more people)

Originally posted by OldThinker
reply to post by Okiminletsdoit!

 

What about scientific discoveries, in the scriptures BEFORE Science found them? More here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

OT

Well that's enough for now...please let me know what you think, ok?

What does it mean 'scientific discoveries...before science'? There is no 'before science', except before consciousness. Science is a process and accumulation of knowledge about the world around us. The process is more rigorous and the accumulation of knowledge is larger and growing faster than it was when the Bible was written is all.

Are you of the belief that people before some arbitrary point in relatively recent time were stupid, ignorant, dullard, unthinking?

Personally, I think that just because they didn't know how to type rubbish on a computer keyboard doesn't make them any less intelligent or thoughtful than I am. On the contrary, a whole heck of a lot of them were a lot more intellegent and thoughtful than I.

Knowledge is accumulated over the ages. The wheel was only invented once, thank goodness. If we had to reinvent stuff every generation we would not be getting very far.