Heaven is real, says neurosurgeon

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by arauca, Oct 10, 2012.

  1. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    I notice that you set this premise, right away. It is unknown and cannot be known.
    Why bother with the wild speculations, then? Unless it is to find some meaningful validation for your belief?

    People talk about spirituality is if it somehow makes a person learn and grow. No- learning and growing makes a person learn and grow. If people really wanted to "grow and learn in spirit," they would be more willing to study actual life, actual science, actual knowledge instead of invented concepts, bogus and unprovable claims and 'that which cannot be known.' I mean, 'if it cannot be known,' how do you have any way of knowing if your beliefs are not only right but more right than the vast multitude of other beliefs that are totally different than yours?

    Not to mention that scientifically, everything you just said was complete and total hogwash.
     
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  3. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

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    I’m sorry, Neverfly, but I don’t think the example you gave is completely accurate. Okay technically, dark matter is a placeholder but that doesn’t mean it’s not an explanation.

    The most widely accepted explanation for these phenomena is that dark matter exists and that it is most likely composed of heavy particles that interact only through gravity and possibly the weak force.”-Wikipedia

    I know that I’ve posted this video before but it’s really good.

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    [video=youtube;8Biv_8xjj8E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Biv_8xjj8E[/video]
     
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  5. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    That is the biggest load of hooey I have ever heard. It is such a lie, it is scandalous. In general, the more knowledge of physical science a person has, the less interested that person becomes in humanity. Just look at the trolls on this science website. These are people who are very learned in the physical sciences; simultaneously, they are the least spiritual, least humane and compassionate people in the civilized world. Skeptics and educated atheists are dogmatic and hateful. This neurosurgeon is actually a counterexample, an exception to the rule. He is trained in science. Yet he has a near death experience and decides to tell people about it. Why? Because by doing so, it will ease suffering. It will ease the pain that many people feel about what happens when we die. This is a spiritual and caring person. I consider myself a spiritual and a caring person. I do what I can to come up with physical mechanisms that might explain how survival of death and an afterlife might be possible.

    The very idea that you must educate yourself with physical science in order to be spiritual is bullshit! Becoming spiritual means that you are compassionate to the suffering of others. It might take centuries, or perhaps it's not even possible, for science to confirm the existence of survival after death. But you don't kill off hope for people. That is not spiritual. In fact, it is harmful and possibly a characteristic of evil.
     
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  7. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    None needed. Keep on Rockin.'

    Point of interest: None if it is confirmed and this is an important point in this. Astronomers say, "Unconfirmed." That's a big difference from teh comparison.
    There's also a big difference between 'the' and 'teh.' A curse upon my clumsy fingers.

    ETA: The article linked in the word "placeholder" was great.
    I'll try to come up with better hooey for you.
    Evidence to support this claim? Please provide links to the suggested social studies on human empathy and social order vs education.
    You make this claim often. As if to say that the majority of educated people are hateful simply because you've managed to isolate and piss off a few people on the internet. You have no grounds to say this other than that you've seen people laugh at the absolutely absurd. Yet, hypocritically, your posts are often full of bitterness and anger.

    The driving need to not fear death not only does not support your conclusion that there is life after death; It supports the opposition as to what drives people like this neurosurgeon to desperately claim any validation they can find for that belief.
    True- but you misunderstood my intent. Will you claim I lack caring and empathy simply because I do not believe in the things that you believe in? You have no way of knowing about my empathy or the fact that it's also my Achilles heel.
    I believe that false hope is evil, too.
    Being honest and telling people honest reality is not evil. Would you say that it's evil to lie or to not lie?
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2012
  8. Balerion Banned Banned

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    I wonder if Mazulu is aware of how ironic his argument is. I have never once, in nine years here at Sciforums, seen an atheist say that a person is stupid for believing in God, or that life is meaningless if devoid of divine purpose, or that life is worthless and therefore expendable. Yet I have seen plenty of theists here say that atheists are stupid, evil, cruel, and even read posts saying that atheists--along with other groups, particularly homosexuals--deserve to die and burn in hell. Mazulu himself has been nothing but insulting of atheists as a whole, while I am entirely unaware of anyone returning the favor.

    The idea that people shouldn't be educated or informed because that knowledge might make the abandon hopes of an afterlife is ridiculous. It doesn't allow for real progress, morally or societally. Ignorance equates to stagnation, if not regression, and he promotes it so that people can, what, keep hope that there's more to life than this? More irony: I find that people who share Mazulu's vehemence on this matter are usually so concerned with the afterlife that they forget all about this life. I think abandoning concerns for what comes after death can free people from the dogmas that make their lives so miserable that they're looking beyond the grave to begin with.
     
  9. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    OK, I laughed at that one.
    Sure, here ya go.
    I never said I was perfect. :bawl:

    One of my friends at church, the mother of 2 beautiful children, is dying of cancer. Do you expect me to tell her that science hasn't proven the existence of a spirit world yet, so prepare yourself for 6 feet of dirt and worms?

    The truth is, I'm a spiritualist. I believe it's real. I also believe that the signal to noise ratio isn't always good. I was raised as a New Ager. When I was a kid, living in the French Quarter in New Orleans, I saw this spectre phantom looking thing in my room. Yes, I was once a non-believer like you. But that entity had a velvety cloak and mask. It was what my mom and her friend were communicating with. It was very spooky. But it was exhilarating too. There is some weird shit that goes on in the universe. It took me decades to figure it out. So I have a point of view about physics and about how things work in the universe.

    To be fair, I guess I should try to accept that other people haven't had these kinds of experiences and don't see the world from my perspective. I will try to reconcile that. And I'll try to be a little nicer.
     
  10. Mazulu Banned Banned

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    http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?117045-Are-believers-less-intelligent-than-Atheists-Discuss
    Just to comment on homosexuals. I think it's personal taste and has nothing to do with one's relationship with the Creator. I disagree sharply with Christianity on this particular point.

    I don't think that atheists understand what theists and believers feel and experience about the divine. It is a beautiful, sacred and holy experience, something that is very precious. Then an atheist comes along and says, "nah, it's just a bunch of chemicals in your brain. Nothing precious or sacred their."

    I don't believe that. However, I do believe that the more educated someone becomes, the harder it is to savor those precious and sacred experiences with the divine. Am I wrong?

    I know people who believe in the afterlife and they take solace and even joy in that belief. I also know that the scientific approach is designed to "collapse" those spirits, ghosts and paranormal experiences in the same way that a measurement in a quantum system collapses the wave-function. It's just a bizzare way that reality seems to work.
     
  11. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    When I was in the ministry, I had to confront this question constantly. I remember a mother asking why God allowed her child to die when the school bus she was on was struck by a speeding vehicle- backstory is the bus was hit by a drunken driver and as we all know- it's not "economical" to install seat belts on school buses apparently...
    The only compassionate answer I could give was that GOd did not take the child away- that the drunken driver did. That the lack of seat belts contributed.
    Again and again and again when confronted with these questions- I had to Remove God from the situation in order to have it make sense.

    This lady dying of cancer also has the science to look to for treatment. A cure won't come in time for her. But why tell her anything about what happens after? I learned long ago that it's those left behind to cope that need the attention and I tended to encourage those I could to pay as much attention to their families as they could and simply avoided the question of 'after.'
    Perhaps. It's equally possible that your experiences have a different explanation than the one you believe in. You may be nicer or not- but open your mind to the possibilities just as you ask others to.
    As it is now, your mind is shut in- locked away in your beliefs with no forgiveness for anything outside of those beliefs. If you increase your awareness to things more than just what goes on within your own mind, but to extend out into the rest of the world- To Open your mind up to what's going on out here... You may find you need not put effort into being nicer. It will just come.
     
  12. Balerion Banned Banned

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    No. You don't have to tell her anything. How did you take that from what he said?

    I don't understand how you having a hallucination means that non-believers are unsympathetic or uncaring. I have no idea how that jump was made.

    Sure they have, it's just that not everyone surrenders their rational mind to irrational superstition.
     
  13. Gravage Registered Senior Member

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    1,241
    Just let the woman to believe in the afterlife-after all science cannot either prove or disprove the afterlife, since it's outside the detections, measurements and calculations.
    We would see all skeptics begging for God and the existence for afterlife.
     
  14. Neverfly Banned Banned

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    That is her choice. I wouldn't encourage nor discourage it to a dying person.
    Outside of it... I always wonder abut that wording. Unicorns are also outside of detections, measurements and calculations.
    Perhaps, but if that happens, it's just as plausible that the evolutionary fear of death was strong enough to make them slightly irrational at the end. We all get that way sometimes, even without he fear of death looming over us. We can get slightly irrational when someone on the internet is wrong.
     
  15. Balerion Banned Banned

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    I don't understand this nonsense about it being "outside" of it's purview. More like, it's an imaginary concept invented by humans, and its non-existence prevents it from being measured or discovered.

    I'm sorry, what?
     
  16. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

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    I agree. Why would you impose your beliefs on another at a time like this?

    Sympathy is usually used to comfort, while empathy is generally used to understand and validate. Just look at some of the sympathy messages. Prayers, now that’s what I call hooey.

    "She's in a better place."
    "He's looking down from Heaven."
    "She's waiting for you in Heaven."
    "God called him home."
    "God needed him."
    "She's an angel now."
    "She's with grandma now."

    I find none of these comforting. They’re merely “hush, don’t cry” words. They don’t need expressions of pity or sorrow towards their pain. They need someone to listen to them, to support them, and validate their emotions.

    She’s most likely thinking more about her children than herself, but dismissing her fears or concerns is probably the worst thing you could do.

    I hope when my time comes, I’m with someone who understands the process of dying. Did you see “The Grey”? It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it, strong with confidence.

    “Listen. You're gonna die, that's what's happening. It's okay. It's alright. It'll slide over you. It'll start to feel warm. Nice and warm. It'll move over you. Let your thoughts go. Hold the good things. Who do you love?”

    It’s late. Goodnight.
     
  17. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you very much, I appreciate your compliment.

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  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Because when we sleep our brain continues to receive the same amount of oxygen it gets while we're awake, so it continues to function normally. But in many instances of death the heart and/or lungs cease to function, so the delivery of oxygen to the brain ceases. This causes abnormal neural activity.

    In cases where the heart and lungs are able to be brought back online, due to medical attention or simply good luck, before actual death occurs (irreversible degradation of the synapses), brain function may return to normal, and the victim may retain memories of the brain activity under the abnormal conditions.

    And BTW, the brain does indeed behave in strange ways while we're asleep. Perhaps you've heard of the phenomenon called "dreaming"? Most of us at least occasionally remember the fictitious "experiences" portrayed in a dream. But since we spend our entire lives becoming accustomed to the experience of dreaming and understanding that dreams are not real, we seldom wake up and insist that they were, in fact, real. On the other hand, very few people have near-death experiences and I'm sure the number of people who have had more than one doesn't have very many digits. So no one has become accustomed to them and developed a rational response to them through repeated experience.

    A cold-hearted economical analysis does indeed indicate that if you have a certain amount of discretionary funds to devote to saving the lives of children, seat belts on school buses should not be one of your top twenty choices because that is not a statistically important cause of infant mortality. Accidents are indeed the leading cause of death for young children in the USA, but school bus accidents are way down at the bottom of that list. I think more of them fall out of windows.

    Once they reach adolescence, three of the top four causes of death are suicide, homicide and prescription drug overdose.

    But perhaps more to the point, you can install the belts in the buses, but how the hell will you convince an entire busload of cranky kids who would rather be home playing videogames to actually sit down and fasten them?

    My credentials as a militant, sarcastic, confrontational atheist are well known on this forum. But still it's not too hard to understand the reasoning and rhetoric of the hundreds of millions of kind, decent, loving religious people, especially in dire circumstances when their faith is allegedly an indispensible resource. If you believe in the modern Abrahamist notion of Heaven (which, BTW, is a rather recent accretion to Christian doctrine with very tenuous basis in the scriptures), then you can try to take comfort in the certainty that your child is now up there, free from the pains, worries and other distresses of corporeal life. (Perhaps playing videogames 24/7

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    ) The loss is yours, and you will now approach your life with a renewed and strengthened emphasis on living it in a good Christian manner so that you will be able to reunite with your child when it is your turn to go to Heaven.

    As I noted in another discussion, I read an exchange on a Christian advice website, in which the family dog had just died and the mother didn't know what to say when the kids asked if they would be reunited with him in Heaven. According to the (ever-evolving

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    ) Christian doctrine, humans are the only animals with souls, so if your most loyal and beloved friend is your dog, then when you get to Heaven you'll be shit-out-of-luck. The minister told her that God has the ability to recreate that dog right down to his habits and memories, so an identical facsimile will be waiting in Heaven. Since that's beyond the understanding of a small child, it is okay to lie to them and assure them that Spot will be waiting faithfully for them, 500 lonely, interminable dog-years in the future.

    Amen to that, brother Will. I hope to meet you there!
     
  19. arauca Banned Banned

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    Please check out this interview and give your opinion : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08&feature=related

    There are other like this one...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QE7B2SJSC8&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-OoKUFBfZQ&feature=related
     
  20. arauca Banned Banned

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    4,564


    Please check out this interview and give your opinion : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08&feature=related

    There are other like this one...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QE7B2SJSC8&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-OoKUFBfZQ&feature=related
     
  21. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    4,098
    It makes sense to show you that dark matter has been empirically directly detected. This much is known. It's matter. It doesn't interact strongly electromagnetically so it's very difficult to detect. WMAP predicts it makes up 23/100 of the universe.
    A direct empirical proof of the existence of dark matter
    http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0608407
    Dark Matter: The evidence from astronomy,
    astrophysics and cosmology
    http://arxiv.org/pdf/1001.0316v2.pdf

    So it's not just a place holder. It's been directly detected. At this stage of the investigation all the details haven't been discovered.
     
  22. Trooper Secular Sanity Valued Senior Member

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    I don’t know, Bruce. I think that because all the details haven't been discovered that this means it is still technically a placeholder. :shrug:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weakly_interacting_massive_particles

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter#Direct_detection_experiments
     
  23. gmilam Valued Senior Member

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    3,522
    Do I have to point out the obvious? This guy never died. So, logically, he never experienced an "after-life".
     

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