- This topic has 282 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 9 months ago by
.
- Posts
Thanks for that, Paul. (I’ll be looking at your blog in a minute.)
That very tentative exploratory medical finding does not begin to explain the knowledge of the patients of the locations of relatives and friends, or of the actions and conversations which took place between them, even outside the hospital, although also among the staff in the operating theatre. These latter have been verified on numerous occasions, by members of the surgical team, and also by relatives waiting elsewhere in the hospital, and at least in one case, in their own home.
As the author of the article concludes:
"
we should be extremely cautious before drawing any conclusions about human near-death experiences: it is one thing to measure brain activity in rats during cardiac arrest, and quite another to relate that to human experience."
However, more interesting to me is the Comment 836 by vessel, currently at the top of the page:
‘This article has a leading and false conclusion which the data in this study does not prove.
They measured increased activity in the brain before death – that does not prove the brain creates consciousness or that leaving the body doesn’t occur after the observed heightened brain activity –
Majority of NDE’s occur well after the period of heightened brain activity & then no activity -‘
In some cases, I believe, the brain was frozen, and the blood had even been drained off!
I liked your blog very much, Paul. How naive I seem to have been about the Al Zarooni case.
Strange as it may seem for an economic left-winger, though, I have a certain sympathy with the pragmatic/cynical stance of the BHA. It made no sense for Al Zarooni to take what for him would have been such an insane risk. To me, although I wouldn’t think it impossible that AZ was the prime mover, it seems on the balance of probabilities that you may well be right.
What exercises me more is the thought of the likelihood of an eastern potentate getting a slap on the wrist for sodomizing and murdering in a lift, a male servant of his whose status the judge described as, to all intents and purposes, no better than that of a slave.
The judge said something to the effect that we don’t allow that sort of thing here. Murder is murder. But when judges speak in such ‘no nonsense’ terms, it usually presages a slap on the wrist. I never read what the outcome of that case was.
Here’s another terrific NDE clip, JB and Insomniac:
What are your thoughts on after death, Grimes?
I went to see this guy and found it fascinating and would go again.
http://www.steveholbrook.co.uk/pages/
Gaelic Warrior Gold Cup Winner 2026
‘It is worth reminding ourselves just how strong the evidence is for an afterlife compared to just how weak the evidence is for Darwinian evolution’
Can anyone really be that naive?
What are your thoughts on after death, Grimes?
I went to see this guy and found it fascinating and would go again.
http://www.steveholbrook.co.uk/pages/
Well, Nathan, with my usual cheery presumption, I look forward to it. When he was asked what he thought about old age, Maurice Chevalier is said to have replied that he preferred it to the alternative.
For me it’s the other way round. They say old age is not for cissies, so I’d prefer to beat a tactical retreat to the next life. I’m kidding actually. My reason for looking forward to the death of my body is a positive one. Much of what you guys are doing is whistling in the dark, but I know God exists beyond all peradventure. I also have personal experience of physical, demonic attacks, as well as the activity of a poltergeist in our flat. We’re all subject to their spiritual attacks, but I get them ‘in spades’ as well. Twice a pair of ghostly hands tried to throttle me, as I was lying on my pit; oddly enough, once in Ealing and once in Edinburgh.
A lot of the lads in my troop in 39 Artillery Rgt, Paderborn, were so scared of the ghostly manifestations (which occurred mostly between Ash Wednesday and Trinity Sunday, when, as a minimum, Catholics are supposed to go to Confession at least once) they asked me – Protestants too – for rosaries to hang over their beds, which they did. The weirdest effect was that some lads who’d had a real scare seemed to be very pale even the day after!
I know many innocent, bereaved people take comfort from going to a medium’s seance, public or private, but I believe the Biblical proscription against it is well-founded. The possibility is opened, as with Ouija boards for the participation of demons, most dangerously if you do so with a well-informed conscience.
Most people’s consciences are well-informed in the most important factor for our salvation, namely, charity, selfless love, but they are often less well-informed in areas such as this, so I believe they would not be judged harshly, on that account.
It’s the difference between formal sin, and material sin: material sin is an act contrary to the will and law of God, while being largely unaware of its being a sin, or if aware of it, of its seriousness ; formal sin is such a transgression committed with full knowledge of its wrongness.
I thought (rightly or wrongly!) that some of you might be interested in some thoughts of mine concerning the bible and its interpretation. Although I may have broached a part of it in another thread, earlier.
I tend not to be a biblical literalist, in areas where it seems not to be demanded, while being in total awe of the Church’s historical, exegetical role, and would almost always defer to the wisdom of the fathers, saints and scholars down the centuries; and be grateful to be able to do so.
I just don’t know how literally some of the subject matter in parts of the O.T. is to be taken, but I know that it will always be indicative of truth, however metaphorical. And what’s more, my putting my uncertainty ‘on the back-burner’ tends to be vindicated in due course, as the Church’s correctness on the subject is quietly vindicated in my mind.
What is of crucial significance, however, is that the importance of the spiritual underpinnings transcend mere knowledge for its own sake, as felt, for instance by some scientists with regard to whether the seven days of creation were actual days or a determinate period of time – metaphorical.
The bible is full of mystery, and Jesus made it clear that the deeper spiritual truths would not be clear, when he couched his words in rhetorical language and in an epic register or tone.
For instance, he stated: ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.’
It would have been much more straightforward and simple to understand that saying, if he had said:
‘After the resurrection, your real life begins. If you believe in me, though your body may die (temporarily, pending ultimate glorification), your spirit will be unaffected, the life of your spirit will continue without interruption.’
In this way, first, he states the matter from the perspective of the death of the body; then he turns it round, reiterating it from the viewpoint of the uninterrupted continuation of the life of the spirit.
Information, knowledge, of itself, is worthless – secular knowledge of almost vanishing significance in the next life. However, the bible provides the context that gives it its true significance in this world, and it cannot do that by simply enunciating facts, because it is dealing with mysteries beyond our understanding: paradoxes, the deep mysteries. They are the end game, anyway.
This is true even in physics in relation to the microscopic and the macroscopic; the deeper the understanding that the physicists are able to garner, the greater the wall of paradoxes they will then face.
In fact, I am inclined to believe that the less essentially transcendental knowledge forms a continuum with love, and is at its service, rather as Jesus was at the service of his heavenly Father, with whom, together with the Holy Spirit, he forms the continuum of the Holy Trinity, the one God.
So Jesus challenges us to want to understand such mysteries, but to understand first and foremost that they are profound mysteries; they deal with a subject that is actually transcendental. A sound understanding of them, with the right mindset, can only be approached by indirections. Without such a docile mindset, the Holy Spirit is less able to personally coordinate the strands of a person’s intelligence. Unless he is asleep, that is, when he may be more docile!
The classic instance of this challenging way in which Jesus often preached was when he told the crowd that unless they ate his body and drunk his blood they could have no life in them. So the value of Christian spiritual knowledge is inseparable from the will of the soul of the individual, indeed ultimately from his commitment to it.
Some were able to say, ‘I want to learn more from this man. I’ve seen and heard enough to ‘cut him plenty of slack’ (for my sake), even if he seems to talk in a baffling way, now and again!’ Others, excessively literalist, walked off, muttering that he was speaking in intolerable language.
And it is the same God who is personally speaking to a person reading the bible, as the God who originally inspired, and sometimes spoke, the words contained in it. But it, nevertheless, did sound quirky, God citing chapter and verse of the bible to Ian McCormack in the NDE video.
‘It is worth reminding ourselves just how strong the evidence is for an afterlife compared to just how weak the evidence is for Darwinian evolution’
Can anyone really be that naive?
Actually, JB, Einstein used that very word against you and your tribe: ‘naive realists’!!!
Here’s an interesting perspective of an atheist:
You need to take a lot of the quotes supposedly attributed to Einstein with a fair pinch of salt. Many (either through stupidity or a genuine desire to deceive) lie about things he’s supposed to have said or exaggerate bits to misrepresent his views.
He is supposed to have said, when questioned by a Rabbi that he believed "only in Spinoza’s god" i.e. not a god who is in the least concerned with what humans do or think. (Of course, you might argue that I am misquoting here!).
Here are some other quotes of his which hardly paint him as some weak-minded, god-fearing individual praying and mumbling to some fairy-story creature worshipped by most:-"…I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this…"
and
"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual…"It is difficult to accept that modern man has swallowed so gullibly the claptrap that is religion. Understandable as far as pre-enlightenment / Darwin / 20th century scientific enlightenment people go, but today? Gordon Bennet!!
Being scared of death is no reason why we should still cram children’s heads full of this nonsense. I was deceived when I was a child by being told religion(catholocism in my case) was true and above questioning. When something is ingrained into you at that age, it’s very difficult to shake it off. That’s why it should be made illegal to ram religion down the throats of impressionable children. If they are taught religion, they should be taught atheism (or at least the Spinoza take on it.)
Have a gander at Christopher Hitchen’sGod is not great"
You need to take a lot of the quotes supposedly attributed to Einstein with a fair pinch of salt. Many (either through stupidity or a genuine desire to deceive) lie about things he’s supposed to have said or exaggerate bits to misrepresent his views.
He is supposed to have said, when questioned by a Rabbi that he believed "only in Spinoza’s god" i.e. not a god who is in the least concerned with what humans do or think. (Of course, you might argue that I am misquoting here!).
Here are some other quotes of his which hardly paint him as some weak-minded, god-fearing individual praying and mumbling to some fairy-story creature worshipped by most:-"…I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this…"
and
"I do not believe in the immortality of the individual…"It is difficult to accept that modern man has swallowed so gullibly the claptrap that is religion. Understandable as far as pre-enlightenment / Darwin / 20th century scientific enlightenment people go, but today? Gordon Bennet!!
Being scared of death is no reason why we should still cram children’s heads full of this nonsense. I was deceived when I was a child by being told religion(catholocism in my case) was true and above questioning. When something is ingrained into you at that age, it’s very difficult to shake it off. That’s why it should be made illegal to ram religion down the throats of impressionable children. If they are taught religion, they should be taught atheism (or at least the Spinoza take on it.)
Have a gander at Christopher Hitchen’sGod is not great"
No, Einstein was not a theist, he did not believe in a personal God. But it annoyed the heck out of him that atheists kept claiming he was an atheist. How could he have been given his quotes:
‘Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.’
‘The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—-a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.’
Yet, in teeth of continual discoveries of stupendous complexity in everything in nature, today’s Consensus of atheist scientists sneer at what was no more than common sense to Einstein and the great, 20th-century paradigm changers, indeed, is to most of us, namely, that everything in nature was designed.
Yes, that’s a puzzler, all right!
But more significantly, insomniac, it’s really the RC church your beef is with, isn’t it? Why take it out on God? Free will, as William Craig points out, is the ultimate tribute to the creatures made in his image, a Godlike dignity, to be used appropriately or abused, each with far-reaching consequences for the individual.
OK, if we had our way, we would perhaps have foregone our free will, in favour of avoiding real suffering, which I believe everyone is subject to at some stage of their life, and many throughout their brief life. But that’s the way it is, and if you think about it, God is in a better position to know what’s best for us.
Don’t you think the RC church began to put it’s house in order via Vatican II? It’s not finished yet by any means, as Francis I seems to be indicating, though it has a lot of catching up to do, not to mention remedial teaching of the many hide-bound, legalistically-minded, Pelagian, Tridentine types, who think that abiding by chapter 7, article 5, paragraph 9, subparagraph 4 (a mythical text, admittedly) and all the rest of Canon Law is the be all and end all; instead of doing our best and then relying on God’s mercy.
Although I’m by no means denying the usefulness of Canon Law as a practical reference-frame, and various dogmas that are not negotiable, but it mustn’t be a fetish in all its particulars and viewed as the means of our salvation, as the Pelagian types would have it.
…that everything in nature was designed.
Like the foreskin?
a unit of currency. ask for 100, you get 200.
1 Samuel 18 verses 25 – 27:
===============
Saul ordered them to tell David: “All the king wants from you as payment for the bride are the foreskins of a hundred dead Philistines, as revenge on his enemies.” (This was how Saul planned to have David killed by the Philistines.)Saul’s officials reported to David what Saul had said, and David was delighted with the thought of becoming the king’s son-in-law.
Before the day set for the wedding, David and his men went and killed two hundred Philistines. He took their foreskins to the king and counted them all out to him, so that he might become his son-in-law.
==============Here’s a little article spiritual sustenance, lads:
Why did God create plants before he/she/it created the sun? He must of forgotten about photosynthesis.
Was just watching one of my favourite comedians, Jimmy Carr and he raised a quite comical but interesting point.
"If we’re all God’s children what’s so special about Jesus?"
That’s an easy one, baley. It’s his life in us, through the Holy Spirit, that makes us special. So special that, as his adopted children, we will share in his own, divine life.
I’ll bet you a pound to a pinch of snuff that, by the time you ponk it, you’ll say to God, ‘Never mind about the church, I believe in you, Jesus, and I’m sorry for being a curmudgeon.’
"I believe in you, Jesus, and I’m sorry for being a curmudgeon"
Sorry Grimes but you are clearly a
retard
, you blatantly have no understanding what so ever of anything a 12 year old knows. This is not complicated, when I "ponk it" Bactria will decompose my biological matter into CO2. My remains wether it be ash, bone or CO2 will not be able to communicate with a non-existent supernatural fairy tale character dreamt up my middle eastern Arabs who had just the same understanding of the universe as you demonstrate, you must have got terrible grades in your science exams. Life is temporary, death is permanent. Strange how Christians bang on about how this life is nothing and heaven is so great, I don’t see any rushing to get there.
I will never submit to something that doesn’t exist, wether alive or dead. You fail to understand that your parents are responsible for your existence, it really isn’t hard to grasp. God didn’t fertilise your mamma’s egg, your dad did. So why not worship your parents and stop giving the credit to something that doesn’t exist. It’s like a grown man believing a stalk delivered him to a hospital.
I see you dodged the creation myth question…
"Why did God create plants before he/she/it created the sun? He must of forgotten about photosynthesis."
Like I said these historic middle eastern Arabs had no understanding of anything.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.