Near Death experiences and the scientific method.

[Watchmen]

Some people become so frightened of death and what religion says might happen to them that they reject spiritual knowledge and become atheists. It is important to them to believe there is no afterlife. However, NDEs show they really have nothing to worry about. There is no hell, no judgment or punishment in the afterlife. Actually it is full of love and caring. A wonderful place.

You think that’s why people are atheists?!?!
Hysterical, man.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Some people become so frightened of death and what religion says might happen to them that they reject spiritual knowledge and become atheists. It is important to them to believe there is no afterlife. However, NDEs show they really have nothing to worry about. There is no hell, no judgment or punishment in the afterlife. Actually it is full of love and caring. A wonderful place.

I do not know that anyone knows what NDEs really are to the point allowing supported claims about them as spiritual or anything else. They are a collection of unknown phenomena purported to occur at or near the time of death. What they might be is 99% conjecture and wishful thinking from all I have seen. What they show? Who knows. They may be nothing more then brain chemistry gone awry due to the physiological and neurological, changes occurring in the body related to the dying or nearly dying.

I have seen nothing to convince me that the phenomenon has been explained.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Some people become so frightened of death and what religion says might happen to them that they reject spiritual knowledge and become atheists. It is important to them to believe there is no afterlife. However, NDEs show they really have nothing to worry about. There is no hell, no judgment or punishment in the afterlife. Actually it is full of love and caring. A wonderful place.

I doubt it is the cause of atheism. Atheism is not the rejection of spiritual knowledge. It is the recognition that there is no physical, objective evidence for deities, the spiritual or an afterlife. All NDE's are is a gap that some people fill with belief. I might believe they mean something, but I have nothing to show what I might believe is a better answer than what another might believe.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I doubt it is the cause of atheism. Atheism is not the rejection of spiritual knowledge. It is the recognition that there is no physical, objective evidence for deities, the spiritual or an afterlife. All NDE's are is a gap that some people fill with belief. I might believe they mean something, but I have nothing to show what I might believe is a better answer than what another might believe.

So you believe atheists do not reject spiritual knowledge?

 

[rational experiences]

If a human uses two minds.

The science man designer who thinks cosmic to design machines to apply reaction by his own man thoughts.

That mind state knows he owns no spiritual explanation as a science.

As we are all using human awAreness.

As we do live in a heavenly mass that owns multiple changing conditions awareness of course would be affected. We name the status spiritual as it is not scientific.

We interrelate awareness itself.

How else did science state I became aware.

Science is about results. Science consciousness hence says spiritual is not about science.

Accept the reality.

Theists don't. They want by motivation to own everything or all things.

We were taught greedy men lie.

As since when does a human on earth own what they choose to discuss in space? As an example of thinking.

Yet they claim patent my thoughts as they are valuable. Ego lies.

Men want what they believe is the greatest of all forms. For machine reactive status.

Think you Can convince them that NDE is personal and not science?

 

[Subduction Zone]

So you believe atheists do not reject spiritual knowledge?

How do you even support the claim that "spiritual knowledge" exists? If you cannot show that something exists then you cannot make any claims about others "rejecting" it.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

How do you even support the claim that "spiritual knowledge" exists? If you cannot show that something exists then you cannot make any claims about others "rejecting" it.

I claimed nothing in the post you quoted, I was replying to Dan From Smithville's comment to me where he stated..."Atheism is not the rejection of spiritual knowledge.". Now since he identifies as a Christian, I must admit to finding his comment as somewhat strange, so I am asking for his confirmation about his apparent belief that Atheists accept spiritual knowledge.

But since you have fortuitously made your presence felt in our exchange, let's hear from the horse's mouth, do you accept spiritual knowledge?

 

[Lekatt]

For some clarity. Scientists study the brain through behavior and imaging. They watch to see which part of the brain lights up when certain behavior takes place. Now if the brain is damaged and one cannot walk, then one can be taught to walk again which means a different undamaged part of the brain is used.

The brain has been studied for many, many years and no one has found any memory, emotions, or other data therein. They never will because it is not the brain that controls the body. I have spent many hours studying human anomalies. I believe more is to be learned from anomalies than from normal events when it comes to us humans.

The videos on savants testify to this. Badly handicapped people with amazing skills.

Now there is a group of people that have little or no brain and they do amazing things also.
We are spirit first and human second, and there is a ton of evidence to show this in our literature.

Miraculous Cases of People Who Lived Without a Brain | Mysterious Universe

 

[SkepticThinker]

Some people become so frightened of death and what religion says might happen to them that they reject spiritual knowledge and become atheists.

I've never heard of anybody becoming an atheist based on that premise, but I suppose maybe someone somewhere has.

Myself, I've never seen anyone actually demonstrate the existence of anything spiritual, so I just don't believe in it. Heck, I've never actually seen anybody define it in any functional way. But my mind could be changed should some convincing evidence be presented to me.

It is important to them to believe there is no afterlife.

Sorry but this doesn't make much sense to me. People who are supposedly afraid of death need to believe there is no afterlife? Why?

However, NDEs show they really have nothing to worry about. There is no hell, no judgment or punishment in the afterlife. Actually it is full of love and caring. A wonderful place.

How do you think an NDE demonstrates that there is an afterlife?

My grandfather's heart stopped once on the operating table. I asked him what happened during that time; did he experience or see anything? What he told me was that it was the exact same thing as if he had just gone to sleep for a while. He didn't see any loved ones or tunnels or white lights or anything. No NDE at all. So I'm wondering if you guys take these experiences into account when you're analyzing these NDE phenomenon. Do you just ignore them? I ask because this entire thing smacks of confirmation bias.

Also, I've read some supposed NDE accounts where people saw terrible things, rather than their loved ones and shining tunnels and all that. How do those accounts fit with your assertion that the afterlife is full of love and caring - "a wonderful place?"

 

[SkepticThinker]

For some clarity. Scientists study the brain through behavior and imaging. They watch to see which part of the brain lights up when certain behavior takes place. Now if the brain is damaged and one cannot walk, then one can be taught to walk again which means a different undamaged part of the brain is used.

The brain has been studied for many, many years and no one has found any memory, emotions, or other data therein. They never will because it is not the brain that controls the body. I have spent many hours studying human anomalies. I believe more is to be learned from anomalies than from normal events when it comes to us humans.

The videos on savants testify to this. Badly handicapped people with amazing skills.

Now there is a group of people that have little or no brain and they do amazing things also.
We are spirit first and human second, and there is a ton of evidence to show this in our literature.

Miraculous Cases of People Who Lived Without a Brain | Mysterious Universe

This is a pretty inaccurate picture of what we know about the brain.
We can actually find emotions in the brain. And memories. Everything our bodies do, comes from our brains. If our brain is damaged, our personality can be damaged, as well as bodily functions. When my grandmother had a stroke and severely damaged her occipital lobe, her entire personality changed and a sweet little woman became mean and nasty at times - behaviour nobody had ever seen her display before. This is not what we would expect to see if our personalities or spirits or whatever exist outside of our brains.

Your example of a brain being damaged and a person learning to walk again is an example of neuroplasticity, which is a function of our physical brains.
Our brains can also be affected by the neurochemical actions of a variety of drugs that can change the ways our brain functions, the way we view the world and ourselves, etc. Again, this is not something we should expect to find if our "spirit" exists apart from our brains.

Emotions and the Brain
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-tell-someones-emotional-state-from-an-mri/
Where do emotions register in the brain?
Brain-Imaging Technology Reveals Hidden Emotions - UConn Today

Memory and the Brain
Where are memories stored in the brain?
The forgotten part of memory
How Our Brains Make Memories | Science | Smithsonian Magazine
Neuroscientists identify brain circuit necessary for memory formation

 

[Subduction Zone]

I claimed nothing in the post you quoted, I was replying to Dan From Smithville's comment to me where he stated..."Atheism is not the rejection of spiritual knowledge.". Now since he identifies as a Christian, I must admit to finding his comment as somewhat strange, so I am asking for his confirmation about his apparent belief that Atheists accept spiritual knowledge.

But since you have fortuitously made your presence felt in our exchange, let's hear from the horse's mouth, do you accept spiritual knowledge?

Here is what you asked him:

"So you believe atheists do not reject spiritual knowledge?"

You have an assumption as part of your question. Using leading questions is a dishonest debating technique and should be avoided. It is rather clear that you are implying that your belief is that atheists do this. And that is where you put a burden of proof upon yourself.

The extreme example of this is "Have you quit beating your wife yet?" If I asked you that seriously it would easily be breaking the rules here. Since your question involved a term that you cannot even define much less support that might be the case with your question, but it it still not wise to ask one in that form.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Miraculous Cases of People Who Lived Without a Brain | Mysterious Universe

How do you think these cases demonstrate that we have spirits and that our brains don't control our bodies? Do you have evidence that something other than these patients' brains are controlling their bodies?

Let's look at an example from the website you've provided.
It says that Aaron Murray was born with only a brain stem and suffered from hydranencephaly. It was predicted that he would die within a few days but didn't. It says he was able to breathe on his own, which isn't that surprising given that he did, in fact, have a brain stem, which is the part of our brain responsible for subconscious bodily functions like breathing and maintaining heart rate. So those actions can be directly tied to his existing brain stem. It goes on to say that he had an "awareness of his surroundings" and was able to giggle, smile, play with his brother and watch TV. They don't explain the context in which these things occurred and how they were measured. It all sounds very miraculous.

What they don't mention is that he was having approximately 30 seizures per day. Or that a programmable shunt had been surgically placed inside his skull. It was after this procedure was done that his seizures stopped, swelling in his head from the hydranencephaly went down and he began to be able to giggle, laugh and hold his own head up. But he still can't do most things like walk or say more than a couple of basic words, which again, is what we would expect to find if our brains were connected with our bodies rather than with spirits.

And then there's the problem of all the babies born with hydranencephaly or anencephaly that ended up dying. What of them? Didn't they have a spirit? You can't just focus on the "good" ones that appear to support your beliefs and ignore the rest that don't support your belief.

 

[KWED]

Some people become so frightened of death and what religion says might happen to them that they reject spiritual knowledge and become atheists. It is important to them to believe there is no afterlife. However, NDEs show they really have nothing to worry about. There is no hell, no judgment or punishment in the afterlife. Actually it is full of love and caring. A wonderful place.

You have it the wrong way round. Atheism usually goes hand in hand with an acceptance of death. Religion and a desire for an afterlife stem from a fear of death.
What religion says about after death (which religion, btw?) is irrelevant because it is not real.

 

[KWED]

Your talking point is irrelevant as to whether her experience was an NDE. A genuine NDE is still an NDE regardless of prior decision making.

Many of us have been close to death. Experiencing hallucinations while the brain is under stress of trauma is a pretty unremarkable event.
What is remarkable is that some people think those hallucinations were actual events where the consciousness left the body.

The woman in question is merely making unsupported and unverifiable claims, so really not sure what we are supposed to learn from that (other than people can be convinced their hallucinations were real - which we already knew).

 

[KWED]

You think that's what was implied they don't communicate with the doctors and nurses they see them and them selves in a out of body experience The people that greet them in the NDE are all dead never a living person not once.

But few NDEs involve meeting people "on the other side". Most are OBEs seeing themselves and other living people, or vague experiences of light and figures. unremarkable

They have met family members they never knew who died before they were born. You cannot explain this.

This is just more unverifiable claims. There is no way of knowing that the subject had never seen or heard any reference to that relative at some point over their life.
Link to some examples and we can look at exactly what happened. I find that usually (as with the case in the video above) the NDE supporter approaches the report with extreme confirmation bias and simply accepts the spiritual option by default rather than looking at all possible explanations and assessing them on the basis of evidence and rational argument.

 

[KWED]

Now there is a group of people that have little or no brain and they do amazing things also.
We are spirit first and human second, and there is a ton of evidence to show this in our literature.

Miraculous Cases of People Who Lived Without a Brain | Mysterious Universe

Your example actually shows that the mind is a product of the brain.
The child was born with a severely unreformed brain. If your claim that the mind is separate from the brain, he should have functioned just like a normal child. However, he has suffered severe disability and impaired physical control and cognitive ability - exactly as we would expect if the mind was a product of the brain.

What you have also demonstrated perfectly is the level of confirmation bias at play. You thought that this case supported your position because you wanted it to, whereas it actually disproves it!

 

[KWED]

They are a collection of unknown phenomena purported to occur at or near the time of death.

Interestingly, around 50% of people who report NDEs were never in any risk of dying.

 

[KWED]

So you believe atheists do not reject spiritual knowledge?

People can reject the idea of the gods of religion but still believe in some non-specific supernatural power or spiritualism. The term "atheist" could apply to them.

 

[KWED]

I claimed nothing in the post you quoted, I was replying to Dan From Smithville's comment to me where he stated..."Atheism is not the rejection of spiritual knowledge.". Now since he identifies as a Christian, I must admit to finding his comment as somewhat strange, so I am asking for his confirmation about his apparent belief that Atheists accept spiritual knowledge.

But since you have fortuitously made your presence felt in our exchange, let's hear from the horse's mouth, do you accept spiritual knowledge?

Atheism is not "the rejection of spiritual knowledge".
It is the rejection of the existence of the gods of religion.
However, many atheists are also rational, critical thinkers who require evidence before accepting extraordinary claims, so they likewise do not accept "spiritual knowledge", or any other form of evidence-free, nonsensical woo.

 

[KWED]

Also, I've read some supposed NDE accounts where people saw terrible things, rather than their loved ones and shining tunnels and all that. How do those accounts fit with your assertion that the afterlife is full of love and caring - "a wonderful place?"

Easy. They visited the wrong afterlife.