The End

[arthra]

Can the view that death is absolute (the big end, nothing after, no way no how) enrich a person's appreciation for life?

I kind of look at it as the "end" of life as we know it. If you can for a moment consider what a foetus might imagine when it nears the birth experience... The end of a protective nurturing environment it has "known" for nine months and the beginning of well something that is totally unknown to you (as a foetus). Kind of reminds me of a button I saw once back in the sixties.. Is there life after birth?

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Your assumptions are wrong. Here's one link: Afterlife Evidence

This is from your link, first sentence:

There is undeniable scientific evidence today for the afterlife.

Well let's see what we find. Let's just take a look at one of these chapters:

First of all, despite his claims about how great he is, he is not a scientist. He also does not seem to know how to put things in proper APA format, which makes this an annoying read.

I am sorry, but I gave a chapter a read and that a is fair sample for any work. If he is going to claim, "There is undeniable scientific evidence today for the afterlife" then I would want to see a peer reviewed article from a reliable source in proper APA format with proper citation.

 

[George-ananda]

This is from your link, first sentence:



Well let's see what we find. Let's just take a look at one of these chapters:

First of all, despite his claims about how great he is, he is not a scientist. He also does not seem to know how to put things in proper APA format, which makes this an annoying read.

I am sorry, but I gave a chapter a read and that a is fair sample for any work. If he is going to claim, "There is undeniable scientific evidence today for the afterlife" then I would want to see a peer reviewed article from a reliable source in proper APA format with proper citation.

APA is for academic papers I believe. This is not an academic paper. Actually, here's his newer website: Afterlife Evidence

Remember, I am giving you a link to a lot of the evidence that has convinced me, which is what you asked for. I am not claiming this site as official proof in any format.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

APA is for academic papers I believe. This is not an academic paper. Actually, here's his newer website: Afterlife Evidence

Remember, I am giving you a link to a lot of the evidence that has convinced me, which is what you asked for. I am not claiming this site as official proof in any format.

"APA is for academic papers I believe."

APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (6th ed., 2nd printing).

Purdue OWL: APA Formatting and Style Guide

The format has become popular in research, because it is well thought out, but really any format that clearly shows the hypothesis, the methodology, the data, the conclusion and references is what I am looking for. I am not looking for some lawyer to tell me that experiments have been done.

One of the most important things when doing research is finding credible sources, and if you are going on the web then generally something from an .edu site. There are so many bad sources out there, that if you don't learn how to filter them out you could spend a life time learning BS.

I gave it a chapter read, and that is well enough for me.

 

[George-ananda]

"APA is for academic papers I believe."



Purdue OWL: APA Formatting and Style Guide

The format has become popular in research, because it is well thought out, but really any format that clearly shows the hypothesis, the methodology, the data, the conclusion and references is what I am looking for. I am not looking for some lawyer to tell me that experiments have been done.

One of the most important things when doing research is finding credible sources, and if you are going on the web then generally something from an .edu site. There are so many bad sources out there, that if you don't learn how to filter them out you could spend a life time learning BS.

I gave it a chapter read, and that is well enough for me.

Great, but I am not really interested in formatting.

All the research and sources you need is out there if you have a great amount of energy. I have heard enough to convince me many times over across my decades of study..

 

[Jeremiahcp]

Great, but I am not really interested in formatting.

All the research and sources you need is out there if you have a great amount of energy. I have heard enough to convince me many times over across my decades of study..

"I have heard enough to convince me many times over across my decades of study."

Well as long as it makes you happy and you are not raping and killing people, I suppose it does not really matter too much what you believe. I mean when you die you'll no longer be alive to realize all that time you have wasted. All kidding aside, that content is defiantly not scientific in nature.

 

[George-ananda]

"I have heard enough to convince me many times over across my decades of study."

Well as long as it makes you happy and you are not raping and killing people, I suppose it does not really matter too much what you believe. I mean when you die you'll no longer be alive to realize all that time you have wasted. All kidding aside, that content is defiantly not scientific in nature.

As I said in the other thread, there are some things science is not good at.

 

[Jeremiahcp]

As I said in the other thread, there are some things science is not good for.

But you do realize the link you provided claimed to have "undeniable scientific evidence". I did more poking around in your other link, when it comes to that statement, I think they are full of it.

However, you actually did try to back up your statement, and didn't try to weasel out of it. So thanks for doing that.

 

[George-ananda]

But you do realize the link you provided claimed to have "undeniable scientific evidence".

I just use the phrase 'beyond reasonable doubt' myself.

 

[David1967]

Can the view that death is absolute (the big end, nothing after, no way no how) enrich a person's appreciation for life?

If I thought that this was all there was, I would be beyond depressed.

 

[Nous]

Actually Mr. Zammit may be redeemed and George-ananda found at fault. What I linked to was something he did before 2006. He has an up to the week website (he publishes a weekly afterlife newsletter). I did not link to his currently active website: Afterlife Evidence

Aha! That is much better.

I must tell you that my recent digging into this topic was partly motivated by an offhand comment you made months ago, and which I was rather skeptical about. As I noted on the thread I recently started, I hadn't looked into the issue of NDEs in a decade or more, thus being unacquainted with much of the most definitive evidence. Dr. Woerlee seems to be the most astute critic currently, and he doesn't give any reason to doubt that people do have logical thought processes and have and retain in their memories complex, coherent experiences when their brains are (FAPP) void of activity. Regardless of any other issue relating to NDEs, that is an astounding, well documented fact, and should make anyone who isn't afraid of that evidence to wake up and pay attention.

 

[Nous]

NDEs are not evidence of an afterlife..

Try responding to something I've said.

Among the evidence obtained from NDE studies is the fact the people have and retain in memory complex, coherent experiences, which include logical thought processes, when their brains are not functioning. This would not be possible if consciousness were somehow (mysteriously)merely the byproduct of the electrical activity among neurons.

You don't have any problem with that, do you?

I have been over them before; I gave them their shot and they came up short.

What have you read on the topic?

 

[allfoak]

Try responding to something I've said.

Among the evidence obtained from NDE studies is the fact the people have and retain in memory complex, coherent experiences, which include logical thought processes, when their brains are not functioning. This would not be possible if consciousness were somehow (mysteriously)merely the byproduct of the electrical activity among neurons.

You don't have any problem with that, do you?

What have you read on the topic?

Sometimes people are unable to have a coherent experience when their brain is functioning.

 

[George-ananda]

Aha! That is much better.

I must tell you that my recent digging into this topic was partly motivated by an offhand comment you made months ago, and which I was rather skeptical about.

OMG. I don't just waste my time on this and couple other forums as I feel I do in my darker reflections. This has made my day, so far.

As I noted on the thread I recently started, I hadn't looked into the issue of NDEs in a decade or more, thus being unacquainted with much of the most definitive evidence. Dr. Woerlee seems to be the most astute critic currently, and he doesn't give any reason to doubt that people do have logical thought processes and have and retain in their memories complex, coherent experiences when their brains are (FAPP) void of activity. Regardless of any other issue relating to NDEs, that is an astounding, well documented fact, and should make anyone who isn't afraid of that evidence to wake up and pay attention.

Now, I wonder why you are referring to Dr. Woerlee as a 'critic' when he holds those beliefs. I don't see how his beliefs are compatible with materialism. Does he offer any explanation of how some experiencers have veridical knowledge of things outside of their normal perspective? Even some at a distance, liked loved ones in a hall or in the hospital waiting room, or a gym shoe on a roof? To me, the best answers come from the spiritual schools that tell of an astral/mental body that normally interpenetrates the physical. In this school, logical processes begin in the mental body and in the brain we just see the physical corollary of that process.

 

[allfoak]

OMG. I don't just waste my time on this and couple other forums as I feel I do in my darker reflections. This has made my day, so far.

It is only a waste if you think it is a waste.
There is no way that any of us could know what it is that speaks to the human heart.

 

[Nous]

Now, I wonder why you are referring to Dr. Woerlee as a 'critic' when he holds those beliefs. I don't see how his beliefs are compatible with materialism.

Say this again. I definitely think he wants his beliefs to be compatible with 19th-century materialism.

Does he offer any explanation of how some experiencers have veridical knowledge of things outside of their normal perspective?

His only attempt to explain (away) people's veridical perceptions during cardiac arrest is that a chest compression during CPR got enough oxygen to some brain cells that they woke up enough to hear what was happening and to put it all together into a coherent scene, but it didn't cause them come out of cardiac arrest.

In the case of his ridiculous claim that Pam Reynolds' veridical perceptions were because of anesthetic awareness, he claims that she must have heard the sound of the saw (she did), and was able to describe the saw itself because the nurses and/or surgeons showed her the saw. In other words, he claims that Reynolds and the medical staff at this neurological surgical center are all just big fat liars. Each of Woerlee's attempts to account for veridical perceptions hang on the experiencers and their corroborators all being liars engaged in decades-long conspiracies.

Were Drs. Rudy and Amado-Cattaneo engaged in a years-long conspiracy with this patient that they had declared dead after having no heat beat or blood pressure for more than 20 minutes? This need to believe that all these credible doctors and nurses are lying in their corroborations of the details told by a patient they didn't know beforehand begins to seem rather paranoid.

 

[Nous]

His only attempt to explain (away) people's veridical perceptions during cardiac arrest is that a chest compression during CPR got enough oxygen to some brain cells that they woke up enough to hear what was happening and to put it all together into a coherent scene, but it didn't cause them come out of cardiac arrest.

It should be noted that such an "explanation" obviously doesn't account for, e.g., the patient in Parnia 2014 who reported hearing the automated voice of the AED machine saying, "Shock the patient," which occurs 3 minutes after the patient is in VF. Woerlee's "explanation" doesn't account for lots of other well-documented cases of veridical visual perceptions, or the visual imagery that the congenitally blind experience for the first time in their lives during NDEs.

Woerlee, like others close by, has a religion that consciousness is somehow, inexplicably, a byproduct of the electricity among neurons, and he simply denies and ignores the wealth of evidence that conflicts with this religion.

 

[Furball]

If there is no afterlife what is to stop someone from robbing banks or raping women? This is a straw man's argument with no merit. People don't refrain from committing crimes because they think they are going to pay for them in the afterlife. The prison population around the world is mostly filled with religious people who believe in an afterlife, yet that didn't stop them from killing, stealing and raping. Good people will do good things because they are good, not because they believe in a god, religion, bible or afterlife. All the atheists I have met in my life have proven themselves to be excessively moral to a fault. Believing that nothing will stop you from committing crimes if there is no afterlife is an old scare tactic used by religious cults who want to keep people in the fold. It's mind control at it's best. Just because there isn't an afterlife doesn't mean there aren't consequences in THIS life. So what's to stop someone who wants to commit crimes but doesn't believe in an afterlife?? Oh...I don't know, life in prison, receiving the death penalty, the horrible guilt and remorse for being a bad person and doing horrible things...those are a few I can think of. - Have a nice day!