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As I've said in relation to Bernardo Kastrup's work, I as a Christian have utterly no problem with the notion that consciousness is the foundation of our reality (idealism), what we experience as the material world is essentially the product of God's consciousness ("Our reality is God's dream," as the old saying goes), and we exist as individual islands of consciousness within the larger whole. We experience through our senses the reality created by God's consciousness, which is why we all perceive the universe in basically the same way, while we also experience our individual islands through our minds and emotions.
Kastrup, who is pretty clearly a genius, insists this model fits the scientific data across multiple disciplines much better than either naturalism or dualism. I'm not intractably wedded to it, but it does seem to me remarkably consistent with Christian theology - God "speaking the universe into existence from nothing" and whatnot.
yes, it is consistent with Christian theology to a degree. And if early Christians had the same data that we have today I am sure it would look different. But the church fathers were some of the brightest minds in the world sorting out things with no data. It possible that they believed a person could rise from the dead back then. Heck, thats why we have wakes today ... people were rising.
I am ok with Catholics for a few reasons, but one is the layout of the power structure. then Add saints and trinkets that reduces the chances of idols. The group leads most times but every now and again a strong leader takes drives the car ... like this chemist.
"Jesus" as the focal point I have zero problem with. In a metaphorical light there is no doubt he rose from the dead. even if 5% of the followers are actually living like him, he is here.
They have flaws ... but look at public school around philly stealing the future from us and our children ... I see the church doing bad things that everybody else doing so ok, stop em like we stop everybody else. they are not stealing the future from our children in whole sale fashion like the ideology that has run our schools for the last 25 years.
and religion is no where near as destructive as alcohol. remove alcohol and we might see a drop in wacky religion. these anti-religious really need to go fight to stop alcohol.
No mundane explanation has been able to account for why NDE experiencers so consistently encounter deceased relatives and friends, often relatives they didn't even know about but subsequently recognized in photographs and sometimes relatives and friends they didn't know were dead at the time of the NDE.
I can think of some explanations based on the past history of NDE claims.
It's very difficult to believe that anyone who was posting seriously, with an eye toward impressing others with his intellect or the strength of his views, would keep posting demonstrable nonsense. I am beginning to wonder if you are simply playing some game for your own amusement.
The "oxygen-starved brain" hypothesis is one of the earliest "explanations" for NDEs. It simply has not withstood scrutiny:
Other researchers have sought explanations for NDEs in terms of normal or abnormal functions of
the brain. Several explanatory hypotheses have been proposed linking NDEs to various physiological
processes presumed to come into play in a life-threatening situation. Some have suggested that absence
of oxygen or decreased oxygen getting to the brain, as a common final pathway to brain death, might
be implicated in NDEs. However, decreased oxygen is a highly distressing experience, particularly for
those who report perceptual distortions and hallucinations [60]. The distress and agitation typical of
decreased oxygen contrast markedly with NDEs, which are usually recalled as peaceful and positive
experiences [2,3]. Furthermore, contrary to the hypoxia hypothesis, empirical research on altered
oxygen levels has shown that NDEs are associated with increased oxygen levels [7,14], or levels
equivalent to those of non-experiencers [43,61], but no study has shown decreased levels of oxygen
during NDEs.
Source: Greyson, B., "Western Scientific Approaches to Near-Death Experiences." Humanities 2015, 4, 775-796, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/4/4/775. Greyson is affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry & Neurobehavioral Sciences, University of Virginia School of Medicine.
No mundane explanation has been able to account for why NDE experiencers so consistently encounter deceased relatives and friends, often relatives they didn't even know about but subsequently recognized in photographs and sometimes relatives and friends they didn't know were dead at the time of the NDE.
Sure, the NDE phenomenon has evolved into a quasi-religion with plenty of nonsense. I pay essentially no attention to the content of elaborate NDEs. But the core phenomenon is highly indicative of survival and continues to generate intense interest on the part of medical and consciousness researchers.
I've been involved with NDE studies since 1976. I've never parted with a dime other than to buy books and pay membership dues. I've never heard of any "scams" associated with the "NDE Cottage Industry," whatever that is supposed to mean. Outside of the medical community, comprising hospitals, physicians and researchers around the world, the NDE community is mostly a very kind and compassionate volunteer support network. I have a difficult time picturing how someone in 303Guy's position could be "scammed" in relation to his experiences.
I am a fully retired, financially independent licensed professional with a doctorate and some 40 years of experience in an intellectually demanding field where the ability to think critically was essential.
Whatever you're suggesting by the phrase "psychic market," you're simply continuing to embarrass yourself.
I will suggest that humans brain shut down in a few ways and use the memories they have during the shutdown process.
As pathways decrease in number and other pathways become the "path of least resistance", the thoughts break through to consciousness. Memories can break through to the active part of the brain.
The awake limitations your brain has in sorting out and using memories is decreased during the near death event. So memories of what you have blend together. But your brain will process it in "streaming" like fashion. "reliable or not" isn't really its concern, elctrons flowing is all that is happening. They have to flow. NDE are more like dreaming than consciousness
You can dream a conversation about your mom. You can have that memory during the brain shutting down too.
If understood that, with the "large blocks of information" left out, you know its not just "mundane". It is a legitimate counter position to NDEs being from somewhere else.
OK, you've generously expanded the database to billions. Many of the tens of thousands of cases investigated by the SPR and ASPR were pretty thoroughly documented in terms of contemporaneous statements to other persons, diary entries and correspondence, etc. The effort was really quite remarkable. Moreover, a number of cases of apparitions have involved multiple witnesses.
You suggest the possibilities of misperception or lying. In the instances I described, there was no possibility of misperception; how would I misperceive a teddy bear or china bowl sitting on the floor or a stereo inexplicably playing three times? Anyone in the room would have seen and heard exactly what I did. But even if there is sometimes a possibility of misperception, does it seem plausible to you that billions of people (or certainly millions) would have misperceived events that would have been entirely unremarkable except for their connection with a recent death?
Lying? Billions (or certainly millions) of people lying about this sort of thing? To what purpose? Look at Michael Shermer's account, which fits the ADC model to a tee. Do you think he and his wife invented it?
Testimony is not good evidence as we can not verify how much of it is genuine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
When debunkers go into debunking mode, they don't even seem to care whether the debunking is even remotely plausible. It just has to preserve the paradigm, even it's nonsensical.
Quatsch. Faked accounts and wishful thinking are plausible alternatives, especially considering the many fake spiritualists.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Irkle Berserkle
Yes, any given ADC or other extraordinary experience is principally of evidential value to the experiencer. The debunker approach, which you have articulated, is to treat the evidence as though it consisted of 250,000 isolated cases, each of evidential value only to the experiencer. But this is not true. The 250,000 cases are a collective body of evidence, with patterns and correlations that vastly increase the evidential value.
One correlation is the large numbers of fake religious experiences and spiritualists.
Exactly.
It's like someone who never learned to read, then saying that reading does not exist. And if they can't read then nobody can read. And if it is pointed out to them look, 93% of the world is reading, they say oh they are lying and delusional.
They do not see how irrational that is, how lacking in logic.
Of course we see how irrational his straw man was. That is why he made it.
It is amusing your alleged rational mind did not see the straw man.
Exactly.
It's like someone who never learned to read, then saying that reading does not exist. And if they can't read then nobody can read. And if it is pointed out to them look, 93% of the world is reading, they say oh they are lying and delusional.
They do not see how irrational that is, how lacking in logic.
I have to agree with you on this.
a belief in somethin more (undefined due to all the different beliefs) is so far in a way more rational (science and engineering based) that denying it or avoiding it is really deceitful for the most part.
Only focusing on "no deity" is not what this forum is named.
The illogic of their using a Lack of Evidence/No Evidence, as Evidence...has always been lost on most Atheists.
YOU not having evidence...does not then objectively prove that there isn't any. Especially so, when the reason you do not have it, is because you refused/denied it when it was offered.
of course their out will be "we are only talking about a deity". and all others are left out for any number of reasons.
and of course, when pressed about it and giving evidence as to why deny everything is just clearly less valid. the move into ignored, avoided, and reported. if that doesn't work ... just flat lie ... its all about the goal of stopping religion in the west, not religion and spirituality.
of course their out will be "we are only talking about a deity". and all others are left out for any number of reasons.
and of course, when pressed about it and giving evidence as to why deny everything is just clearly less valid. the move into ignored, avoided, and reported. if that doesn't work ... just flat lie ... its all about the goal of stopping religion in the west, not religion and spirituality.
No conspiracy. All questions of religion and spirituality stem from a deity claim or a mystical claim. If the deity claim and the mystical claim are not true, the house of cards falls. If the house of cards fall, we have billions of people doing less irrational things. And that’s good for humanity. It really is all about the mystical claims and the fact that there is no strong evidence to support any of them.
And? Irrelevant to my post. Read my post again, slowly.
Your evidence says libraries can think. Do you see your problem yet?
I read it...it falsely implies you did not have evidence that you would /could have been expected to have.
That is bogus from the jump...because you did/do have the evidence.
Where your "Libraries Think***compared to*** God is Intelligent" analogy fails...is that you, et al, do not work from the fact that Everything Is One Thing.
The galaxy Earth is in, the Earth, where on Earth the library is, the library, the books, the words in the books and the ink that imprinted them, the act of reading and comprehending the words, the information that can be gleaned from that, the contemplation of that information, telling someone else about it, their thoughts about it etc, etc, etc...Is All the Same Thing.
And it IS God...definitively and objectively.
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