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After reading the article posted in the original post, all I can say is it is only mans opinion of what takes place beyond death, and I believe most of what they claim is Bullsh!t with a capital B,S.
They don't know any more about it than we average people.
They can only speculate as to what happens, and I don't believe the human race will ever know , because we are not meant to know, all there is to know.
This business about some micro particles in the brain surviving death of the human body is absurd.
The human body in it's entirety is made up of matter, and matter decomposes with time.
There theory doesn't fly.
Bob.
After reading the article posted in the original post, all I can say is it is only mans opinion of what takes place beyond death, and I believe most of what they claim is Bullsh!t with a capital B,S.
They don't know any more about it than we average people.
They can only speculate as to what happens, and I don't believe the human race will ever know , because we are not meant to know, all there is to know.
This business about some micro particles in the brain surviving death of the human body is absurd.
The human body in it's entirety is made up of matter, and matter decomposes with time.
There theory doesn't fly.
Bob.
Not saying you are wrong but definitely dramatically overstating.
After 30 years now of trying to create artificial intelligence, they are no closer than when they started (was just reading a terrific article about it last year). Scientists have absolutely no idea of how "intelligence," the "mind" and "self awareness" emerge. This could be...just could be...because there is indeed a "spiritual" aspect of intelligence.
In the meantime, in the world of physics, scientist now say that with dark matter and dark energy, we now have no idea of what 96% of the universe is even made of. Are we all matter? How can we say that anything in the universe is all matter when there appear to be all of these ghost forces around us, the nature of which we don't have the beginnings of understand?
The idea that we are made entirely of matter is simply an unproven conjecture.
Keep an open mind, is all that I am saying. I am 90% a materialist like yourself, but we have to admit what we don't know, and admit that it opens things up for a lot of possibilities.
We have no idea. It is incredibly arrogant to think we have even the slightest idea how this universe works, why it exists, and what exists that allows this universe to itself exist. Why is the universe even here? There are really big picture questions that we have no idea on, were missing most of the knowledge.
As far as NDE's go, I think if they were so easily explained away as hallucinations and ridiculousness, the phenomenon wouldn't have gotten this much traction and attention from smart, unbiased scientists as it has. It's tough to adequately explain them, every attempt I've seen using traditional science has come up short in one way or another.
One example, hallucinations are nowhere near as lucid, organized and coherent as near death experiences are. One would expect a dying messed up brain going offline and coming back online to produce something other than lucid, coherent, clear, vivid, strong memory, etc. It doesn't match up. We actually are very familiar with the hallucinations that happen as the brain comes back online, they are nothing like NDE reports, they are chaotic and meaningless and people know they are hallucinations.
People's memories of the event have been shown via long term studies to be as clear and accurate 30 years afterward as they were the day afterward. They don't fade like traditional memories.
Then there's the complete life changing affect these experiences have on people which continue to build momentum as time goes on, instead of fade away, which point to the experience being more than a hallucination or dream. It's described as hyper real, meaning more real and clear than normal waking experience. Whatever is happening is having a massive effect on these people, and that is not something to be ignored just because it can't be physically observed under a microscope. Time would reveal if the experience was just a hallucination that people clung onto to avoid the fear of death, it wouldn't have the level of impact it does (people's personalities change to being more loving, giving, they switch careers to ones that involve helping others, relationships either get stronger or fall apart, etc)
People have them under all different circumstances, meaning some are the result of accidents where the patient is panicked and highly resistant as they die, and others are the result of someone who has known they were going to die at some point and were calm, at peace with it and just slipped away. Others still have had the experience without even dying, they just thought they were 100% going to die (like turning around and seeing a car 30 feet away spinning at you @ 60 mph).
The hypothesis that it's just pain killing chemicals in the brain producing the peaceful feeling doesn't work, people consistently report going sharply from no pain and much peace to extreme pain and little peace when they "drop" back into their body, the chemicals don't work that quickly one way or another.
There's a lot more to it as well, but the jist of it is, we still don't know. The evidence, however much this bothers materialists who don't like leaving their comfort zone, is currently favoring the experience being what it seems to be, consciousness not ceasing with death of the body (fixed and dialted pupils, no brain activity, etc). That might change, but many scientists with a bone to pick with regards to NDE's have yet to properly explain them using traditional means. Some of those scientists changed their stance after trying to disprove NDE's and now feel that they are likely real. We'll see what the next 50 years brings, should be interesting.
When you're dead you're dead. Period, end of story, game over, bye bye.
It sucks, especially for people of strong faith, but it is what it is. Hopefully the government won't figure out a way to tax us after we're gone.
You are correct to a point.
As a human entity you no longer exist, but the soul, which is no longer a part of your human existence, will live on.
The soul will carry on, knowing of the human existence it just disembarked from.
Your existence here in this world has ended, and all thought process along with it, for the human body is only matter, and matter sooner or later will decompose.
Odd how that works, but obviously it was the creator's plan.
As humans we do not have the capacity to know the spirit world, and how we,as spirits go about our existence,but spirits, on the other hand, know future lives, as well as past lives, even though many of those past lives may have been lived hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago.
I think that if we humans were to know the spiritual existence in detail, many would perhaps panic and suicide rates would be astronomical.
Some of us are fortunate in that we are allowed some knowledge of spirits, and the life once we leave our human form behind, while many will never have the experience of knowing.
Knowing much of the unknown, as it relates to the world of spirits, would certainly take it's toll on mortal man.
We are not meant to know many of these things, and that is why we don't.
Bob.
The idea of a soul is ludicrous. There are no such things at all as ghosts/souls/spirits, it's really just hocus pocus superstitious bunk. There is zero reason to believe in any of that stuff; pure wishful thinking.
If there is no such thing as a soul, then what makes us, us? What makes me me and you you? Why aren't we all just mindless, numb, and the same? After all, all of our bodies run off of the same biological processes. What is it that allows us to have individual personalities? We all have different experiences and memories, sure, but what allows us even that? It has to be something other than mere biological processes and electrical impulses. What gives us not only consciousness, but individual consciousness? If it was merely biology and electrical impulse, then why can't we recreate it? Why can't we, for lack of a better term, play God and create our own race of individual, free thinking, conscious being that is able to experience things, retain memory, and become their own individual. I know there are still a lot of unknowns about the brain and whatnot, but I just can't help but think that there must be more to it than that.
tofur, you have done your homework or you have had your own experience? It is truly a life changing experience. All good for me and those around me.
just have done my homework. My grandfather had a NDE which got me interested in them, he was a general electric scientist who was on the team that invented the man made diamond, he was very not religious or into spiritual stuff. He was floored by the experience and couldn't explain it (spent a lot of time afterward trying to come to grips with it), but he had no doubt it was real.
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