Why I'm an atheist

[qwik2learn]

My answers in this thread are rational; no need to insinuate that they are "out of this world"; I am certainly here to help you engage with the facts of the brain research that I present to you; in fact, many eminent researchers do not believe in evolution and reject physicalism, a very good reason to inquire about theories that are non-physical.

In this thread, atheists provide only their opinions with no evidence to support them! When questioned on the details, atheists fail to respond coherently on the subject of NDEs.

Take an entry level, undergrad human physiology course.  That should be enough for you to understand how our nervous system works.

The rhetorical opinions of your NDE theories are presented as if they were scientific. The opinion of a select few BITCOINERS, who are not experts on the subject, can hardly be called scientific evidence.

Some atheists and pseudoskeptics will say that science has removed the need for God as an explanation for the existence of the natural world. The quotes here demonstrate that many of the greatest scientific minds believe just the opposite, that the scientific evidence is best explained by the existence of an intelligent designer of the universe.

Even Darwin saw the absurdity of attributing to material nature that which is obviously the result of DESIGNED LAWS.
Read More: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1475732.msg15337196#msg15337196

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[BADecker]

My answers in this thread are rational; no need to insinuate that they are "out of this world"; I am certainly here to help you engage with the facts of the brain research that I present to you; in fact, many eminent researchers do not believe in evolution and reject physicalism, a very good reason to inquire about theories that are non-physical.

In this thread, atheists provide only their opinions with no evidence to support them! When questioned on the details, atheists fail to respond coherently on the subject of NDEs.

Take an entry level, undergrad human physiology course.  That should be enough for you to understand how our nervous system works.

The rhetorical opinions of your NDE theories are presented as if they were scientific. The opinion of a select few BITCOINERS, who are not experts on the subject, can hardly be called scientific evidence.

Some atheists and pseudoskeptics will say that science has removed the need for God as an explanation for the existence of the natural world. The quotes here demonstrate that many of the greatest scientific minds believe just the opposite, that the scientific evidence is best explained by the existence of an intelligent designer of the universe.

Even Darwin saw the absurdity of attributing to material nature that which is obviously the result of DESIGNED LAWS.
Read More: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1475732.msg15337196#msg15337196

A good bunch of the people that support evolution in this forum are simply trolls, often paid for by the so-called science elite. They don't want the stupidity of certain important aspects of science to become known any more than necessary. It's all about their salary, and maybe even controlling the world through false "knowledge."

[Trading]

My answers in this thread are rational; no need to insinuate that they are "out of this world"

Sorry, but also many of your posts are based on arguments or conclusions, literally, "out of this world". You conclude on the existence of metaphysical entities with no acceptable basis.

You try to use abductive reasoning to arrive to your conclusions, but you exclude a much more reasonable solution, a possible basic function of the brain for longer time than is generally accepted.

Moreover, your AWARE studies don't support a major part of your believes: you only argued for the existence of an immortal soul. But you can't substantiate your believe in reincarnation on these studies.

P.S. Tu quoque? Another evolution denier...

[qwik2learn]

My answers in this thread are rational; no need to insinuate that they are "out of this world"

Sorry, but also many of your posts are based on arguments or conclusions, literally, "out of this world". You conclude on the existence of metaphysical entities with no acceptable basis.

That's merely your opinion and it is not supported by any evidence. I have repeatedly asked you to cast adequate doubt upon my claims by giving a satisfactory reason to doubt the evidence. The fact that other eminent researchers have concluded similarly to me is never addressed by you.
See more: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1475732.msg15352281#msg15352281

You try to use abductive reasoning to arrive to your conclusions, but you exclude a much more reasonable solution, a possible basic function of the brain for longer time than is generally accepted.

You cannot say that your solution is more reasonable if there is no evidence to support it. There is more than a century of adequate research into the "basic function" of the brain under anoxia, TO SAY NOTHING ABOUT MORE 'ADVANCED' FUNCTIONS LIKE PERCEPTION! The evidence is certainly in my favor, I have cited the literature numerous times. Your "more reasonable" solution has not been presented to me with an adequate level of evidence, despite my repeated requests. I have no reason to believe that your theory is scientific in the least!

Moreover, your AWARE studies don't support a major part of your believes: you only argued for the existence of an immortal soul. But you can't substantiate your believe in reincarnation on these studies.

Actually, if you check the literature you will see that the survival hypothesis is the most reasonable solution to the evidence presented against physicalism.

P.S. Tu quoque? Another evolution denier...

The fact that many other eminent researchers have concluded similarly to me is never addressed by you, nor do your arguments come with any observable evidence. So who is actually in denial here?

Alfred Russel Wallace discovered the theory of natural selection at the same time Charles Darwin did. This theory was based on extensive observations of the natural world. Wallace was originally a skeptic about the evidence of mediumistic phenomena but his great powers of observation, the same ones which led him to discover the theory of natural selection, also forced him to accept mediumistic phenomena as genuinely paranormal.

Louis Pasteur believed as did many other scientists on this page that science led to the belief in God. He also did not believe that life arose naturally from matter. He thought it more likely that life existed first and matter arose from life.

...not only were the NDEs not similar to the memories of imagined events, but the phenomenological characteristics inherent to the memories of real events (e.g. memories of sensorial details) are even more numerous in the memories of NDE than in the memories of real events.

New developments in quantum physics show we cannot know phenomena apart from the observer and how the observer plays a supreme role in creating reality. Arlice Davenport has challenged the hallucination theory of NDEs as outmoded because the field theories of physics now suggest new paradigm options available to explain NDEs.

Sociologist Dr. Allan Kellehear states that some scientific theories are often presented as the most logical, factual, objective, credible, and progressive possibilities, as opposed to the allegedly subjective, superstitious, abnormal, or dysfunctional views of mystics. The rhetorical opinions of some NDE theories are presented as if they were scientific. Many skeptical arguments against the survival theory are actually arguments from pseudo-skeptics who often think they have no burden of proof. Such arguments often based on scientism with assumptions that survival is impossible even though survival has not been ruled out. Faulty conclusions are often made such as, "Because NDEs have a brain chemical connection then survival is impossible." Pseudo-skeptical arguments are sometimes made that do not consider the entire body of circumstantial evidence supporting the possibility of survival or do not consider the possibility of new paradigms. Such pseudo-skeptical claims are often made without any scientific evidence.

would machines based on brain mapping actually be conscious? Would the hard problem fall by the wayside?

I don’t think so.

First, equating neurons with ‘bits’ is an insult to neurons. Single cell organisms like paramecium swim about nimbly, find food and mates, avoid obstacles and predators, learn and remember (when sucked into a capillary tube they escape faster each time), and have sex with a partner (Figure 2). They do so using hair-like sensors and motorized oars called cilia, comprised of protein polymers called microtubules (identical to those within brain neurons). Nobody knows whether paramecium is conscious, but it does perform ‘easy problem’ behaviors. How many bits (or ‘ops’, operations per second) would AI take to simulate a paramecium? If a unicellular organism is so clever, would neurons be so....simple-minded? 2015-06-01-1433200782-2190306-Figure2Iphoto.jpg Figure 2. Left, a unicellular paramecium avoids an obstacle. Right, two paramecia fuse during sex.

Second, while waiting for neuronal maps of mammalian brains to implement in silicon, some AI researchers have simulated the entire, already-mapped nervous system (302 neurons) of the tiny worm C elegans. Like paramecium, we don’t know if they’re conscious, but C elegans clearly exhibits ‘easy problem’ behaviors, e.g. moving in response to stimuli. But even artificial C elegans just sits there, with no functional behavior. AI can’t simulate the ‘easy problems’ in simple brains. Something is missing.

Third, memory is ascribed to synaptic connections within neuronal networks, such that given inputs cause particular activity patterns and outputs. But synaptic proteins are transient, re-cycled over hours to days, and yet memories can last lifetimes. Memory must be stored at a deeper level inside neurons, e.g. microtubules (which disassemble in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients).

Figure 3. Inside brain neurons are microtubules, able to process information by quantum dipole oscillations. Anesthetic gases (red, lower right) disperse quantum dipoles, and prevent consciousness. (Reference 1).

Fourth and final is the ‘hard problem’. Unable to account for awareness, feelings and qualia through computation, prominent neuroscientists Christof Koch, Giulio Tononi and others have resorted to ‘panpsychism’, the notion that consciousness is a property of matter. British physicist Sir Roger Penrose suggests the rudiments of consciousness occur in fine scale quantum events in the very structure of the universe (Chalmers’ ‘psycho-physical bridge’). In panpsychism, or the more refined Penrose approach, consciousness or its precursors would have existed in the universe all along, or at least when life on earth began. And if that’s true, primitive conscious feelings, e.g. pleasure, could have been the ‘spark of life’, a fitness function toward which life formed and evolved to optimize pleasure, to ‘feel good’.

Figure 4. The ‘Origin of life’ in the primordial soup. Organic molecules coalesce with non-polar quantum interiors enabling conscious events (Reference 2).

One needn’t be a creationist to question Darwin’s theory, for example regarding sexual reproduction. Dawkins finds sex ‘counter-productive, throwing away half one’s genes with every reproduction’. In The Cooperative Gene, evolutionary biologist Mark Ridley writes ‘Sex is a puzzle that has not yet been solved; no one knows why it exists’.

Duh! Sex feels good. The Darwinian/Dawkins idea that behavior promotes survival of ‘uncaring’ genes doesn’t add up. And if genes are ‘programmed’ to survive, programmed by whom?

So I think Deepak is correct. Consciousness drives evolution. And as Penrose suggests, conscious quantum events intrinsic to the universe solve other problems like the ‘Anthropic principle’, why the universe is perfectly tuned for life and consciousness (avoiding any need for the silly ‘multiverse’ idea). Problems in evolution, brain science, quantum physics and cosmology all fade away with consciousness as an intrinsic feature of the structure of reality.

[Trading]

        

   Since the point of this thread is not primarily to promote atheism, but instead to promote doubt and, consequently, also tolerance, this post makes sense.

    If I was a believer on what would I believe? Or, on other words, from my perspective, what could a believer believe without being absurd?

    1) I would have some respect for old sacred texts, as ancient empirical vestiges of believers, but I would never accept them as the word of god.
 
   Texts like the Old Testament were written by many men like us, claiming to write on the name of a god.

    It's possible that some of them really believed that god spoke to them, but, clearly, with so many authors and for so many centuries, there are high probabilities that some of them were liars, that invented something to cement their own power or understood badly the words of the "really" ones.

    So, I would never accept automatically as truth anything on those books. I would decide with my own judgement what the truth was.
   
   2) I would never believe in things that have been rejected by Science. Even if one thinks that Science only scratches the real "truths", it was Science, and technology based on it, that took us this far.

    Anyone willing to reject something established as a scientific truth has a heavy burden of proof.

   Rejecting scientific conclusions is more or less like rejecting reality. Mental hospitals are full of people like these.

   Rejecting evolution, genetics results, the Bing Bang, that the Earth has about 4,500 million years and the Universe about 13,750 million years, etc., is like saying you are Napoleon.

    If you are willing to go to a Hospital and trust a doctor your own health to cure a disease, it's absurd that you reject the conclusions of his (scientific) colleagues, specialists like him, that work on other scientific fields, based on old books full of ridiculous statements.


    3) I would never believe on anything with absolute certain, especially things I couldn't see or, at least, see evidence for them.

   I also would never believe on anything just because anyone told me so without taking in account his grounds to say it.

 
    4) Now, the tricky part...

   Could one believe on a god legislator, who created the laws of nature and, perhaps, some basic moral rules, and the Big Bang?

   He couldn't be omnipotent or omniscient... if he had these attributes, this would force us to conclude that god is evil, because of all the horrible things he would end up deliberately creating...

   Also the soul would look absurd. If god just created the universe and let it and evolution do the rest, at what point did he gave us a soul?

   Was on Homo Habilis that god decided to intervene?

   One morning, Muddy, woke up on his tree, scratched his parasites and stopped for a moment: he was feeling different, somehow divine...

   Give me a break... We are a bunch of common atoms. An immortal soul? Dream on...

   Hell, I tried, but even on these terms, it looks absurd and pointless. What is the point of a god that is just a powerful being, imperfect, scared by his own creation?

   We are as good as this limited "god" and, if we don't nuke ourselves down, we'll be more powerful than him.

   Damn, with these principles, I guess I would end up being an atheist no matter what

[Trading]

eminent researchers

That is just an argument of authority.

Besides, only you and a few believers think those people you quote are eminent researchers (no doubt, Wallace and Pasteur were, but they would never believe on your aware study results).

You haven't quoted any scientific peer reviewed article. Your "eminent researchers" aren't scientists, so they argue for a "new paradigm", not a scientific one.

I only have to quote this: "Consciousness drives evolution"? That goes against all the fossil evidence.

Anyway, I thought you didn't believe on evolution.

[qwik2learn]

You should not ignore the scientific evidence that disagrees with you in the same way that you throw out the Bible. What about ALL of the books that disagree with you? You will ignore all the knowledge because it makes you feel that God is a tyrant?

   We are as good as this limited "god" and, if we don't nuke ourselves down, we'll be more powerful than him.

   Damn, with these principles, I guess I would end up being an atheist no matter what

You think that you can reason yourself into believing that GOD is limited, but since GOD has no meaning for you, how can you know that GOD is limited? It is impossible.

WHY do you think this:
"just a powerful being, imperfect, scared by his own creation?"
I think that GOD's truth is found within each one, no one has to look in books whether old or new, or take anyone's authority to find GOD. Actually, GOD is always searching for you! I think that books are certainly helpful for learning more about GOD, you should read it ALL and then you can understand completely.

[qwik2learn]

eminent researchers

That is just an argument of authority.

What about your claim to scientific consensus as an argument from authority; is yours not the same kind of argument? At least with the non-physical theory there is the advantage of proofs converging from many and varying classes of phenomena unite in establishing it

[BADecker]

eminent researchers

That is just an argument of authority.

What about your claim to scientific consensus as an argument from authority; is yours not the same kind of argument? At least with the non-physical theory there is the advantage of proofs converging from many and varying classes of phenomena unite in establishing it

Relax. Trading doesn't believe science, which shows the factual existence of God through cause and effect. Nothing has ever been found that defies cause and effect with certainty. Yet there are millions of cause and effect actions and reactions going on all the time, and all of science knows it.

Because of this, Trading is depending on some fake and lying authority in the things he believes.

[Trading]

The brave soldier of god, with his usual weapon of cause and effect and probabilities.

He have been so effective convincing people to embrace atheism because of all the things he writes, that, even if he is well intended, I wonder if god is happy with his hard work.

Believing on probabilities, but rejecting chance/luck, is just the smallest of his contradictions (luck is getting what we want against the probabilities on a blind/chance decision).

God sends people to hell so easily (and all their families for many generations) that he might be risking his salvation and ending down in hell with all of us.

I bet there is something on the good book about going to hell for involuntarily promoting atheism.

Of course, if this rule was really applied, god and the good book would also burn in hell. Both seriously promote atheism, even more than him.

[Jmild1]

       

                        Why am I an atheist

You are an atheist because you fear 

Fear from what?
Fear from santa claus? I don't how atheist fear from non-existence being. Like, you can't fear tooth fairy 'cause you know it will never hurt you because it's a fantasy.

[qwik2learn]

I only have to quote this: "Consciousness drives evolution"? That goes against all the fossil evidence.

Actually, the fossil evidence is not a sufficient proof of Darwinism. According to Nobel Prize winner Chain:

"I would rather believe in fairies than in such wild speculation.

I have said for years that speculations about the origin of life lead to no useful purpose as even the simplest living system is far too complex to be understood in terms of the extremely primitive chemistry scientists have used in their attempts to explain the unexplainable that happened billions of years ago. God cannot be explained away by such naive thoughts.”

"To postulate, as the positivists of the end of the 19th century and their followers here have done, that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations, or even that nature carries out experiments by trial and error through mutations in order to create living systems better fitted to survive, seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts.

This hypothesis willfully neglects the principle of teleological purpose which stares the biologist in the face wherever he looks, whether he be engaged in the study of different organs in one organism, or even of different subcellular compartments in relation to each other in a single cell, or whether he studies the interrelation and interactions of various species."

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_chain

Problems in evolution, brain science, quantum physics and cosmology all fade away with consciousness as an intrinsic feature of the structure of reality.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-hameroff/darwin-versus-deepak-whic_b_7481048.html

Anyway, I thought you didn't believe on evolution.

I believe in evolution that is driven by consciousness.

The evidence for the theory of evolution by natural selection was not obtained through laboratory experiments. There is a huge amount of evidence for the theory of natural selection and virtually all scientists recognize it is reasonable to believe the theory based on that evidence.

Similarly,
The results of psychical research are reliable even when they are not obtained from repeatable laboratory experiments. Alfred Russel Wallace discovered the theory of natural selection at the same time Charles Darwin did. Wallace began as a skeptic but his great powers of observation, the same ones which led him to formulate the theory of natural selection, also forced him to accept that mediumistic phenomena proved the existence of supernatural intelligences.

A trained scientist, especially of those past times, was an objective and skilled observer and because of their skepticism cannot be considered analogous to a "true believer" whose bias might influence their perceptions.

[BADecker]

I only have to quote this: "Consciousness drives evolution"? That goes against all the fossil evidence.

Actually, the fossil evidence is not a sufficient proof of Darwinism. According to Nobel Prize winner Chain:

"I would rather believe in fairies than in such wild speculation.

I have said for years that speculations about the origin of life lead to no useful purpose as even the simplest living system is far too complex to be understood in terms of the extremely primitive chemistry scientists have used in their attempts to explain the unexplainable that happened billions of years ago. God cannot be explained away by such naive thoughts.”

"To postulate, as the positivists of the end of the 19th century and their followers here have done, that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations, or even that nature carries out experiments by trial and error through mutations in order to create living systems better fitted to survive, seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts.

This hypothesis willfully neglects the principle of teleological purpose which stares the biologist in the face wherever he looks, whether he be engaged in the study of different organs in one organism, or even of different subcellular compartments in relation to each other in a single cell, or whether he studies the interrelation and interactions of various species."

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_chain

Problems in evolution, brain science, quantum physics and cosmology all fade away with consciousness as an intrinsic feature of the structure of reality.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-hameroff/darwin-versus-deepak-whic_b_7481048.html

Anyway, I thought you didn't believe on evolution.

I believe in evolution that is driven by consciousness.

The evidence for the theory of evolution by natural selection was not obtained through laboratory experiments. There is a huge amount of evidence for the theory of natural selection and virtually all scientists recognize it is reasonable to believe the theory based on that evidence.

Similarly,
The results of psychical research are reliable even when they are not obtained from repeatable laboratory experiments. Alfred Russel Wallace discovered the theory of natural selection at the same time Charles Darwin did. Wallace began as a skeptic but his great powers of observation, the same ones which led him to formulate the theory of natural selection, also forced him to accept that mediumistic phenomena proved the existence of supernatural intelligences.

A trained scientist, especially of those past times, was an objective and skilled observer and because of their skepticism cannot be considered analogous to a "true believer" whose bias might influence their perceptions.

You are deluded. "Mediumistic phenomena" WTF is that?  Who are you, really, Napoleon or Genghis Khan?

Just check yourself into mental institution before you harm yourself or others.

Are you still going on about this? You really enjoy your science religion, don't you.

Natural selection is still selection. And selection that is as complex as this universe, or as complex as to be able to fit in this universe, can only be selection by God.

qwik2learn shows you a guy who proves that probability math precludes the possibility of evolution, and you simply want to ignore it? How in the world retarded are you, especially in trying to prove that you are that retarded?

"The Mathematical Impossibility of Evolution" as shown at http://www.icr.org/article/mathematical-impossibility-evolution/ is the thing that is wrong. It is wrong by bringing the beneficial evolution odds up to the same level as detrimental evolution odds, 1 to 1, rather than the thousands to 1 odds against beneficial evolution that it is normally and naturally present.

However, the big place where the http://www.icr.org/article/mathematical-impossibility-evolution/ site is wrong is where it doesn't even take into account any of the reactions that would immediately destroy every beneficial mutation immediately as it happened.

And the site still shows the trillions to 1 against the possibility of evolution even existing, just the way it stands, in giving beneficial evolution every illogical chance possible.

Lots of scientists have shown this, and you don't want to accept it? How in the world can you even live in a world so full of science fiction as yours is? Wake up to reality. IT DOESN'T HURT AT ALL TO LIVE IN A REAL LIFE.

[Trading]

I believe in evolution that is driven by consciousness.

Evolution created consciousness, how could the second drive the first...

Some say your precious AWARE study failed miserably, since only one on 152 individuals participating described any events that could be verified and not even that one could see the images facing the ceiling, supposedly to be well visible by "souls" out of the body:

"In 2001, Sam Parnia and colleagues investigated out-of-body claims by placing figures on suspended boards facing the ceiling, not visible from the floor. Parnia wrote "anybody who claimed to have left their body and be near the ceiling during resuscitation attempts would be expected to identify those targets."

"No subjects saw the images mounted out of sight according to Parnia's early report [...]. Only two out of the 152 patients reported any visual experiences, and one of them described events that could be verified."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience#AWARE_study

But I think they are wrong. Your AWARE study was a success showing that the near-death experiences reports are just rubbish.

[BADecker]

I believe in evolution that is driven by consciousness.

Evolution created consciousness, how could the second drive the first...

Some say your precious AWARE study failed miserably, since only one on 152 described any events that could be verified and none could see the images facing the ceiling, supposedly to be well visible by "souls" out of the body:

<>

However, your evolution points fail miserably. The info at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1454732.0 shows that the most simple form of evolution is mathematically impossible, and THAT is with giving it so much benefit of the doubt that if it were explained as it really is, evolution is not only improbable, it is not only impossible, but it is impossible to such a high degree that it is absolutely, incontrovertibly, utterly impossible.

Scientists and media who are telling you that evolution is the truth, have you believing in science fiction.

[Cyaren]

You know, if you listen to your beloved Science, a man can become a women, or two faggot can become married, and they call this the liberty...

What are you doing is a prejudge.
Science is science,if they invent a way for men to become a women (it's still not the same lol) it does not mean that the science is bad right?
By the way,show me one evidence there is a real god,there is a real life after death or something... personally i think when u die ur consciousness just ends and thats all

[qwik2learn]

It is good to ask for evidence, but you should not ask to see just one piece of evidence; that means that you are only willing to evaluate one piece of evidence, but a good theory has "proofs converging from many and varying classes of phenomena [which] unite in establishing it".

52 points of evidence are found here: http://www.near-death.com/science/evidence.html
The 20 Most Convincing Spirit-Contact Cases and The 20 Most Impressive Reincarnation Cases: http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml

"There already exists a substantial amount of anecdotal accounts of veridical perception, and it may only be a matter of time before out-of-body veridical perception is proven to exist under strict research controls which will satisfy the skeptics."

your precious AWARE study failed miserably, since only one on 152 described any events that could be verified and none could see the images facing the ceiling, supposedly to be well visible by "souls" out of the body:

"In 2001, Sam Parnia and colleagues investigated out-of-body claims by placing figures on suspended boards facing the ceiling, not visible from the floor. Parnia wrote "anybody who claimed to have left their body and be near the ceiling during resuscitation attempts would be expected to identify those targets."

"No subjects saw the images mounted out of sight according to Parnia's early report [...]. Only two out of the 152 patients reported any visual experiences, and one of them described events that could be verified."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience#AWARE_study

But I think they are wrong. Your AWARE study was a success showing that the near-death experiences reports are just rubbish.

Actually, this evaluation of the AWARE study is both shallow and misleading.

How can you simultaneously claim that the "reports are just rubbish" and also concede that "one of them described events that could be verified"? It's obvious that you believe in a contradiction because you did not provide any reason to doubt that there was a verified report. A verified report is exactly the opposite of a "rubbish report", don't you agree? Now the skeptics have one verified report to examine, so this study is definitely something of interest to the serious thinker.

Why do you still refuse to admit that this one case proves that more study is needed? You dismiss "only one" verified report as if that is the rational thing to do, but in reality you are dismissing it because it does not fit the rest of your prior beliefs. You act as if there were no verified reports at all, and you never mention that this experiment needs to be re-done with some better controls because there is obviously something interesting going on.

Given that the AWARE study produced no scientifically validated OBEs (a subject seeing a card), you might be inclined to think that my hypothesis had been disproven, however, that would be wrong. Having now fully digested the results from the study, I have come to realize that my hypothesis was based on some very important false assumptions about the powering of AWARE.

Read the details about the methods used in AWARE: https://awareofaware.co/2014/10/18/the-fat-lady-sings-or-not/

[frankmb]

Well i come from a Jewish family, but my mom became a Budhist and left me and my siblings with free choice.

Atheism is for me just the most logical way to go, my siblings on the other hand are all 4 agnostic.


As long as people don't force their believes on me, i will respect their believes to some point.

But i will never tell anyone that my way, is the way to go.

[Trading]

It is good to ask for evidence, but you should not ask to see just one piece of evidence; that means that you are only willing to evaluate one piece of evidence, but a good theory has "proofs converging from many and varying classes of phenomena [which] unite in establishing it".

52 points of evidence are found here: http://www.near-death.com/science/evidence.html
The 20 Most Convincing Spirit-Contact Cases and The 20 Most Impressive Reincarnation Cases: http://www.aeces.info/Top40/top40-main.shtml

"There already exists a substantial amount of anecdotal accounts of veridical perception, and it may only be a matter of time before out-of-body veridical perception is proven to exist under strict research controls which will satisfy the skeptics."

your precious AWARE study failed miserably, since only one on 152 described any events that could be verified and none could see the images facing the ceiling, supposedly to be well visible by "souls" out of the body:

"In 2001, Sam Parnia and colleagues investigated out-of-body claims by placing figures on suspended boards facing the ceiling, not visible from the floor. Parnia wrote "anybody who claimed to have left their body and be near the ceiling during resuscitation attempts would be expected to identify those targets."

"No subjects saw the images mounted out of sight according to Parnia's early report [...]. Only two out of the 152 patients reported any visual experiences, and one of them described events that could be verified."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience#AWARE_study

But I think they are wrong. Your AWARE study was a success showing that the near-death experiences reports are just rubbish.

Actually, this evaluation of the AWARE study is both shallow and misleading.

How can you simultaneously claim that the "reports are just rubbish" and also concede that "one of them described events that could be verified"? It's obvious that you believe in a contradiction because you did not provide any reason to doubt that there was a verified report. A verified report is exactly the opposite of a "rubbish report", don't you agree? Now the skeptics have one verified report to examine, so this study is definitely something of interest to the serious thinker.

Why do you still refuse to admit that this one case proves that more study is needed? You dismiss "only one" verified report as if that is the rational thing to do, but in reality you are dismissing it because it does not fit the rest of your prior beliefs. You act as if there were no verified reports at all, and you never mention that this experiment needs to be re-done with some better controls because there is obviously something interesting going on.

Given that the AWARE study produced no scientifically validated OBEs (a subject seeing a card), you might be inclined to think that my hypothesis had been disproven, however, that would be wrong. Having now fully digested the results from the study, I have come to realize that my hypothesis was based on some very important false assumptions about the powering of AWARE.

Read the details about the methods used in AWARE: https://awareofaware.co/2014/10/18/the-fat-lady-sings-or-not/

Not even the one who described something verifiable in 150 (that didn't report seeing anything!) could see the well visible images facing the ceiling!

One individual in 152 means just that this one tossed out some inventions and luckily said one or two correctly. Ups, he forget the main ones, the images facing the ceiling.

By the way, are you saying that the other 150 went to "hell"? Why they didn't report seeing the devil? How did none of them saw anything?

Now your precious AWARE study, that made you change your views on religion, is only one peace of evidence? I thought you said it was enough evidence to show that the soul was scientifically proved.

Anecdotal cases of reincarnation? I bet I could find thousand of them on a few sanatoriums! Only Napoleons I would find hundreds...

I bet that could make a case for scientific evidence that Napoleon is alive. Of course, 99,99% would be lying. They can't all be Napoleon.

But with so many saying that they are Napoleon, certainly at least one would have to be telling the truth. Isn't it?

[qwik2learn]

Ups, he forget the main ones, the images facing the ceiling.

Actually, since this patient did not have any images facing the ceiling, it seems like you are totally confused about the methods used in this study.
You never bothered to check about the facts of this patient's case!! No wonder you can dismiss a scientifically "verified" report as nothing but rubbish; you never even bothered to learn the truth!
Please be sure to read my link thoroughly before you try to discuss this case with me. I don't post these links to entertain myself but to inform YOU. Take a look and put forth a valid argument if you can.