(January 29, 2016 at 12:07 pm)Alex K Wrote:

(January 29, 2016 at 10:34 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I do have a serious question for all of you.

Would you WANT this story to be real?

Would it make you happy if it were? Or would you still hate the idea of God and afterlife even after reading this story which paints God and the afterlife in such a positive light?

Would you rather it all be a farce, and that we all just die when we die and there is no loving God?

I am not one of those atheists who will tell you how blasé they are about the whole death thing. I find the idea of not existing any more (or my loved ones) very disturbing and would be unspeakably relieved to find that there is an afterlife or some such scenario, as long as it has a chance to be an overall positive experience.

An afterlife is impossible, given what we know about the world. The brain doesn't survive death, and without the brain you have no awareness. It's possible however that we might devise ways to extend our lifetimes indefinitely. That would be a great thing. We would still have to worry about murder though, or accidental death - or something like that.

Would you want to live for thousands of years? I would. I don't know why anyone wouldn't. Life isn't an unpleasant experience, overall (well, of course, that doesn't hold true for everyone), and it's natural to want to survive.

In fact, if you think about it, that explains religion perfectly. It's perceived by some brains as a pseudo-survival mechanism and everything else just builds around that.

(January 29, 2016 at 12:00 pm)Ivan Denisovich Wrote:

(January 29, 2016 at 11:51 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Ok, so we both agree that if he really was an atheist, then what he did with his life afterwards is very unlikely to have been a lie/scam.

 

If by atheist you understand someone who simply not believe and not is "angry on god" or something like that then yes.

But if not scam then I would guess hallucination or brain damage.

(January 29, 2016 at 11:51 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote: I've been googling some stuff about him to see if he really was an atheist or not.

He claim that he was. But considering nonsense about controlling others with rage I think that he would not recognize atheism if it would kick him in the ass. It's part of atheist stereotype along with shit like not wanting to believe to escape punishment for sin or other similar nonsense.

By that, he just meant he was an angry, manipulative person. It has nothing to do with being an atheist or not, just a flaw like we all have. I did see an interview where his daughter backs up the claim about him having been an angry, scary person before the event, but haven't seen any testimonies of other people backing up his claim about being a strong atheist. Only his own.

I'm giddy all of a sudden. I think CL is slowly, but surely becoming an atheist .

(January 29, 2016 at 12:31 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: I'm giddy all of a sudden. I think CL is slowly, but surely becoming an atheist .

Lol, don't get your hopes up. 

I've always been skeptical about NDE's or other people's unverified personal experiences. Nonetheless, I think this story in particular raises enough wonder to deserve an honest, objective look at the possibilities.

(January 29, 2016 at 12:35 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(January 29, 2016 at 12:31 pm)Excited Penguin Wrote: I'm giddy all of a sudden. I think CL is slowly, but surely becoming an atheist .

Lol, don't get your hopes up. 

I've always been skeptical about NDE's or other people's unverified personal experiences. Nonetheless, I think this story in particular raises enough wonder to deserve an honest, objective look at the possibilities.

Yeah, sure, whatever you say

I'm still waiting on that picture, EP. I haven't forgotten. <3

Catholic_Lady Wrote:I imagine the guy who this happened with was a lot like you. He is described as being very anti religion, very unbelieving, and only using the word "God" as a dirty word. It would definitely make me pause if anyone who is anything like you all of a sudden changed completely.

For the record, the only people we know of describing him as that way is himself and people who heard it from him  or have something to gain from supporting his version. About all there is of him on the internet is his story. I'm not much for testimonials of supernatural events, but some testimonials of people who knew him before and after without a dog in the race would be very helpful in convincing me that at least the 'I used to be a mean old unhappy atheist and now I'm a happy and friendly devout Christian' account of his experience is accurate.

He talks about atheists and atheism like the only thing he knows on the topic is stereotypes, and while I don't think he was a Christian, I do suspect he's embellishing his irreligiosity to punch up his story.

Excited Penguin Wrote:Ok, so it might not have been a dream, who knows, but in any case I think it was something close to a dream. Whatever it was, subjective experiences like that don't prove a thing. Until a few decades ago everyone thought lucid dreams didn't even exist and were a mere curiosity reported by some dreamers until some people figured out a way to communicate with a lucid dreamer while he was dreaming and study his brain activity while he was doing different things in the dream. Incidentally, the same activity was reported as if they were doing those things while awake. But notice none of this demonstrates the reality of the dreams' worlds' beyond the dreamers' minds. The same will be for NDE's, I reckon, if they're ever explained.

I think there's a mechanism that lets us keep our dream life and waking life separate that might not be working in the case of NDEs. Although I usually have no trouble distinguishing dreams from reality, I've had particularly vivid dreams just before waking where I've had to engage my brain to sort things out for a few seconds. I don't think as a species we could have afforded to have had that as our experience every time we woke up.

(January 29, 2016 at 12:53 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:

Excited Penguin Wrote:Ok, so it might not have been a dream, who knows, but in any case I think it was something close to a dream. Whatever it was, subjective experiences like that don't prove a thing. Until a few decades ago everyone thought lucid dreams didn't even exist and were a mere curiosity reported by some dreamers until some people figured out a way to communicate with a lucid dreamer while he was dreaming and study his brain activity while he was doing different things in the dream. Incidentally, the same activity was reported as if they were doing those things while awake. But notice none of this demonstrates the reality of the dreams' worlds' beyond the dreamers' minds. The same will be for NDE's, I reckon, if they're ever explained.

I think there's a mechanism that lets us keep our dream life and waking life separate that might not be working in the case of NDEs. Although I usually have no trouble distinguishing dreams from reality, I've had particularly vivid dreams just before waking where I've had to engage my brain to sort things out for a few seconds. I don't think as a species we could have afforded to have had that as our experience every time we woke up.

Someone else made that argument earlier as well, but I'm not sure I know what you mean by that. Let me say this, to have lucid dreams you have to actually train to distinguish reality from dreams, because it's so hard to do that while you're dreaming that we rarely ever actually realise we dream while we dream(without training for it). There's a variety of things that become possible within a dream(anything you can imagine, really) but the same doesn't hold true for reality. So you can easily check, for example, if you can fly while awake, and if you can't, you're probably awake. Or you can keep track of what you're doing and notice your surroundings to check whether something is strange or not. And a lot of other stuff.