(February 6, 2016 at 2:51 pm)Constable Dorfl Wrote:

(January 28, 2016 at 8:32 pm)scoobysnack Wrote: Hey everyone. I'm new the forum and wanted to talk about near death experiences. Personally for me information from NDEs changed my life for the better. I think unlike religion, they offer better evidence of the spiritual realms and existence of God. Hoping we can have a civil discussion about it. I'm open to your views and hope we can reciprocate the respect for each other.

I would say the most amazing experiences that I have read was from Howard Storm. He was an atheist confident that nothing happens after life and his life was completely changed after his death experience. I met Howard and listened to his story, and want to share with you all here.

Please read through the short testimonial and let me know what you think so we can talk about it. There is a lot more infomation I can post, but this would be the place to start.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/no...storm.html

Why would the bullshit story of either someone who was hallucinating or lying be of interest to me in making a decision? And given that so many of these "ex-atheists" are nothing of the sort, I'd put my money on this one being a pathalogical liar.

I would say that it's always good to be prepared for unexpected, so when it happens to you, you will know what to do. There are plenty of others:

http://www.near-death.com/religion/atheism.html

Know what to do while you are hallucinating?

Or how to make ridiculous claims afterwards?

(February 6, 2016 at 3:55 pm)robvalue Wrote: Know what to do while you are hallucinating?

Or how to make ridiculous claims afterwards?

NDEs have been tested; no evidence of veridicality has been found:

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index...ce-of-nde/

Just got back from visiting my 92 year old grandfather in the ICU, who just woke up from life saving surgery. He didn't even recognize me, he was calling me JoJo a guy he was in the war with. He was hallucinating that he was back in WWII as a POW, he was trying to pick lice off of his arms (which wasn't there) and was asking me if I could get him past the gaurds so he could get home. My point is this all seems very real to him and he is awake, the brain can do crazy things when it is not functioning properly.

(February 6, 2016 at 7:04 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: Just got back from visiting my 92 year old grandfather in the ICU, who just woke up from life saving surgery. He didn't even recognize me, he was calling me JoJo a guy he was in the war with. He was hallucinating that he was back in WWII as a POW, he was trying to pick lice off of his arms (which wasn't there) and was asking me if I could get him past the gaurds so he could get home. My point is this all seems very real to him and he is awake, the brain can do crazy things when it is not functioning properly.

Sorry to hear about your grandpa, but glad the surgery was a success. I remember watching my grandma towards the end of her life, and would go visit her often. We got a call one night that she was deteriorating fast and that we should come as soon as we could. When we got there, we realize she had passed away 10 minutes earlier. The hospice care worker who was sitting with her when she died said she was sleeping, and suddenly woke up and looked up at the corner of the room and smiled, and a tear came to her eye. Seconds later she passed away. I still remember sitting next to her that night. That was the first person close to me that I've lost. Was a very sad night.

(January 29, 2016 at 10:02 am)Catholic_Lady Wrote:

(January 29, 2016 at 1:55 am)Alex K Wrote: NDEs are NDEs, not DEs. They indicate nothing except that oxygen-starved brains do weird things.There is no evidence that any of that goes on "outside the brain". There is however, evidence that it doesn't

But our brains do weird things when we sleep, too. And yet when we wake up from a dream, we know it's a dream.

And that is what NDEs most likely are, hallucinations.

Quote:Staunch atheists don't turn Christians from having a dream.

As has been pointed out above, Mr Storm mischaracterises atheism, that means he was probably never an atheist.

Quote:Another thing is, why would people who are strong atheists be having dream like visions of God and Jesus in their heads when they are unconscious? And furthermore, why would they have dreams of God and Jesus being goodness and love? It seems that first of all, most atheists think that if God and Jesus do exist, they are evil anyway. Or at least uncaring.

We are heavily conditioned by our culture, even in the extremely unlikely event that Mr Storm were an atheist, I would not find it hard to believe that he hallucinated god. He has been culturally conditioned to think of the deity in christian terms.

Quote:Obviously, something happened to these people that made them change overnight in such a drastic way, from becoming atheists who hate religion to becoming Christians. That's huge, almost supernatural in itself. Can a mere "dream" do that? Could it do that to you?

Again, very few of these people were ever atheist. Most of them are lying in order to fleece the gullible. It makes for a better story when you are selling shit to fundies to pretend that you were an atheist "who saw the light". And these people will use every dirty trick their minds can think up of to fleece the gullible fundies.

Quote:Now, I'm not saying I believe all this. I have no dog in this fight. My faith does not rely on strangers' personal experiences, and some parts of this story kind of contradict my own beliefs. All I'm saying is the possibilities may be worth an objective look and some consideration. Because it is very strange indeed.

You shouldn't believe any of it until provided compelling evidence to. At the moment, without having any proper evidence, parsimony alone will tell you to disbelieve them. It is far easier to explain these "NDEs" as either hallucination or lies.

To anyone who gives NDEs any credence:

How do you distinguish between these three scenarios, for any given account?

1) Really happened

2) Hallucination

3) Made up

(February 6, 2016 at 7:04 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: Just got back from visiting my 92 year old grandfather in the ICU, who just woke up from life saving surgery. He didn't even recognize me, he was calling me JoJo a guy he was in the war with. He was hallucinating that he was back in WWII as a POW, he was trying to pick lice off of his arms (which wasn't there) and was asking me if I could get him past the gaurds so he could get home. My point is this all seems very real to him and he is awake, the brain can do crazy things when it is not functioning properly.

Yes, but even with people who report things like ghosts, or seeing dead people, those are not real things, they are delusions that are false perceptions because humans have no understanding about how the brain can be messed up or how false perceptions and the brain under duress, like drug or mental illness can compile a delusion.

(January 31, 2016 at 9:57 pm)drfuzzy Wrote: Scooby wrote:   I'll talk about the veridical NDEs if you want to hear about that. Those are when people witness events away from their body while unconscious that are later verified as true by other witnesses. Like being in a hospital room, but witnessing a doctor in surgery that is verified as to happened by that doctor.

(Yes, I gave up on the quote function for the moment.)

Here is the OBE claim that would be oh so easy to prove.  Isolate someone who claims to be able to accomplish self-guided OBE's and video tape them.
Have a stranger in another location do something and videotape that.  (Bake cookies, clean house, doesn't matter what.)  If the OBE traveller can describe the action without leaving the room, you have confirmation.  Simple.

Find one that fits the control qualifications and present it here.

The Parnia experiment was doing something similar, in his case he was putting a cardboard sign in a place that subjects wouldn't see normally but would if they were oob (eg on top of a tall wardrobe). Unfortunately, he dropped this line of enquiry when it was clear he was going to get no positive hits, and instead went with a year old story which was "impossible to fake" [sic] instead.

OBEs don't like to be tested! They get all self conscious!

An OBE would only indicate a gap in our knowledge. It wouldn't indicate "God", or "souls", or any other rubbish. It would indicate further study is necessary.