(July 19, 2015 at 9:12 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: Confessing our sins and receiving absolution.

Questioning what it means to be a sin and giving not one shit for absolution from the self proclaimed purveyors of absolution.


Regardless of how this may all seem to you, Randy, all I see going on here is one self-important little man telling other little men how to behave.  No thanks little guy.

(July 19, 2015 at 10:17 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote:   But look how prettily he has put all those failed points out there.  Surely he gets better marks for organization at least?

 Is this like giving points to students who use lovely penmanship to write inane essays?

Atwater Wrote:The International Association for Near-Death Studies sent out a questionnaire in 1992 inquiring about those who considered themselves to be near-death experiencers. How close had they been to physical death when their episode occurred? ... 37 percent had theirs in a setting unrelated to anything that could be construed as life threatening. ... The 37 percenters claimed to have experiences every bit as real, involved, and life-changing as those that happened to people during death or close-brush-with-death crises; and their reports duplicate or parallel the same spread of scenario types and a pattern of psychological and physiological aftereffects.

— P.M.H. Atwater, The Big Book of Near-Death Experiences

Near death experiences are only evidence that some people confuse "near" death with "after" death.

They are proof of nothing but that the brain produces interesting imagery under certain conditions. Interpreting those images to have something to do with being dead is nothing but baseless speculation. The speculation that they are images of post-death experience become the grist for which the images themselves are evidence. That's circular. The speculation is evidence of nothing but the fact that some people speculate such things. The images could have any number of causes unrelated to life after death, and as shown, do not even require near death experience.

*yawn*

Is this nugget still hanging around?

Randy,

Please bring some actual evidence. In that list, you have 20 presuppositional arguments. That is not evidence nor will it be construed as such by anyone other than those with religious blinders on. Bring some real, testable, verifiable evidence of your gawd and at least some of us will honestly consider your position. Until then, your position is worthy only of mockery and dismissal.

Goodness. Evidence? Has the definition of that word changed?

There actually is one new and important piece of evidence in this thread.

Sadly, the OP is evidence that Randy hasn't learned anything since being here and is happy to spam people with arguments that they have already personally debunked.

Clearly trying to convert people is way more important to some people than honesty, integrity and any sort of intellectual rigour.

Your God is evil, by his own admission, by word and by deed, if he exists. This is enough to make a good portion of us not interested in sucking his balls.

(July 19, 2015 at 9:17 pm)Exian Wrote: Near death experiences. You mean where people report to see exactly the thing they were taught by their particular religion their entire life?

I heard a story, from a caller on the Thinking Atheist podcast, about an atheist having a NDE in which he and his friend went on an adventure to kill flesh-eating zombies. True story.

(July 19, 2015 at 10:35 pm)Jenny A Wrote:

(July 19, 2015 at 10:17 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote:   But look how prettily he has put all those failed points out there.  Surely he gets better marks for organization at least?

 Is this like giving points to students who use lovely penmanship to write inane essays?

Pretty much.