What beliefs would we consider reasonable for a self proclaimed Christian to hold?

[He lives]

I believe there is very good evidence that there is indeed a spirit (soul) that survives the death of the body. I was in audience with Dr. George Ritchie who wrote the books Return From Tomorrow, and My Life After Dying. He was  pronounced dead twice and ultimately was revived by an injection into the heart. He was chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of Towers Hospital; and founder and president of the Universal Youth Corps. There have been hundreds of books written about near death and out of body experiences. The research is ongoing.

There have been hundreds of books written about bigfoot and alien abduction. This proves nothing.

There is no compelling evidence for a soul or spirit. 

There are vague experiences. There are dark spots in our knowledge. And there are story-weavers pied pipering their message to those who want to listen and believe. There is just as much credible evidence that the soul survives death as there is for ouija boards, the abominable snowman, or haunted houses. You can't use anecdotal evidence to found theories about the the existence of a soul or its survival of bodily death.

Although anecdotal evidence is not proof, it is still evidence. It has spawned large research projects at hospitals in many countries. I am confident that the proof is there and is forthcoming. I wonder if any atheists will engage in this research.

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Science does not have all of the answers. Some people believe that scientists know how life began, but they don't know. There are many scientific hypothesis regarding the beginning of life and none of them are provable. So if you want proof you are not going to find it.

Don't worry. Just give it time, and they'll figure out exactly how life began on earth. We don't just go for a "God explanation" for something just because we haven't figured out yet how it came about. God is not even an explanation. It's just a filler of knowledge gaps. The best stance is simply to acknowledge ignorance on the matter, and wait/hope for some actual explanation to emerge eventually.

That said, I am confident that abiogenesis, broadly speaking, has happened on this planet, in a similar way that I am confident lightnings occur due to purely natural processes (even though scientists are still trying to figure out exactly how they occur). So it's not Zeus throwing lightning bolts or anything like that.

I am confident that abiogenesis can not and will not ever be proven because life was created by intelligent design.

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I believe there is very good evidence that there is indeed a spirit (soul) that survives the death of the body. I was in audience with Dr. George Ritchie who wrote the books Return From Tomorrow, and My Life After Dying. He was  pronounced dead twice and ultimately was revived by an injection into the heart. He was chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of Towers Hospital; and founder and president of the Universal Youth Corps. There have been hundreds of books written about near death and out of body experiences. The research is ongoing.

I am strongly of the opinion that Dr. Ritchie's brain was not permanently dead and that he experienced a run-of-the-mill NDE (which I do not accept as evidence of life after death).

Well he was pronounced dead twice. I believe he was brought back to life. Here is an article:

Dr. Kenneth Ring published a scientific paper in the Journal of Near-Death Studies (Summer, 1993) about people who have had a near-death experience (NDE) of a type providing verified evidence supporting the Afterlife Hypothesis. Such people suddenly find themselves outside of their bodies and observing detailed events happening far away, sometimes hundreds and thousands of miles away, which were later verified by third-parties to have actually occurred. This phenomenon is called "veridical perception" and it is currently unexplainable by modern medical science. Such verified out-of-body observations are highly suggestive of a reality where consciousness can survive apart from the physical body and perhaps survive even death. Should conclusive evidence of veridical perception be found under strict laboratory conditions, it would be one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. There have been research studies performed, such as the , where hospitals have attempted to monitor cardiac patients for possible NDEs as they occur in the hospital. Targets displaying random images are placed near the ceiling where out-of-body perceptions are more likely to occur during cardiac arrest. 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.

From: https://www.near-death.com/science/evidence.html

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I believe there is very good evidence that there is indeed a spirit (soul) that survives the death of the body. I was in audience with Dr. George Ritchie who wrote the books Return From Tomorrow, and My Life After Dying. He was  pronounced dead twice and ultimately was revived by an injection into the heart. He was chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of Towers Hospital; and founder and president of the Universal Youth Corps. There have been hundreds of books written about near death and out of body experiences. The research is ongoing.

*my bold*

An indication of just how desperate believers are to receive even a crumb of hope for the weird shit you believe.

I am confident that out of body experiences will be proven to be factual. I also believe that after they are proven there will still be many who will deny that it was proven.

[drfuzzy]

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Sounds like the ideal setup for becoming a victim of confirmation bias.  Probably because it is.

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What if said proof points you into a completely different direction?

Apart of my proof came in a 180* different view of Hell. I only knew a version of Dante' inferno, came to find out I experenced a completely different version of Hell. so much so I almost dismissed the whole experience, till I started reading the bible. Then began to read descriptions of Hell that I experienced months or even years prior.

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A book of silly, flawed fairy tales is not proof.  Stories told by con men and witch doctors is not proof.  "Eye-witness testimony" contained in an old book of fairy tales is not "eye-witness".  (Now, if you had a few dozen texts from Roman, Greek, and Jewish historians written in the year 32-ish, that might have some value. These have not been found.) Personal stories about god go in the same category as personal stories about being abducted by aliens.  If people pray to experience something hard enough, most people will experience something and attribute it to - whatever they were told to expect.  I need more substantive proof.  If there is an all-powerful deity that actually wants humans to know of its existence, then it is quite capable of providing clear proof that cannot be mistaken for human fantasy and story telling.

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How are you a doctor of anything??

Eye witness in the billions does not mean the few who live with Christ. I'm speaking of the billions of people who came after and witness and experienced Christ and or the Holy Spirit on a personal level as I have.

Despite what you guys think God is active and alive in HIS Churches.

Religious fantasies and group hypnosis and self-hypnosis do not qualify as "eye-witness".

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[Whateverist]

  Paul's letters tell us we can have knowledge. You tell me how I can't know God is real when He has specifically answered prayers in a away that could not be coincidental. 
GC

*my bold*

Well, unless it is an inside job and 'God' turns out to be one more aspect of the psyche right along aside the ego, id and whatnot. That actually would explain it and other things quite well.

[He lives]

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What if said proof points you into a completely different direction?

Apart of my proof came in a 180* different view of Hell. I only knew a version of Dante' inferno, came to find out I experenced a completely different version of Hell. so much so I almost dismissed the whole experience, till I started reading the bible. Then began to read descriptions of Hell that I experienced months or even years prior.

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How are you a doctor of anything??


Despite what you guys think God is active and alive in HIS Churches.

Religious fantasies and group hypnosis and self-hypnosis do not qualify as "eye-witness".

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That is your opinion I believe that the Bible is a historical documentation. The concept of God is history.

[Astreja]

Well he was pronounced dead twice. I believe he was brought back to life. Here is an article... {snip}

I've already rejected your near-death journal as not credible and not evidence that is up to my standards.  Posting the same bloody link in a larger font just makes you look like an idiot, so cut it out.

As far as I am concerned, all of the so-called evidence for life after death is nothing more than a neurological phenomenon that only happens to the brains of living people.  I believe that life after death is no more than a tale that people use to fight off the fear of becoming nonexistent and therefore non-significant -- ego panic and nothing more.

I believe that our fate at death is simply to lose consciousness and never awaken, and that "eternal life" consists of the molecules of our physical bodies being recycled into other forms. I'm fine with that.  I'm not all that attached to being "myself," let alone being myself forever, and in fact it's a bit of a reach to say that I'm the same person I was 50 years ago, or even 10 years ago.

To me, the universe is beautiful because it is in constant change, not because it stays the same.  I have no use for (and no desire for) life after death, none at all.

[The Grand Nudger]

That is your opinion I believe that the Bible is a historical documentation. The concept of God is history.

[Astreja]

Galaxy Quest! Painfully funny movie.

[Angrboda]

Well he was pronounced dead twice. I believe he was brought back to life. Here is an article:

Dr. Kenneth Ring published a scientific paper in the Journal of Near-Death Studies (Summer, 1993) about people who have had a near-death experience (NDE) of a type providing verified evidence supporting the Afterlife Hypothesis. Such people suddenly find themselves outside of their bodies and observing detailed events happening far away, sometimes hundreds and thousands of miles away, which were later verified by third-parties to have actually occurred. This phenomenon is called "veridical perception" and it is currently unexplainable by modern medical science. Such verified out-of-body observations are highly suggestive of a reality where consciousness can survive apart from the physical body and perhaps survive even death. , where hospitals have attempted to monitor cardiac patients for possible NDEs as they occur in the hospital. Targets displaying random images are placed near the ceiling where out-of-body perceptions are more likely to occur during cardiac arrest. 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.

From: https://www.near-death.com/science/evidence.html

[emphasis mine]

Explain to me how, even if true, this is necessarily explained by consciousness leaving the body rather than the equally likely explanation that the ability of clairvoyance -- seeing afar without leaving the body -- exists?  It seems like they're just assuming the explanation here is consciousness leaving the body because that's what they want to believe.  The actual evidence is that cases of veridical perception are rare and not very compelling.  Take the following supposed veridical perception of Carl Jung cited by your site as evidence that NDEs have influenced psychology.  In it, Jung describes the experience of viewing the earth from outer space.

.... Jung's experience is unique in that he saw the Earth from a vantage point of about a thousand miles above it. His incredibly accurate view of the Earth from outer space was described about two decades before astronauts in space first described it.

....   It seemed to me that I was high up in space. Far below I saw the globe of the Earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light. I saw the deep blue sea and the continents.  Far below my feet lay Ceylon, and in the distance ahead of me the subcontinent of India. My field of vision did not include the whole Earth, but its global shape was plainly distinguishable and its outlines shone with a silvery gleam through that wonderful blue light. In many places the globe seemed colored, or spotted dark green like oxidized silver. Far away to the left lay a broad expanse - the reddish-yellow desert of Arabia; it was as though the silver of the Earth had there assumed a reddish-gold hue. Then came the Red Sea, and far, far back - as if in the upper left of a map - I could just make out a bit of the Mediterranean. My gaze was directed chiefly toward that. Everything else appeared indistinct. I could also see the snow-covered Himalayas, but in that direction it was foggy or cloudy. ...

https://www.near-death.com/experiences/n...-jung.html

I don't see any details that could not have been known without venturing into space.  His description is little more than a vague description of what an earth bound observer might expect to see if they were to view the earth from outer space.  All the details which Jung mentions could easily have been known without going into outer space by a well educated man like Carl Jung.  Exactly how is this a veridical perception as alluded to?  It's worth noting that Jung makes only passing mention of cloud cover over the Himalayas, unlike the ubiquitous cloud cover one would see from outer space (see image below).

[He lives]

Well he was pronounced dead twice. I believe he was brought back to life. Here is an article... {snip}

  Posting the same bloody link in a larger font just makes you look like an idiot, so cut it out.

It is important to reference where a quote is located.

To me, the universe is beautiful because it is in constant change, not because it stays the same.  I have no use for (and no desire for) life after death, none at all.

That will be all the more surprising to you as it was to Howard Storm.

[The Grand Nudger]

Howard Storm, lol.  At this point, listing off the silly things you -don't- believe in would take less time.