Paper: Spontaneous Creation of the Universe From Nothing

That’s diplomatic BS. Every religion has a different story of how their God created the universe. There is no ‘oneness’.

Every religion lives in the same Universe therefor it talks about the same Creator, i already said a paradigm, the one with the Architect and the people living in the house he built, there is one Truth for the Architect even if there are different opinions, this truth is accessible from humans since we are His images, that's why Jesus was called the Son of Man because through Him (his teachings) we are restoring our lost image of God. Please tell me how something infinite can have plural?

No. As I said in the other thread, the only objective methodology of the study to prove NDE, is “placard message recognition”. Either you can say the methodology of the study is wrong, hence the entire study is wrong, or you should accept that the study debunks NDE.

Again, my keys are in front of me all the time but many times i can't see them even if someone points at them, it doesn't mean that i am dead or that i am hallucinating, it means that i didn't noticed them. The study proved that patiences had mental recollections when their brain had no oxygen, if consciousness is a product of a broken brain then we would observe random memories, random hallucinations and blackouts, here the patiences until the last second of their lives had awareness and their recollections worked perfectly just like when they were alive. A broken machine has consequences.

The patient was aware of the surgery, not how many steps doctors and nurses took in various direction! Awareness during anesthesia may be experienced by 1 or 2 cases out of every 1000 patients. Analysis of ASA Closed Claims Project shows intraoperative awareness accounted for up to 2% of all claims.

No, the patience observed his surgery and described it to the doctors he wasn't just aware of it, that's why he is on its own category from the study. Here we have 46% cases that had some kind of awareness during their surgery, that means almost 500 out of 1000 and if we count the people that forgot these experiences because of the amnesia drugs the numbers are climbing higher. "2 per cent exhibited full awareness compatible with OBE's with explicit recall of 'seeing' and 'hearing' events." "One case was validated and timed using auditory stimuli during cardiac arrest. Dr Parnia concluded: "This is significant, since it has often been assumed that experiences in relation to death are likely hallucinations or illusions, occurring either before the heart stops or after the heart has been successfully restarted, but not an experience corresponding with 'real' events when the heart isn't beating. In this case, consciousness and awareness appeared to occur during a three-minute period when there was no heartbeat. This is paradoxical, since the brain typically ceases functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart stopping and doesn't resume again until the heart has been restarted. Furthermore, the detailed recollections of visual awareness in this case were consistent with verified events."

Among the cocktail of drugs is Ketamine or its derivatives (BTW, Ketamine is used by thousands of teens to get Out of body experience pretty much everyday OBE is achieved when they hit the k-hole state.).

Ketamine experiences are often frightening, producing weird images and most ketamine users realize that the experiences produced by this drug are illusory. In contrast, NDErs are strongly convinced of the reality of what they experienced. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130327190359.htm Furthermore, many of the central features of NDEs are not reported with ketamine. That being said, we cannot rule out that the blockade of NMDA receptors may be involved in some NDEs. Plus to that the testimonies of people that had NDE and tried Ketamine say its not the same. I have found a forum discussion recently that deals with it. People that had OBE experiences describe things that could not possibly know, if we could replicate them with drugs we wouldn't say that these are hallucinations because of the drugs, we would say that these drugs somehow move your Consciousness above your material self and access information that you can't know when you are in your body. JimFit

JimFit @ 54

God is one because He is Eternal, you can’t use plural on something infinite it is both stupid and illogical. An Architect builds a house, in the house there are lots of people that wonder about the character of the Architect, some people .....

That's diplomatic BS. Every religion has a different story of how their God created the universe. There is no 'oneness'.

The place-cards and the Out of body experiences were second to the research, they were not the main subject of the study.

No. As I said in the other thread, the only objective methodology of the study to prove NDE, is "placard message recognition". Either you can say the methodology of the study is wrong, hence the entire study is wrong, or you should accept that the study debunks NDE.

This can be true only if this patient did know every person that worked in the hospital and of course he couldn’t because he was not a doctor neither worked for that hospital. To say that somehow knew all the movements of the doctors and the nurses when his eyes were closed its ridiculous

The patient was aware of the surgery, not how many steps doctors and nurses took in various direction! Awareness during anesthesia may be experienced by 1 or 2 cases out of every 1000 patients. Analysis of ASA Closed Claims Project shows intraoperative awareness accounted for up to 2% of all claims. In an emergency situation ,the anesthetist has little time to monitor and achieve a Bispectral index of 40-60 to ensure full unconsciousness. So if a patient is one among the 1000 who requires a higher dose of anesthetic, it is more likely that he will be anesthesia aware during the surgery than not. Combine this fact with the fact that Clinically dead is still controversial term, and you will find that the 3 minutes 'clinically dead' patient being aware of surgery is not significant at all. Now, in the light of all above facts, let's look at a veridical NDE: Amid the blaring of sirens, you (or your enemy) are wheeled into the ER of a hospital. The ER doctor administers basic first aid and intubates you. Among the cocktail of drugs is Ketamine or its derivatives (BTW, Ketamine is used by thousands of teens to get Out of body experience pretty much everyday OBE is achieved when they hit the k-hole state.). You are wheeled by emergency personnel to the surgery room. They talk about your case or some other patients or the blue shoe on the 2nd floor ledge or the weather- all these info is being recorded by your brain. You are next being prepared for the surgery. The anesthetist injects drugs to induce general anesthesia. He is not aware that you are 1 among the 1000 people who needs extra dose of anesthesia to achieve a Bispectral index of 40 to 60. Meanwhile surgeons and nurses stream in. They talk about the surgical procedure, they use technical terms too, may be they talk about their kids or cats and dogs , about some article in some journals, use each other nick names etc. The ketamine in you takes you to the k-hole state. You are now 'out of body' and are intraperation aware. You hear the conservation while having a OBE. Suddenly in the middle of the surgery, your heart flatlines. The doctor declares you dead - too soon - a clinically death proclamation needs to be made only after 38 minutes of trying to resurrect. The doctors frantically do whatever needs to be done and 'resurrect' you. You make a full recovery. You are overwhelmed- you had an out of body experience, you are aware of seemingly secret info of the surgical procedure , you can recall something about a shoe on the ledge so you truly believe you went out of body, floated around, met God and came back. You just had a veridical NDE. Me_Think

Box: "What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?" picture http://cdn-4.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/harvardd-2.jpg :) bornagain77

You_Don't_Think_A_Lot said

it was about which God created universe.

God is one because He is Eternal, you can't use plural on something infinite it is both stupid and illogical. All religions talk about the same Creator since all religions live in the same Universe and in the same planet. You confuse Theology with God. An Architect builds a house, in the house there are lots of people that wonder about the character of the Architect, some people think that the Architect is evil, some others that the Architect is rich, some others that the Architect is good, because there are lots of opinions (theologies) it doesn't mean that the Architect obeys to every opinion or that opinions somehow clone the Architect to many Architects, yes there is one Truth that applies to His images as well, us the humans. You also said

Did you notice that in the AWARE study, not a single patient – out of over 2000 -saw the placards which were placed in strategic locations to verify NDE?

I am conscious but there are much things around me that i don't notice in my everyday life even if someone points a finger to them, does that make me dead? That's not really an argument neither the study claimed it was essential to prove awareness after "death". The study wanted to prove that awareness exists in a brain drained from oxygen, the aware study proved that it does, 46 per cent experienced a broad range of mental recollections WHEN THEY HAD A DYING BRAIN! The place-cards and the Out of body experiences were second to the research, they were not the main subject of the study. You then continue

The lone man’s experience is not significant. The lone patient who recalled nurses could easily have been recalling memory from the time he was not ‘clinically dead’.

This can be true only if this patient did know every person that worked in the hospital and of course he couldn't because he was not a doctor neither worked for that hospital. To say that somehow knew all the movements of the doctors and the nurses when his eyes were closed its ridiculous, even the greatest magicians can't do this trick without an assistant. You then said that

Note that Clinically dead is still controversial term, so the 3 minutes is not significant. There are cases when..

WELL OF COURSE IT IS! If as you showed a woman can revive from a heart attack after 3 minutes WHAT EXACTLY IS DEATH? We say he is dead because his heart doesn't work, what if he is alive with his heart stopped? Your own argument can turn against you. JimFit

Wallstreeter43: Atheists like me-thinks pray long and hard for life not to have any meaning and will deny any evidence that favors meaning.

Yes, it seems to be very important to them that life has no meaning whatsoever. The question is: if this is not due to mental illness then what is the reason? Box

wallstreeter43 @ 51

Now how about u answer why ur hero dittrich lied aboit almost everything in his article ? ... Now what are you going to do next dude? Call the er doctor a liar , his head doctor a liar, his family liars and his friends liars ?

First off, journos (including Luke Dittrich ) and philosophers can never be my 'hero'! Ebener’s friend Chuck told the truth - there was no parachute jump. Ebener changed his stance and said it was some other friend but refused to name that some other friend Dr.Potter has stated that

she does remember that she intubated Alexander more than an hour before his departure from the ER. Could he have shouted anything, let alone something clearly heard? "No," she says . Her subsequent statement about 'being misrepresented' makes no sense given the fact that all patients are intubated in ER!

so, again Eben lied. Robert Mays is an NDE researcher he was nowhere near the hospital! No other doctor came forward to be interviewed after the incident. Refutation of report is by Holley Alexander and her friend Sylvia White - of course they support Ebener, who else do you think they will support? No doctor lied. Dr.Potter told the truth, other doctors didn't offer any comment. All that Ebener has in his support is Holley Alexander and her friend Sylvia White statements, which could ( as I can't accuse them of lying) be biased. At the end of the day what you have is a lot of hearsay and no scientific proof of NDE (remember AWARE study debunked NDE, as not a single patient out of over 2000 passed the Placard test). I pointed out in an earlier comment that thousands of teen Ketamine users have OBE and all kinds of weird visions when they hit the k-hole . In case you haven't guessed the connection- ketamine is used medically as induction agent in traumatic cases, so it's not like there is no sane reason for OBE. Continuing to claim Eben Alexander met God and came back is just supporting a charlatan. Now let's see Dalai Lama video. Luke Dittrich did lie about the dialogue but not about wagging the finger - Dalai lama did wag his finger. In hide sight, watching the video, it is clear to us that he called upon his translator to translate, but it would definitely not be clear for someone watching as an audience - even the translator was confused for a second (48:14-48:15) but of course that doesn't mitigate Luke Dittrich lie. The only IDer / creationist I admire is Frank Tipler. Although he had egg on his face when he debated 'Physics of Christianity' (in which he tries really hard to defend Christianity scientifically) with Krauss, there is little doubt that Tipler is a fine gentleman. Show me someone of his ilk claiming NDE and I will believe you. Me_Think

Me think , first of all he didn't get his liscence revoked and second he's no saint and never claimed to be and yes doctors have malpractve suits all the time, Even has talked about all of this . What u didn't do was answer all the lies of the esquire article , and yet yoir claiming that I have cognitive dissonance ? Now it wasn't eben just that debunked the esquire article. It was robery mays, his ER doctor and the witnesses that were there that day . All key witnesses backed ebens side of the story . Nice try as far as poisoning the well my friend ;) Now how about u answer why ur hero dittrich lied aboit almost everything in his article ? Answer why dittrich lied about what the Dalai Lama said ? U have done everything you could but deal with the facts if the case . Notice I won't even bring the aware study into this because that would totally destroy your argument . I'm gonna do this alone on the eben Alexander nde . Now what are you going to do next dude? Call the er doctor a liar , his head doctor a liar, his family liars and his friends liars ? If anyone reads the facts they will know that eben was telling it like it is and dittrich was the liar. But then again ur atheist champion gets a free pass . Again eben talked about all of this . It's not anything new . We both know that u won't deal with dittrichs lies ;) wallstreeter43

Some great points in this thread, all ignored, of course, by the "skeptics." One can only pine for the days of Elizabeth Liddle et. al. What ever happened to skepticism? When did it get replaced by boastful ignorance? Mung

wallstreeter43 @ 47

Notice that instead of researching this honestly and getting to the full story me-thinks glorifies dittrich as an honest reporter and vilifies iands as obvious liars because they exposed this editor as a hack .

It is you who need to do a lot of research. Eben Alexander was kicked out of every hospital he worked in. He settled 5 malpractice cases in as many years. In two of the cases, he didn't even know the difference between c4 and c5 vertebrae - he fused the wrong vertebrae and fudged records. His surgical license was cancelled. The last job he held was in a non-profit run by his friend. Forget about medical claims in his book, he even lied about simple incident when he said Chuck opened the parachute under him. When chuck stated no such incident happened, Ebener said it was some other friend and not Chuck. He refused to disclose the name of the friend and he couldn't recall any other friends who could corroborate the incident. So when such a person says he met God and came back, you need to be skeptical. I don't blame you for being so naive - you are just trying to reduce your cognitive dissonance. If you are in touch with reality, you will know thousands of teens have Out of Body experience every day- all they need is ketamine to reach the k-hole state. Me_Think

Harry, as you recognise, I am speaking to the logic of being and cause. Nothing -- non being -- is like an empty chalkboard. Then, erase the board, make it and its wall vanish then also the space in which it was. A genuine zero, or what rocks dream of. Such non-being has no causal capabilities and if there ever was an utter nothing, there would not be causal capacity for anything to follow. There actually is something, so there was something that always was, a necessary being. 100 years go it was imagined that the physical cosmos was that -- the Steady State model. It failed and the observed cosmos strongly appears to have a beginning. That points to something beyond it. As to what that is, that is a much bigger question than Science . . . which studies the world around us . . . is equipped to answer. To Philosophy. And that is a really hard thing for those unduly influenced by an age that has put science up on a pedestal to to accept. And, phil has its own methods as it addresses hard questions and perspectives, on comparative difficulties. KF kairosfocus

Box for people that have an atheistic , materialistic worldview good and evil is purely subjective and for dittrich he makes a nice little payday from this article as he does what he does best, spread lies, falsehoods and gossip to smear the name of another man. Why would such a person care to bring hope into the lives of others when he can make easy money like this. Notice that instead of researching this honestly and getting to the full story me-thinks glorifies dittrich as an honest reporter and vilifies iands as obvious liars because they exposed this editor as a hack . Atheists like me-thinks pray lomg and hard for life not to have any meaning and will deny any evidence that favors meaning . This is the definition of pure insane thinking . Ebens nde has brought amazing hope to many others . I met the sweetest old lady in SAMs club when I was making my rounds there and she opened up to me about her own nde as she was in a terrible car wreck that left her in a coma for weeks . She didn't leave her body or go anywhere but during the whole time she was in a coma she sensed a presence surrounding her with an incredible peace . I could sense she was telling the truth and was very rational . She had no reason to lie to me aboit it either . She said that she doesn't care if these hardcore skeptics believed her or not , that she now knows there is a God be used she experimecd his pretense first hand . She gave me a hug before leaving and it was the most amazing hug I ever got full of warmth and soul. wallstreeter43

And how does Luke Dittrich account for his actions? What is the "good cause" that makes lying acceptable? The stories of Eben Alexander and others can bring hope and comfort to many. Why is a person like Luke Dittrich so determined to destroy that hope; willing to lie and distort? What exactly is the goodness of Luke Dittrich that underlies all this? Box

As we can see , Nde's clearly scare atheists like me-thinks enough to make him have to resort to lying and cherry picking in order to avoid dealing with the implications of Nde's like even Alexander's nde. The in receive part of eben Alexandera nde is that it was not only a veridical nde but an extremely rare and special veridical nde in which he brought back information from heaven about a sister that he never knew he had which was validated by his real parents (he was adopted) when he found them . Sam Harris also tried to do the something with doctor alexander but when eben alexander challenged sam Harris to out his money where his mouth is and take him on in a debate , suddenly sam Harris pulls a typical atheist maneuver and says he is too busy to debate him lol. Me-thinks if your comfortable with your atheistic /materialistic cult like blind faith , please stay away from addressing Nde's. You won't like where the evidence goes ;) wallstreeter43

And then the esquire editor dittrich finishes his hatchet job by saying that the DALAI LAMA called eben Alexander a liar . Watch how dittrich inserts words into the DALAI LAMA's mouth to make him say things he never said . This is what dittrich said http://iands.org/images/stories/pdf_downloads/esquire%20article%20on%20eben%20alexander%20distorts%20the%20facts.pdf "Coda: The Dalai Lama pronounces Eben Alexander unreliable and a liar Luke Dittrich is an excellent writer, producing finely crafted, award-winning journalism. He saved the best pronouncements of Eben Alexander's character and veracity to the end—from the Dalai Lama no less, a person of great spiritual insight who is held in high esteem throughout the world. So important were these pronouncements that the Esquire editors emblazoned them in an all-caps pull quote in the article: THE DALAI LAMA WAGS A FINGER AT ALEXANDER. WHEN A MAN MAKES EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMS, HE SAYS, A "THOROUGH INVESTIGATION" IS REQUIRED, TO ENSURE THAT PERSON IS "RELIABLE," HAS "NO REASON TO LIE." The quote might just as well have said: THE DALAI LAMA INVITES EBEN ALEXANDER TO SPEAK AT HIS COLLEGE'S CONVOCATION IN ORDER TO PRONOUNCE HIM UNRELIABLE AND A LIAR. Luke Dittrich had laid the case out well against Eben Alexander: an instance of altering medical records to cover his medical error, a failed career as a neurosurgeon, and a story of "heaven" so clearly built on fabrications and embellishments that its very heart and message cannot be trusted."" Again dittrich says this is what the Dalai Lama says " 47:46] "For that also, we must investigate," the Dalai Lama says. "Through investigation we must get sure that person is truly reliable." He wags a finger in Alexander's direction. When a man makes extraordinary claims, a "thorough investigation" is required, to ensure "that person reliable, never telling lie," and has "no reason to lie." (emphasis added)"" This is a blatant lie because the Dalai Lama never said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidences and never wagged his finger at eben Alexander . Lets now see at the Dalai Lama really said shall we. Of course me-thinks conveniently forgot to investigate the truth fullness of the esquire article be used he is a religious atheist only interested in cherry picking and lying to make his case ;) "[47:46] [DL] And for that also you see, we must investigate. Through investigation we must get sure that person is truly reliable and his experience is something not just illusion of these things. [48:02] Through then thorough investigation, that person is reliable, never telling lie – and in this particular case this is no reason to tell lie – therefore, [translator] so then one can take the testimony to be credible. [translator] So the point I'm trying to make is that with respect to science and its scope for discovering knowledge, we need to make a distinction about the fact that there might be certain types of phenomena which are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry. (emphasis added) Did Luke Dittrich miss the highlighted phrases? Let's compare how Dittrich interprets this part versus what was actually said: He wags a finger in Alexander's direction. When a man makes extraordinary claims, a "thorough investigation" is required, to ensure "that person reliable, never telling lie," and has "no reason to lie" "His Holiness did not wag his finger at Alexander and he did not say "when a man makes extraordinary claims". No, His Holiness was referring to "extremely obscure phenomena" which do not require "extraordinary proof", as the saying goes, but only a determination that the person is reliable, never telling a lie, with no reason to lie. Luke Dittrich probably concluded the following: not only has he (Luke) demonstrated that Alexander lied in many places in his account, but Dittrich has also exposed the many reasons Alexander has to lie—financial gain, prestige, the adulation of "guruhood". Therefore in the Dalai Lama's eyes—if His Holiness only knew what Dittrich knows with certainty—Eben Alexander would be judged unreliable and a liar. But that's Luke Dittrich's conclusion, not the Dalai Lama's. For His Holiness, Eben Alexander has no reason to lie and therefore one can take Alexander’s testimony to be credible. And His Holiness goes on to show his acceptance of the validity of Eben Alexander's experience: [49:12] [DL] Among the scientists so far as I notice, the later part of the twentieth century, they [created] a sort of knowledge or field, they carried a sort of research about the brain – quite subtly. [49:30, pointing to EA] At a more deeper level there is still more mysterious things. (emphasis added)"" So clearly methinks posted this lie of an article and showing his amazing dedication as an atheist to finding the truth conveniently forgets to research the veracity of the editors lie of an article , cause if he did he would have found out that the editor fabricated many key facts in his hatchet job. Me-thinks is just too emotionally uncomfortable with the implications of eben Alexander's nde to give us the full truth and the real facts about it. Again, atheistic truth seeking in action ;) Special thanks to BA77 for bringing up the refutation link to the esquire lie article . I haven't seen that in about a year :) " wallstreeter43

Born again, notice that the esquire article blatantly lied on many points especially about what the doctors said about this. So was Eben Alexander conscious during his stay in the hospital? Dittrich describes the key question: I ask Potter whether the manic, agitated state that Alexander exhibited whenever they weaned him off his anesthetics during his first days of coma would meet her definition of conscious. "Yes," she says. "Conscious but delirious." (emphasis added) There it is: for Dittrich, conclusive proof that Eben Alexander was conscious, although severely sick, and was maintained in a medically induced coma by administration of anesthetics. And Eben Alexander failed to disclose that key fact in his book. This is the final incontrovertible evidence Dittrich needed to complete his exposure of Eben Alexander as a fraud. He probably reasoned that, at best Alexander's experiences of the "heavenly realms" were just hallucinations brought about by his illness, whenever the doctors reduced his sedatives and he regained a kind of dream-like consciousness. The fact that Alexander did not disclose the real cause of his unconscious state—we can't really call it "coma" because it was readily reversible—just underscores that he is a fraud. This is a crucial conclusion for Dittrich to make: it exposes Eben Alexander clearly as deceptive and fraudulent or, at best, delusional. An accusation of fraud against an individual is serious and ought to give a journalist some pause. But Dittrich's evidence is clear and incontrovertible. An experienced doctor, who had observed Alexander over several days, declared that Alexander was definitely "conscious but delirious." And an intermittent delirious state would explain fully Eben Alexander's internal experience, from the "Earthworm Eye View"—under anesthesia—to the Spinning Melody—starting to come out of anesthesia—then to “The Gateway” and beyond—a dream-like state. A perfect fit. Explaining a fully hallucinatory experience. Once again, why investigate further? There's no need for corroboration, no need to check with other experts about all the indications that his brain was severely damaged by the bacterial infection. After all, the experts weren't there in the ER and the ICU. And the other doctors who were involved with Alexander's case refused to be interviewed. The one doctor who was present is certainly sufficient. And the other doctors would undoubtedly corroborate Dr. Potter's assessment. But what about the overwhelming evidence for severe meningitis? The data all come directly from Alexander. He could easily have exaggerated, embellished or even fabricated them—a very good reason for Alexander to insist that his medical records be kept confidential. Did Luke Dittrich attempt to corroborate Dr. Potter's assessment with anyone else who was involved? No. It would have been very easy to ask Holley what the other doctors had been telling her. After all that's supposedly where Eben had gotten the story. But Holley could have colluded with Eben. In any case she was not asked. Holley's friend Sylvia White, who was also present for these consultations, could have been asked, but she, too, was not. Were Luke Dittrich or his editors at all concerned that the very heart of their portrayal of Eben Alexander as a fraud was based on the sole assessment of one doctor? Apparently not. Were they concerned that Luke Dittrich might have misheard Dr. Potter or possibly misinterpreted what she had told him? Apparently not. Dittrich did not recheck with Dr. Potter and did not show her how he was quoting her. Had he done so, he would have gotten a surprise. Members of the Alexander family circle have told me that Dr. Laura Potter expressed to them concern after she was contacted by the press when the Esquire article first appeared, and subsequently expressed her alarm about the way her remarks had been twisted. She felt that Luke Dittrich had misrepresented what she had told him and taken her words out of context. She felt that he had led her to say certain things. So Luke Dittrich's portrayal of the events regarding Alexander's illness is inaccurate. Dittrich took Dr. Potter's statements out of context, twisted them and misrepresented them. And what are the facts regarding Eben Alexander's coma state? If Luke Dittrich had read Proof of Heaven with any care, he would have found a definitive statement of the facts about Alexander’s coma in Appendix A, from Alexander’s infectious disease specialist Dr. Scott Wade: Dr. Alexander had become ill quickly with flu-like symptoms, back pain, and a headache. He was promptly transported to the Emergency Room, where he had a CT scan of his head and then a lumbar puncture with spinal fluid suggesting a gram-negative meningitis. He was immediately begun on intravenous antibiotics targeting that and placed on a ventilator machine because of his critical condition and coma. ... Despite prompt and aggressive antibiotic treatment for his E. coli meningitis as well as continued care in the medical intensive care unit, he remained in a coma six days and hope for a quick recovery faded (mortality over 97 percent). (p. 183, emphasis added) Did Luke Dittrich read this part of Proof of Heaven? It’s an Appendix that gives the statement of the lead doctor on Eben Alexander’s case. Dr. Wade states clearly that Alexander was in a coma in the ER and remained in a coma for six days."""" So methinks it is clear that luke dittrich lied and twisted Laura potters words and not only that but he clearly did not reference the lead doctors statement that clearly shows even alexander was in a coma , not a chemically induced coma but a true coma before he was given the sedatives . Your blatant cherry picking and ignoring the true facts shows that your a blind faith end atheist who isn't interested in the truth The esquire article was a hatchet job that was done to suppress the truth and show show far atheists would go in ignoring and avoiding the truth. wallstreeter43

kairosfocus @2

The issue is, that nothing -- non-being -- can have no causal powers, material, efficient, purposeful, whatever. So, if ever there were an utter nothing, nothing would forever obtain. This means, as there is something now, that something always was, independent of other things . . . a necessary being. The real issue is to identify and warrant which is best candidate.

If the natural Universe -- space, time, matter and energy -- had a beginning, which it now appears it did, dismissing theories that are based on no physical evidence whatsoever, then the "necessary being" which, as you point out, necessarily always was, is a non-material, supernatural reality, yet one with the power required to bring the natural Universe into existence out of nothing -- "nothing" in terms of the non-existence of space, time, matter and energy, and do it such that life would a possibility. (I am sure you are aware of Roger Penrose's calculation of the odds of the Big Bang producing by chance a universe capable of supporting life, which he concluded was 1 in 10^10^123, which makes that happening mindlessly and accidentally a virtual impossibility.) To do that required intelligence as well as power. So, the primary reality is non-material, and is essentially not a "what" but a "who." As Thomas Merton once put it, "God is pure Who," which, when you think about it, is how God explained Himself to Moses: "I AM WHO AM." harry

"What do you think the curvature of space in General relativity explains",, curved space-time can't 'explain' anything because curved space-time is not an agent with the causal power to explain anything. It takes an agent to 'explain' But as to what 'curved space time' reveals to us, Special relativity and General Relativity reveal two very different eternities just as predicted in Christian Theism: Two very different ‘eternities’: Special Relativity, General Relativity, Heaven and Hell https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/edit bornagain77

I answered this on the other thread: Did you notice that in the AWARE study, not a single patient – out of over 2000 -saw the placards which were placed in strategic locations to verify NDE? The lone patient who recalled nurses could easily have been recalling memory from the time he was not ‘clinically dead’. Note that Clinically dead is still controversial term, so the 3 minutes is not significant. There are cases when.."" Again your totally wrong . As parnia stated the man recalled everything that happened during his resasitation and accurately recalled it all happening . Me thinks, your cherry picking is amazing lol. It wasn't just seeing the hospital staff, it was recalling what they were doing during that time . On top of that he was having these experiences without a functioning brain as it was timed as having happened 2.5 minutes even after the 30 second deep brain surge.he also recalled the instrument bleeping 3 times as well as seeing it, and he had no access to this before . You simply want to discount all this info out of your pure religiously motivated atheistic worldview . The reason why u didn't mention all this dude is because you don't have a materialistic explanation for it . This ladies and gents is how an atheist stays an atheist lol wallstreeter43

How is 1+1 =2 related to God’s existence ? Kurt Gödel - Incompleteness Theorem – video https://vimeo.com/92387853 Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video https://vimeo.com/92387854 "Either mathematics is too big for the human mind or the human mind is more than a machine" Kurt Gödel THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010 Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel's critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/07/the-god-of-the-mathematicians In regards to the incompleteness of math It is also interesting to note that 'higher dimensional' mathematics had to be developed before Einstein could elucidate General Relativity, or even before Quantum Mechanics could be elucidated; The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality – Gauss and Riemann – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6199520/ bornagain77

Here are thorough refutations of an 'hatchet job' article that tried to discredit Dr. Alexander: Esquire Proof of Heaven Expose Debunked, Dr. Eben Alexander Prevails – Interview with Robert Mays reveals a disturbing pattern of misrepresentation and distortion in Luke Dittrich’s Proof of Heaven expose published in Esquire Magazine. http://www.skeptiko.com/220-esquire-proof-of-heaven-expose-debunked/ audio: http://www.skeptiko.com/upload/skeptiko-220-robert-mays.mp3 In supplement to the skeptiko article and audio, for a even more thorough rebuttal of the Esquire article see: Esquire article on Eben Alexander distorts the facts - August 2013 http://iands.org/images/stories/pdf_downloads/esquire%20article%20on%20eben%20alexander%20distorts%20the%20facts.pdf bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 34

Top brain surgeon who claims he saw heaven while in a coma reveals the stories of others who say they have had similar life-changing experiences By Dr Eben Alexander – 19 October 2014

He is one of those notorious Neurosurgeon I was talking about:

Esquire magazine reported (August 2013 issue) that prior to the publication of Proof of Heaven, Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error. The magazine also found what it claimed were discrepancies with regard to Alexander's version of events in the book. Among the discrepancies, according to an account of the Esquire article in Forbes, was that "Alexander writes that he slipped into the coma as a result of severe bacterial meningitis and had no higher brain activity, while a doctor who cared for him says the coma was medically induced and the patient was conscious, though hallucinating."

He apparently paid another magazine to carry his false refutations Me_Think

bornagain77 @ 31

Neither can the ‘mechanism’ of Gravity be explained ‘scientifically’,, does that make Gravity unscientific? “to say that a stone falls to earth because it’s obeying a law, makes it a man and even a citizen”

What do you think the curvature of space in General relativity explains ?!! Me_Think

bornagain77 @ 29

1. If God did not exist the applicability of mathematics would be a happy coincidence. 2. The applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence. 3. Therefore, God exists.

How is 1+1 =2 related to God's existence ?

But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects

That's a classic - a mathematical construct capable of interacting ?! I wonder if he has put out a mathematical proof. Me_Think

Of supplemental note to Near Death Experiences: Top brain surgeon who claims he saw heaven while in a coma reveals the stories of others who say they have had similar life-changing experiences By Dr Eben Alexander - 19 October 2014 Excerpt: A man named Pascale wrote to tell me about his father, who had a PhD in astrophysics and was ‘100 per cent scientifically minded’ — in other words, a complete atheist. Pascale’s dad (we’ll call him Pierre) was a heavy drinker. He’d suffered a succession of emotional blows, and he used hard drink to numb the pain — so much that his organs started one by one to pack up. Kidneys, liver and then lungs gave way, and Pierre succumbed to double pneumonia. He was not expected to live, but to give his body the best chance of repairing itself, the doctors placed him in an induced coma. After three months in intensive care, he started to come round — and all this hard-headed scientific man wanted to talk about with his son were his experiences of heaven. He had seen the after-life, just as I did. And he brought back the same message: there were angel-like beings who loved us more than we could imagine, and they would help us, if only we would let them. Pierre faced a major challenge. He could never drink again. One glass would be enough to tip him back into alcohol abuse, and the end would be inevitable. Somehow, he found the strength to beat his demons. For the next four years, Pierre didn’t touch a drop. But after his initial burst of spiritual fervour in the hospital, he stopped talking about heaven. Pascale sensed that his dad, an intensely shy man, was embarrassed by the massive contradiction between the atheism he had always preached, and the heaven he had experienced during his coma,,, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2799385/glimpses-life-brain-surgeon-told-saw-heaven-coma-today-reveals-stories-say-ve-similar-life-changing-experiences.html bornagain77

The Epicureans cheated by assuming atoms. Atoms are not nothing. They even assumed a universe of atoms. Whence all the atoms? Or their ability to form chains? Or the other rules that govern their behavior? Or gravity? Or math? Or anything? The talk about having answers for the origin of species allowing for the existence of intellectually-fulfilled atheists always cracks me up. Really? It was the origin of species that was the real hurdle? Not the origin of life? Matter? Physical laws? Logic? Information? Consciousness? Morality? Anything at all? I suppose those are the easy questions, right? Phinehas

Bornagain77, Thank you for your excellent exposé of the inadequacies of materialism as a rational concept. One can not help but wondering how much wiggle room is left to keep the debate going. Box

Me_Think you state: "God can’t be a scientific explanation because His mechanism can’t be explained scientifically." Neither can the 'mechanism' of Gravity be explained 'scientifically',, does that make Gravity unscientific? "to say that a stone falls to earth because it's obeying a law, makes it a man and even a citizen" - CS Lewis A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - University of Wyoming - J. Budziszewski Excerpt page12: "There were two great holes in the argument about the irrelevance of God. The first is that in order to attack free will, I supposed that I understood cause and effect; I supposed causation to be less mysterious than volition. If anything, it is the other way around. I can perceive a logical connection between premises and valid conclusions. I can perceive at least a rational connection between my willing to do something and my doing it. But between the apple and the earth, I can perceive no connection at all. Why does the apple fall? We don't know. "But there is gravity," you say. No, "gravity" is merely the name of the phenomenon, not its explanation. "But there are laws of gravity," you say. No, the "laws" are not its explanation either; they are merely a more precise description of the thing to be explained, which remains as mysterious as before. For just this reason, philosophers of science are shy of the term "laws"; they prefer "lawlike regularities." To call the equations of gravity "laws" and speak of the apple as "obeying" them is to speak as though, like the traffic laws, the "laws" of gravity are addressed to rational agents capable of conforming their wills to the command. This is cheating, because it makes mechanical causality (the more opaque of the two phenomena) seem like volition (the less). In my own way of thinking the cheating was even graver, because I attacked the less opaque in the name of the more. The other hole in my reasoning was cruder. If my imprisonment in a blind causality made my reasoning so unreliable that I couldn't trust my beliefs, then by the same token I shouldn't have trusted my beliefs about imprisonment in a blind causality. But in that case I had no business denying free will in the first place." http://www.undergroundthomist.org/sites/default/files/WhyIAmNotAnAtheist.pdf A Professor's Journey out of Nihilism: Why I am not an Atheist - 2012 talk University of Wyoming J. Budziszewski http://veritas.org/talks/professors-journey-out-nihilism-why-i-am-not-atheist/?view=presenters&speaker_id=2231 Moreover, science is impossible without God as a basis for reason. i.e. Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism! Why No One (Can) Believe Atheism/Naturalism to be True (Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism) - video Excerpt: "Since we are creatures of natural selection, we cannot totally trust our senses. Evolution only passes on traits that help a species survive, and not concerned with preserving traits that tell a species what is actually true about life." Richard Dawkins - quoted from "The God Delusion" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4QFsKevTXs Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism by Alvin Plantinga - video https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL80CAECC36901BCEE Content and Natural Selection - Alvin Plantinga - 2011 http://www.andrewmbailey.com/ap/Content_Natural_Selection.pdf of related interest to Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism: Quote: "In evolutionary games we put truth (true perception) on the stage and it dies. And in genetic algorithms it (true perception) never gets on the stage" Donald Hoffman PhD. - Consciousness and The Interface Theory of Perception - 7:19 to 9:20 minute mark - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=dqDP34a-epI#t=439 bornagain77

Me_Think, that you would discount millions of testimonies from people who have had NDEs and wholeheartedly accept Neo-Darwinian evolution for which you have ZERO observational evidence shows how philosophically biased you are. The evidence for the reality of NDE's, comparatively speaking, completely blows the evidence for Darwinism out of the water! bornagain77

Me_Think you ask: "Do you really want me to derive law of conservation from noether theorem and gauge symmetry for you ?" So you want to use math to prove materialism true? Funny! Mathematics and Physics – A Happy Coincidence? – William Lane Craig – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF25AA4dgGg 1. If God did not exist the applicability of mathematics would be a happy coincidence. 2. The applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence. 3. Therefore, God exists. Moreover,,, "The term gauge refers to redundant degrees of freedom in the Lagrangian. The transformations between possible gauges, called gauge transformations, form a Lie group—" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_theory and yet: An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 27 As I stated @ 20 : The lone man's experience is not significant. The lone patient who recalled nurses could easily have been recalling memory from the time he was not ‘clinically dead’. Note that Clinically dead is still controversial term, so the 3 minutes is not significant. There are cases when..

.. a woman was erroneously declared dead after having a heart attack and wound up freezing to death in a body bag in the morgue. Another woman gave birth to a baby three months after she technically died. Then, there was a case of a skier who became submerged under freezing water for hours, but was revived and suffered no brain damage Doctors can also declare people dead if their heart stops beating and won’t start up again on its own. But hearts can sometimes be restarted after they stop beating, so the call is tricky. “The question is, how long does the heart have to stop beating before you can call someone dead?” Bernat said.Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can revive people many minutes after their heart stops beating, often with no lasting brain damage, so doctors should perform CPR for at least 38 minutes, a 2013 study presented at the American Heart Association meeting found. Doctors can issue a death certificate before that point, and often do if a patient has a do-not-resuscitate order. But sometimes, CPR is not performed for long enough. That raises the possibility that some revivable patients die when they didn’t have to

Me_Think

Me_Think you state: "The point is, the large scale AWARE study was specifically carried out to verify NDE with a specific methodology and it failed to prove NDE." Actually, the observational evidence we have for NDE's is far stronger than the observational we have for Darwinian evolution:

Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html we have far more observational evidence for the reality of souls than we do for the Darwinian claim that unguided material processes can generate sophisticated functional information (in fact the transcendent nature of information directly supports the transcendent nature of the soul): https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/darwinism/1-dawkins-wants-to-land-porn-on-muslim-world-2-dawkins-yawnfest-has-just-got-to-stop/#comment-545518

Moreover, the AWARE study was far more friendly to verifying the reality of NDE's than you, apparently, would prefer to believe: Parnia, who originally set a 'number test' up in a operating room to prove remote viewing, now concedes the evidence for remote viewing of the hospital room is 'very credible'?

Life after death? Largest-ever study provides evidence that 'out of body' and 'near-death' experiences may be real - October 7, 2014 Excerpt: Dr Sam Parnia, an assistant professor at the State University of New York and a former research fellow at the University of Southampton who led the research, said that he previously (held) that patients who described near-death experiences were only relating hallucinatory events. One man, however, gave a “very credible” account of what was going on while doctors and nurses tried to bring him back to life – and says that he felt he was observing his resuscitation from the corner of the room. Speaking to The Telegraph about the evidence provided by a 57-year-old social worker Southampton, Dr Parnia said: “We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating. “But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes. “The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for. “He seemed very credible and everything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largestever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-neardeath-experiences-may-actually-be-real-9780195.html

supplemental notes:

Consciousness After Death: Strange Tales From the Frontiers of Resuscitation Medicine By Brandon Keim - 04.24.13 Excerpt: Parnia:,, When I looked at the cardiac arrest literature, it became clear that it’s after the heart stops and blood flow into the brain ceases. There’s no blood flow into the brain, no activity, about 10 seconds after the heart stops. When doctors start to do CPR, they still can’t get enough blood into the brain. It remains flatlined. That’s the physiology of people who’ve died or are receiving CPR. Not just my study, but four others, all demonstrated the same thing: People have memories and recollections. Combined with anecdotal reports from all over the world, from people who see things accurately and remember them, it suggests this needs to be studied in more detail.,,, The point that goes against the experiences happening afterwards, or before the brain shut down, is that many people describe very specific details of what happened to them during cardiac arrest. They describe conversations people had, clothes people wore, events that went on 10 or 20 minutes into resuscitation. That is not compatible with (having no) brain activity. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/consciousness-after-death/all/ 'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real,' researcher says - Wed April 10, 2013 Excerpt: "If you use this questionnaire ... if the memory is real, it's richer, and if the memory is recent, it's richer," he said. The coma scientists weren't expecting what the tests revealed. "To our surprise, NDEs were much richer than any imagined event or any real event of these coma survivors," Laureys reported. The memories of these experiences beat all other memories, hands down, for their vivid sense of reality. "The difference was so vast," he said with a sense of astonishment. Even if the patient had the experience a long time ago, its memory was as rich "as though it was yesterday," Laureys said. http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences/

bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 25

you state that materialism presupposes that the laws should be the same everywhere in the universe. You were shown to be wrong

You are right. 'Materialism doesn't presuppose it, it derives from evidence of symmetry ! Do you really want me to derive law of conservation from noether theorem and gauge symmetry for you ?

Yet, there are very good empirical reasons to consider God as the rational explanation for fine-tuning. For instance

God can't be a scientific explanation because His mechanism can't be explained scientifically. God as an explanation is nothing but parceling a problem off into philosophical realm. When questioned who created God or what omniscience and omnipotent means in terms of field or energy or any new physics, ID has no explanation except saying God is Uncaused Cause. How can anyone take such an explanation seriously ? Me_Think

Me_Think, you state that materialism presupposes that the laws should be the same everywhere in the universe. You were shown to be wrong. The reason he, Susskind, does not personally believe in God as an explanation of fine-tuning is philosophical not empirical. Yet, there are very good empirical reasons to consider God as the rational explanation for fine-tuning. For instance:

Hugh Ross PhD. - Scientific Evidence For Cosmological Constant (1 in 10^120 Expansion Of The Universe) http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4347218/

(Commenting on the 1 in 10^120 fine tuning of the expansion of the universe),

"Hugh Ross states an analogy that does not even come close to describing the precarious nature of this cosmic balance [between too fast and too slow] would be a billion pencils all simultaneously positioned upright on their sharpened points on a smooth glass surface with no vertical supports." Eric Metaxas - Miracles - page 49

Here are the verses in the Bible Dr. Ross listed, which were written well over 2000 years before the discovery of the finely tuned expansion of the universe by 'Dark Energy', that speak of God 'Stretching out the Heavens'; Job 9:8; Isaiah 40:22; Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 48:13; Zechariah 12:1; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 45:12; Isaiah 51:13; Jeremiah 51:15; Jeremiah 10:12. The following verse is my favorite out of the group of verses:

Job 9:8 He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. The Truman Show – Truman walking on water – screenshot picture http://gaowsh.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/screen-shot-2011-03-29-at-5-09-50-pm-2.jpg ‘Amazing fine-tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word “miraculous” without taking a stand as to the ontological status of that word.’ - George Ellis – He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world’s leading theorists in cosmology.

Here is the paper from the atheistic astrophysicists, that Dr. Ross referenced in the preceding video, that speaks of the ‘disturbing implications’ of the finely tuned expanding universe (1 in 10^120 cosmological constant):

Disturbing Implications of a Cosmological Constant - Dyson, Kleban, Susskind (each are self proclaimed atheists) - 2002 Excerpt: "Arranging the universe as we think it is arranged would have required a miracle.,,," “The question then is whether the origin of the universe can be a naturally occurring fluctuation, or must it be due to an external agent which starts the system out in a specific low entropy state?” page 19: “A unknown agent [external to time and space] intervened [in cosmic history] for reasons of its own.,,,” Page 21 "The only reasonable conclusion is that we don't live in a universe with a true cosmological constant". http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0208013.pdf

Here are the 9 lines of evidence that Dr. Ross mentioned which came out shortly after the preceding paper was listed as a preprint on the Los Alamos’s website. Evidences which made Dyson, Kleban and Susskind pull their paper from consideration,,,

Accumulating Evidence for Dark Energy and Supernatural Design - 2011 Excerpt: I (Hugh Ross) often refer to nine different lines of observational evidence that establish dark energy’s reality and dominance in my talks. These nine are: 1.radial velocities of type Ia supernovae; 2.WMAP of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR); 3.ground-based measures of the CMBR; 4.Sloan Digital Sky Survey of galaxies and galaxy clusters; 5.Two-Degree Field Survey of galaxies; 6.gravitational lens measurements of distant galaxies and quasars; 7.distributions of radio galaxies; 8.galaxy velocity distributions; and 9.x-ray emissions from galaxy clusters.

In the last several years, astronomers have added seven additional lines of observational evidence confirming the reality of the finely tuned cosmological constant, bringing the total to sixteen. These seven are:

10.Lyman-alpha forest measurements; 11.polarization measures of the cosmic microwave background radiation; 12.stellar ages; 13.cosmic inhomogeneities; 14.gamma-ray bursts; 15.evolution of galaxy clustering; and 16.galaxy cluster angular size measurements. http://www.reasons.org/articles/rtb-s-dark-energy-articles

Besides the evidence that Dr. Ross listed for the 1 in 10^120 finely tuned expansion of the universe, this following paper clearly indicates that we do live in universe with a ‘true cosmological constant’. A cosmological constant that is not reducible to a materialistic basis. Thus, the atheistic astrophysicists are at a complete loss to explain why the universe expands in such a finely tuned way, whereas Theists are vindicated once again in their beliefs that the universal constants are truly transcendent of any possible materialistic explanation!

unchanging nature of cosmological constant rules out all materialistic theories for Dark Energy: Dark energy alternatives to Einstein are running out of room – January 9, 2013 Excerpt: Last month, a group of European astronomers, using a massive radio telescope in Germany, made the most accurate measurement of the proton-to-electron mass ratio ever accomplished and found that there has been no change in the ratio to one part in 10 million at a time when the universe was about half its current age, around 7 billion years ago. When Thompson put this new measurement into his calculations, he found that it excluded almost all of the dark energy models using the commonly expected values or parameters. If the parameter space or range of values is equated to a football field, then almost the whole field is out of bounds except for a single 2-inch by 2-inch patch at one corner of the field. In fact, most of the allowed values are not even on the field. “In effect, the dark energy theories have been playing on the wrong field,” Thompson said. “The 2-inch square does contain the area that corresponds to no change in the fundamental constants, (a 'true cosmological constant'), and that is exactly where Einstein stands.” http://phys.org/news/2013-01-dark-energy-alternatives-einstein-room.html

bornagain77

bornagain77 @ 22

AS to NDE’s the fact that Near Death Experience patients see stuff during their NDEs that they should not have been able to see has been verified over and over again..

The point is, the large scale AWARE study was specifically carried out to verify NDE with a specific methodology and it failed to prove NDE. There was no other study (AFAIK) that was specifically carried out to verify NDE using a scientific methodology (like Placards) . Note again : anecdotes are plenty - some by notorious brain surgeons- but the only scientific study carried out failed to show NDE. Me_Think

BA77 @ 21

At the 7:19 minute mark of the following video, which you apparently did not even bother to watch, Susskind talks directly of the laws being different in ‘unobservable’ parts of THIS universe

He has been asked for possible reasons for finetuning and he is giving various theories. He even speculated that one of the reason is God- does it mean he believes that finetuning is because of God ? Of course not - he is a proponent of String theory. You can't hold his casual speculations against him ! Me_Think

AS to NDE's the fact that Near Death Experience patients see stuff during their NDEs that they should not have been able to see has been verified over and over again: "A recent analysis of several hundred cases showed that 48% of near-death experiencers reported seeing their physical bodies from a different visual perspective. Many of them also reported witnessing events going on in the vicinity of their body, such as the attempts of medical personnel to resuscitate them (Kelly et al., 2007)." Kelly, E. W., Greyson, B., & Kelly, E. F. (2007). Unusual experiences near death and related phenomena. In E. F. Kelly, E. W. Kelly, A. Crabtree, A. Gauld, M. Grosso, & B. Greyson, Irreducible mind (pp. 367-421). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Michaela's Amazing NEAR death experience - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTcHWz6UMZ8 The extremely ‘monitored’ NDE of Pam Reynolds – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k The following is on par with Pam Reynolds Near Death Experience. In the following video, Dr. Lloyd Rudy, a pioneer of cardiac surgery, tells stories of two patients who came back to life after being declared dead, and what they told him about what they saw when they were 'dead'. Famous Cardiac Surgeon’s Stories of Near Death Experiences in Surgery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08 Another piece of evidence that argues very strongly against any type of materialistic explanation for Near death Experiences is what is termed 'Shared Death Experience'. A 'Shared Death Experience' is an experience in which a loved one, though not terminally ill, is caught up into part of the Near Death Experience as a loved one passes on: Dr. Raymond Moody on Shared Death Experiences - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-ihzzYjqeE bornagain77

Me_Think you state: "to say ‘materialism’ doesn’t consider laws are same (in this universe) is wrong. "Susskind is talking of Megaverses (and he explains he doesn’t like the term ‘multiverse’ so he is using the term ‘Megaverse’ [to essentially mean the same thing])where laws may be different.)" At the 7:19 minute mark of the following video, which you apparently did not even bother to watch, Susskind talks directly of the laws being different in 'unobservable' parts of THIS universe: Leonard Susskind – Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Mind? https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2cT4zZIHR3s#t=439 bornagain77

wallstreeter43 @ 18

Methinks , this is a question for religion and philosophy to handle, but more importantly the evidence is against materialism which makes it the odd man out

So why do you all keep bringing God into the mix , as if He is a scientific solution?

Oh and by the way what do you think of the aware study whete a patient was timed at having a veridical nde without a functioning brain . Opps sorry for bringing up such a sore subject for atheists like u

I answered this on the other thread: Did you notice that in the AWARE study, not a single patient - out of over 2000 -saw the placards which were placed in strategic locations to verify NDE? The lone patient who recalled nurses could easily have been recalling memory from the time he was not ‘clinically dead’. Note that Clinically dead is still controversial term, so the 3 minutes is not significant. There are cases when..

.. a woman was erroneously declared dead after having a heart attack and wound up freezing to death in a body bag in the morgue. Another woman gave birth to a baby three months after she technically died. Then, there was a case of a skier who became submerged under freezing water for hours, but was revived and suffered no brain damage Doctors can also declare people dead if their heart stops beating and won’t start up again on its own. But hearts can sometimes be restarted after they stop beating, so the call is tricky. “The question is, how long does the heart have to stop beating before you can call someone dead?” Bernat said.Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can revive people many minutes after their heart stops beating, often with no lasting brain damage, so doctors should perform CPR for at least 38 minutes, a 2013 study presented at the American Heart Association meeting found. Doctors can issue a death certificate before that point, and often do if a patient has a do-not-resuscitate order. But sometimes, CPR is not performed for long enough. That raises the possibility that some revivable patients die when they didn’t have to

Me_Think

bornagain77 @ 17

materialism does not presuppose that the laws of the universe should be the same everywhere in the universe. That is a Theistic presupposition. In fact, naturalism tries to find escape from the fine-tuning of the universe by postulating a multiverse with vastly different laws or that the laws may be vastly different in ‘unobservable’ parts of this universe, such as Susskind did in the following video

All laws of conservation are derived from rotational, translational and gauge symmetry (noether theorem/check QFT for gauge symmetry), so to say 'materialism' doesn't consider laws are same is wrong. Sussking is talking of Megaverses (and he explains he doesn't like the term 'multiverse' so he is using the term 'Megaverse' [to essentially mean the same thing])where laws may be different. If theism believes in multiverse but presupposes that the laws are same in multiverse, then they are most probably wrong, unless God fine tuned laws to be same in multiverse too. Me_Think

"Which one of the 100s of God create the universe? or was it a collaborative effort ?" Methinks , this is a question for religion and philosophy to handle, but more importantly the evidence is against materialism which makes it the odd man out , which makes the leg that atheism stands on collapse . Your question is your way of dodging the ridiculousness of atheism . Nice try at the dodge dude but that question only fools the rookies;) Oh and by the way what do you think of the aware study whete a patient was timed at having a veridical nde without a functioning brain . Opps sorry for bringing up such a sore subject for atheists like u :( My appologies, u can go back to your exciting dodgeball game ;) wallstreeter43

Me-Think, materialism does not presuppose that the laws of the universe should be the same everywhere in the universe. That is a Theistic presupposition. In fact, naturalism tries to find escape from the fine-tuning of the universe by postulating a multiverse with vastly different laws or that the laws may be vastly different in 'unobservable' parts of this universe, such as Susskind did in the following video: Leonard Susskind - Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life and Mind? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cT4zZIHR3s bornagain77

ppolish @ 15

Unitarian Universalist would go for collaboration.... Examine the evidence and decide.

What evidence is there of collaboration by Gods ? Me_Think

"Which one of the 100s of God create the universe?" Unitarian Universalist would go for collaboration, MeThink. But your sarcasm can't mask the deepness of your question. The deepest human question right there. Examine the evidence and decide. Important decision maybe? Pay attention to timing. ppolish

BA77 @ 13

“Our monotheistic traditions reinforce the assumption that the universe is at root a unity, that is not governed by different legislation in different places.”

Question was not about Rotational and Translational symmetry :-) - it was about which God created universe. Me_Think

“Our monotheistic traditions reinforce the assumption that the universe is at root a unity, that is not governed by different legislation in different places.” John D. Barrow bornagain77

Which one of the 100s of God create the universe? or was it a collaborative effort ? Me_Think

ppolish @10, I agree. Using the double negative "nothing can’t cause itself into existence" is appropriate and correct in this context. Mapou

Mapou, nothing can cause itself into existence? I'd say nothing can't cause itself into existence. Nothing can't do anything, let alone something. But I think we mean the same thing:) ppolish

There is no doubt in my mind that the physical universe was created out of nothing. This is the only ontology of substance that does not lead to an infinite regress in answer to the question, what is physical substance A made of? Matter is made of nothing in the sense that the sum total of all energies and properties in the universe, both positive and negative, adds up to zero. It's a Yin-yang universe. This explains the symmetry we see in nature and the non-local conservation laws. But nothing can cause itself into existence. For that, you need something else, something that can be neither created nor destroyed. It must be something non-physical or rather, anti-physical, in the sense of being the opposite of physical. Mapou

Axel "Stephen, I read recently that a strawberry had ‘emerged’ from a piece of cheese – although it was never part of the ingredients." Axel, the fun begins when you ask the neo-Darwinist if it could really happen. If they say no, they have tacitly agreed with us that something cannot come from nothing and that their materialistic emergence is nonsensical. If they say yes, onlookers will know how irrational they really are. So, they say something crazy, such as "We have no empirical evidence that any such thing has ever occurred"--as if the matter could be settled by interpreting evidence or evaluating data. They are afraid to say that anything is, in principle, impossible. It's a riot. StephenB

The Stoics must have been familiar with the Biblical Prophet's vision of a singular creation and an expanding universe. Today the Science supports the Biblical Prophet's vision, but there are still guys/gals in the "Something from "Nothing"" camp:) ppolish

'By contrast, neo-Darwinists knowingly reject the principle of causality and place their faith in the power of “emergence.”' Stephen, I read recently that a strawberry had 'emerged' from a piece of cheese - although it was never part of the ingredients. You may scoff, but at least it's zummit material 'emerging' from zummit material... and not mind from matter. Axel

That's atheist logic for ya. Let the magic show commence ;) wallstreeter43

As usual, Cornelius Hunter is right. I would, however, amend his theme in two ways: First, this is not really a scientific issue, it is a philosophical issue. You don't consult the evidence to find out that something cannot come from nothing. It is the one fact that make science possible. Evidence does not inform reason's rules; reason's rules inform evidence. Second, Dr. Hunter is, in a way, understating the case. At least the ancients had an excuse. Plato and Aristotle had not yet arrived on the scene to explain the laws of thought and causation. By contrast, neo-Darwinists knowingly reject the principle of causality and place their faith in the power of "emergence." StephenB

And if the universe were brought into being and exists for no reason whatsoever, as these atheists hold, exactly how is it possible for them to use their reasoning to conclude that there is no reason for their existence? You cannot both affirm and deny the existence of reason, i.e. the law of non-contradiction!

“One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the popular scientific philosophy]. The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears… unless Reason is an absolute, all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based.” —C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry (aka the Argument from Reason) C.S. Lewis, Reason, and Naturalism: An Interview with Dr. Jay Richards - audio http://www.idthefuture.com/2012/12/cs_lewis_reason_and_naturalism.html Physicalism and Reason - May 2013 Summary: So we find ourselves affirming two contradictory propositions: 1. Everything is governed by cause-and-effect. 2. Our brains can process and be changed by ground-consequent logical relationships. To achieve consistency, we must either deny that everything is governed by cause-and-effect, and open our worldviews to something beyond physicalism, or we must deny that our brains are influenced by ground-consequence reasoning, and abandon the idea that we are rational creatures. Ask yourself: are humans like falling dominoes, entirely subject to natural law, or may we stand up and walk in the direction that reason shows us? http://www.reasonsforgod.org/2012/09/physicalism-and-reason/ "Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning." CS Lewis – Mere Christianity "Supposing there was no intelligence behind the universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God." - C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity, p. 32

And as the old joke goes about the group of scientists telling God they don't need him anymore,,,

God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, "Lord, we don't need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did in the beginning." "Oh, is that so? Tell me..." replies God. "Well," says the scientist, "we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man." "Well, that's interesting. Show me." So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil. "Oh no, no, no..." interrupts God, "Get your own dirt."

As that old joke goes, I'm pretty sure the punch line to these atheists who are using their mathematical reasoning to prove they don't need God anymore would be "Get your own mathematics."

The mathematical world - James Franklin - 7 April 2014 Excerpt: the intellect (is) immaterial and immortal. If today’s naturalists do not wish to agree with that, there is a challenge for them. ‘Don’t tell me, show me’: build an artificial intelligence system that imitates genuine mathematical insight. There seem to be no promising plans on the drawing board.,,, James Franklin is professor of mathematics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. http://aeon.co/magazine/world-views/what-is-left-for-mathematics-to-be-about/ Alan Turing and Kurt Godel - Incompleteness Theorem and Human Intuition - video https://vimeo.com/92387854 "Either mathematics is too big for the human mind or the human mind is more than a machine." - Kurt Gödel An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: ,,certainly it is hard to believe that our reasoning power was brought, by Darwin's process of natural selection, to the perfection which it seems to possess.,,, It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them.,,, The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html Mathematics and Physics – A Happy Coincidence? – William Lane Craig – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF25AA4dgGg 1. If God did not exist the applicability of mathematics would be a happy coincidence. 2. The applicability of mathematics is not a happy coincidence. 3. Therefore, God exists.

bornagain77

F/N: Relabelling a proposed primordial something as nothing again:

An interesting idea is that the universe could be spontaneously created from nothing, but no rigorous proof has been given. In this paper, we present such a proof based on the analytic solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (WDWE). Explicit solutions of the WDWE for the special operator ordering factor p=-2 (or 4) show that, once a small true vacuum bubble is created by quantum fluctuations of the metastable false vacuum, it can expand exponentially no matter whether the bubble is closed, flat or open. The exponential expansion will end when the bubble becomes large and thus the early universe appears. With the de Broglie-Bohm quantum trajectory theory, we show explicitly that it is the quantum potential that plays the role of the cosmological constant and provides the power for the exponential expansion of the true vacuum bubble. So it is clear that the birth of the early universe completely depends on the quantum nature of the theory.

The issue is, that nothing -- non-being -- can have no causal powers, material, efficient, purposeful, whatever. So, if ever there were an utter nothing, nothing would forever obtain. This means, as there is something now, that something always was, independent of other things . . . a necessary being. The real issue is to identify and warrant which is best candidate. KF kairosfocus

Just one problem, to be your own cause you would have to exist before you existed........ oops....... Andre