Stephen Hawking says intelligent design of the universe is highly probable? Updated, yes a hoax

(It did not escape my notice that you failed to answer the bonobo question.) Then why did you say that I said something that I did not say? Do you just hastily write down whatever you think contradicts me without honestly thinking about the issue being discussed? It certainly seems that way to me! You are not scoring points with me in your continued dishonesty throughout this thread towards the subject of NDEs and souls. You state that you do not care for BIOLA emeritus Professor of Theology JP Moreland's opinion on the 'soul' subject, you want mine, but his opinion matters greatly since you are in fact asking a Theological question not a specific 'scientific' question at this point. Why do you discount his opinion since you are in fact asking a Theological question? His opinion is:

"I think very primitive animals clearly have faculties of sensation but probably not faculties of thought. Higher animals like a dog would have a faculty of thought in addition to faculties of sensation.,,, I think the human soul will never cease to exist but only because I think God sustains it.,,, but a soul can exist without a (material) body.,,, (A one celled bacteria) is not conscious. But you can explain the interaction of its parts mechanistically. (So) You have to have a whole that is prior to the parts if you have evidence that the parts function and aren't what they are in light of that (prior) whole. (i.e. The very simplest of life have a soul but do not have consciousness)." JP Moreland - BIOLA emeritus Professor of Theology - Is The Soul Immortal - 1:57 minute mark - video http://www.closertotruth.com/series/the-soul-immortal#video-2758

I agree with his opinion. Thus as to this question:

Do 1 amoebae 2 spiders 3 dogs 4 bonobos have souls?

The answer is Yes. Now, the 'scientific' confirmation of the Theistic contention that creatures have prior 'souls' which are not reducible to a material 'parts' basis, is the finding of non-local, beyond space and time, quantum information which is itself not reducible to a material basis, and which is keeping the organism functioning as a 'whole' for its entire life (and not a moment longer). i.e. 'What holds off that moment of disintegration into parts for exactly a lifetime?' It is the transcendent functional information, i.e. the soul, that keep the parts cohered as a whole for a lifetime:

“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 Rabbit decomposition time-lapse (higher resolution) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6sFP_7Vezg The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings – Stephen L. Talbott Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings

Music:

Oingo Boingo – Weird Science – music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm-upHSP9KU

bornagain77

oh dear, just when I thought we might be getting somewhere. So back to my questions at 160: Do 1 amoebae 2 spiders 3 dogs 4 bonobos have souls? (It did not escape my notice that you failed to answer the bonobo question.) AND How can you tell? Scientifically. I am interested in your opinion, not Dr. Moreland's. DNA_Jock

DNA_Jock, I did not say that bonobos do not have souls. I said that,,, "I hold that humans are a bit different than the other creatures of God because of the image of God that is inherent within humans." Bonobo, nor the word soul, is not even mentioned in that statement. Did you misstate my position on purpose or not? It certainly seems to me you are operating in severe bad faith. If on the off chance you really did misread what I wrote that badly, and really are curious instead being purposely obstinate, Dr. Moreland gets a little more explicit on the 'soul issue', and how it relates to humans, animals, and even single cell creatures, in this following short video: JP Moreland - Is The Soul Immortal - video http://www.closertotruth.com/series/the-soul-immortal#video-2758 As to your claim that non-local, beyond space and time, quantum information does not present a problem for a Theist, well that point is obvious. But it does present a major problem for the Deist who holds that God created the universe and then let the universe run its own course without intervening any further. Exactly how you think Deism can be reconciled with God infusing information into the universe after the universe was created I have no idea. Unless you redefine Deism to such a point where Deism is no longer Deism anymore but is in fact classical Theism. So are you a Theist in Deist clothing? bornagain77

Okay ba77, we are getting somewhere, I think. Since bonobo's lack souls (per ba77) then clearly a soul is not required to "hold everything together" until death. So the requirement is reduced to "non-material transcendent information". Even if one agrees, arguendo, that NMTI is required, this doesn't present an issue for any theist or deist position. Why are you arguing with me? DNA_Jock

DNA_Jock, since you yourself have not gone one inch towards 'scientifically' giving me a coherent materialistic explanation for non-local quantum entanglement in life, why do you think you are responding scientifically, and not philosophically/theologically, to me right now? As to where I 'draw the line' on souls theologically speaking, I hold that humans are a bit different than the other creatures of God because of the image of God that is inherent within humans. Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. As to your claim that there is an 'easy answer' for the 'soul issue' in Theology, you seem to be as naive about theology as you are about science. The 'soul issue', as to which creatures have 'eternal souls' and which do not, has a long and complex history in theology, with many differing viewpoints. Dr. Moreland, in the first part of the following video, gives a very brief history of the 'soul debate' in Theology: Is the Soul Immortal? (J.P. Moreland) – video http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/143334/Evidence_for_the_Existence_of_the_Soul__JP_Moreland_PhD/ bornagain77

Ba77, I am puzzled. Your answer to your question

What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?

is

Our transcendent souls hold off that moment for precisely a lifetime!

And you agree that the same thing applies to amoebae, noting

actually, since quantum entanglement exists in all life, then God created the amoeba too

Now, there is some ambiguity here, thanks to your goalpost shifting, viz:

…you have to falsify quantum non-locality in order to falsify the fact that non-material ‘transcendent’ information is ‘holding us together’!

So is it merely the case that non-material ‘transcendent’ information is holding me, you and all the amoebae together (which as a deist I can accommodate quite comfortably, if I wished), or is a transcendent soul required? You appear to be claiming that amoebae have transcendent souls. But I may have misunderstood you, and you do not think that amoebae have souls. If so, what about spiders and dogs? Where do you draw the line, and (most importantly) how can you tell? You claim to be discussing science, not theology (where the answer is easy), so please answer as ‘scientifically’ as you can, in your own words. DNA_Jock

keith s, regardless of what you believe, the answer, (the higher dimensional nature of special relativity and souls), is coherent as to why there is disconnect in our perception between the material realm and the 'invisible' higher dimensional realm of heaven. Again, you don't like it and I can't help you there. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/stephen-hawking-says-intelligent-design-of-the-universe-is-highly-probable/#comment-553712 Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Moreover, why are you not more worried about the scientific falsification of materialism, your base worldview within neo-Darwinism, by quantum mechanics than you are of the Theistic implications of these higher dimensions above this temporal realm and how our souls and material bodies relate to them? It seems to me that if you were truly being scientific, instead of merely dogmatic in your atheism, you would be much more concerned with that falsification since it undercuts the materialistic basis of neo-Darwinism entirely.

Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM&feature=c4-overview&list=UU5qDet6sa6rODi7t6wfpg8g Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory - 29 October 2012 Excerpt: "Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them," http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php The visible comes into existence from the invisible: Quantum Physics and Relativity 2: – Antoine Suarez PhD – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxuOE2Bo_i0&list=UUVmgTa2vbopdjpMNAQBqXHw What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? - By Antoine Suarez - July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time.,,, https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-does-quantum-physics-have-do-free-will

And you saying 'microtubules' are evidence against a soul is too funny, since atheists have been fighting tooth and nail against Hameroff for years, smearing his name and such, precisely because microtubles DO support the existence of the soul. Perhaps you should write these following atheists and tell them that there is nothing to worry about with microtubules?

Being the skunk at an atheist convention – Hameroff – 2006 Excerpt: In November 2006 I was invited to a meeting at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California called “Beyond Belief”. Other speakers and attendees were predominantly atheists, and harshly critical of the notion of spirituality. They included Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Patricia Churchland, Steven Weinberg (the least venal), Neil deGrasse Tyson and others who collectively vilified creationists and religious warriors. But the speakers also ragged on the notion of any purpose or meaning to existence, heaped ridicule on the very possibility of a God-like entity (and those who believed in such an entity), declared that scientists and philosophers should set society’s moral and ethical standards, and called for a billion dollar public relations campaign to convince the public God does not exist. Near the end of the first day came my turn to speak. I began by saying that the conference to that point had been like the Spanish Inquisition in reverse - the scientists were burning the believers. And while I had no particular interest in organized religion, I did believe there could be a scientific account for spirituality. After pointing out faulty assumptions in conventional brain models for consciousness and summarizing the Penrose-Hameroff theory, I laid out my plausibility argument for scientific, secular spirituality, suggesting cosmic connections and influence in our conscious thoughts occurred via quantum interactions in microtubules. I closed with a slide of the DNA molecule which emphasized it’s internal core where quantum effects rule, suggesting a Penrose non-computable influence in genetic mutations and evolution (aimed at Dawkins in the form of a quantum-based intelligent design). At the end a few people clapped loudly, but most sat in steely silence.,,, http://quantum.webhost.uits.arizona.edu/prod/content/being-skunk-atheist-convention Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – Stuart Hameroff – video https://vimeo.com/39982578

bornagain77

Also, you quote the stuff about microtubules without realizing that it would undercut your case if correct. Think about it. If consciousness comes and goes depending on whether the microtubules are working properly, that is evidence against disembodied consciousness. You haven't thought this through, BA. keith s

BA77:

keith s, you not accepting the answer I gave is not me not answering your question.

You answered a different question because you couldn't answer mine.

Sorry, I can’t help you there.

Sure you can. Answer my actual question, or be honest and admit that you can't. Here it is again:

If our souls can see and hear without eyes and ears during an NDE, then why do we need eyes and ears when we’re embodied?

keith s

keith s, you not accepting the answer I gave is not me not answering your question. It is you not accepting the answer because you don't like it! Sorry, I can't help you there. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/stephen-hawking-says-intelligent-design-of-the-universe-is-highly-probable/#comment-553712 Stuart Hameroff, who is an anesthesia Doctor, sees general anesthesia as no problem for the transcendent nature of consciousness (and moreover his ORCH OR model for consciousness now has some empirical support, which is much more than I can say for any materialistic theory of consciousness): The Day I Died : Near-Death Experience Science Documentary (2003) Part 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MH7R55EDTU&index=5&list=PLD4320245B2C514D9 Hameroff's infamous Orch-Or model for quantum consciousness has confirmation: Evidence for Quantum Consciousness - video Excerpt: Fascinating new study. The chemical anesthetic 1-azidoanthracine was administered to tadpoles and found to work by disrupting microtubules in the nervous system. A second chemical which repaired the microtubules was found to restore consciousness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wxtzpp4Gts On consciousness, Tegmark gets one thing right, says Rob Sheldon - January 19, 2014 Excerpt: Orch OR was harshly criticized from its inception, as the brain was considered too “warm, wet, and noisy” for seemingly delicate quantum processes.. However, evidence has now shown warm quantum coherence in plant photosynthesis, bird brain navigation, our sense of smell, and brain microtubules. The recent discovery of warm temperature quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons by the research group led by Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, at the National Institute of Material Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan (and now at MIT), corroborates the pair’s theory and suggests that EEG rhythms also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations. In addition, work from the laboratory of Roderick G. Eckenhoff, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that anesthesia, which selectively erases consciousness while sparing non-conscious brain activities, acts via microtubules in brain neurons.,,, https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/on-consciousness-tegmark-gets-one-thing-right-says-rob-sheldon/ of related note: ,,, zero time lag neuronal synchrony despite long conduction delays - 2008 Excerpt: Multielectrode recordings have revealed zero time lag synchronization among remote cerebral cortical areas. However, the axonal conduction delays among such distant regions can amount to several tens of milliseconds. It is still unclear which mechanism is giving rise to isochronous discharge of widely distributed neurons, despite such latencies,,, Remarkably, synchrony of neuronal activity is not limited to short-range interactions within a cortical patch. Interareal synchronization across cortical regions including interhemispheric areas has been observed in several tasks (7, 9, 11–14).,,, Beyond its functional relevance, the zero time lag synchrony among such distant neuronal ensembles must be established by mechanisms that are able to compensate for the delays involved in the neuronal communication. Latencies in conducting nerve impulses down axonal processes can amount to delays of several tens of milliseconds between the generation of a spike in a presynaptic cell and the elicitation of a postsynaptic potential (16). The question is how, despite such temporal delays, the reciprocal interactions between two brain regions can lead to the associated neural populations to fire in unison (i.e. zero time lag).,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2575223/ The following paper appeals to a ‘non-local’, (i.e. beyond space and time), cause to try to explain the zero lag synchronization in remote neural circuits,,, Nonlocal mechanism for cluster synchronization in neural circuits – 2011 Excerpt: The findings,,, call for reexamining sources of correlated activity in cortex,,, http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.3634 bornagain77

BA77, You and wallstreeter43 couldn't answer my simple question:

If our souls can see and hear without eyes and ears during an NDE, then why do we need eyes and ears when we’re embodied?

So here's another simple question: If consciousness is independent of the brain, why does general anesthesia render us unconscious? keith s

DNA_Jock, to answer the question 'scientifically' you must address the fact that non-local, (beyond space and time), and 'conserved', (i.e. cannot be created or destroyed), quantum information/entanglement is found in the material body. In other words, you have to falsify quantum non-locality in order to falsify the fact that non-material 'transcendent' information is 'holding us together'! Which is certainly no small feat. Hence my quip, 'Your Nobel awaits!' You simply have no rational answer that you can give as a deist/atheist/materialist, who does not believe you have a eternal soul, as to where the non-local quantum information comes from. Nor can you answer where it goes from our material body upon death. As a theist, who does believe in an eternal soul, I have an answer for both where it comes from and where it goes: Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. Hebrews 9:27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, as to your quip about the amoeba,,, actually, since quantum entanglement exists in all life, then God created the amoeba too. I like JP Moreland's definition of a 'life/soul' in the following video: Is the Soul Immortal? (J.P. Moreland) - video http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/143334/Evidence_for_the_Existence_of_the_Soul__JP_Moreland_PhD/ James 2:26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead,,,, Disagree that God created the amoeba too? Then, along with falsifying quantum non-locality, you can add falsifying ID to your list by generating functional information by unguided material processes! The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness - David L. Abel Excerpt: "If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise." If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: "No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone." https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_ Of supplemental note: “Now the world appears to be divided into two realms, described by two different sets of physical laws. The quantum (world),, which is immaterial, coexisting possibilities, non-local, unified, connected, has some ultimate truth although we don’t know what it is yet, deeper levels of reality, and in many senses ‘spirit-like’. The classical world, the (illusory) billiard ball universe that we (appear to) live in right now, but not so, is material, Newtonian, definite, macroscopic, local, predictable, disconnected, post-modern, and somewhat boring actually. Now, what is life? If you approach life from classical physics, you see that biology is a set of self-organizing functions. There is no secret to life. Brain activities are equivalent to computers, consciousness is a epi-phenomenal illusion with no causal power. That’s the party line in standard neuroscience and philosophy. Accordingly, Thomas Huxley said years ago, ‘We are merely conscious automaton,’ helpless spectators., That’s the story we get from classical physics approach to the brain. Now,, applying quantum physics to biology, first by Erwin Schrodinger,,, quantum features (of biology include), non-local entanglement, super-position, unity, quantum coherence, quantum information. A kind of quantum vitalism, may play key roles in biological function.,,,” Stuart Hameroff – Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – video https://vimeo.com/29895068 bornagain77

Ba77, One could ask the same question, i.e. "What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?", about an amoeba. By and large, I would answer "adequate oxygen supply". I don`t see how a transcendental soul helps explain how part of your body can die, but leave the rest of you alive. Does the soul of your hand leave your body when the hand is amputated? The anoxia can be local, or more general. Brain hypoxia can produce some quite impressive conscious experiences, apparently... DNA_Jock

Moreover, this quantum information that is found in every DNA and protein molecule is found to be ‘physically conserved’ (not just mathematically conserved),,,

Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html Quantum no-deleting theorem Excerpt: A stronger version of the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem provide permanence to quantum information. To create a copy one must import the information from some part of the universe and to delete a state one needs to export it to another part of the universe where it will continue to exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_no-deleting_theorem#Consequence

Besides providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims as to the generation of functional information from a material basis, the implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious:

Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff – video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068 Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – Stuart Hameroff – video https://vimeo.com/39982578

Thus DNA_Jock, there is actually direct empirical support for the Theist's contention that we have a eternal soul that 'holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer'. Whereas you, as a deist/atheist, have nothing but dishonest rhetoric that we do not have a soul. If you disagree, then please provide empirical evidence that material particles can explain non-local, and 'conserved', quantum information/entanglement in our material bodies. You Nobel awaits! Quote, Verse and Music:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Shakespeare Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Mystery Of Grace-4HIM – music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcNbzvFylmc

bornagain77

DNA, Of related interest to man having a transcendent component to his being that is not reducible to material. Wigner stated:

"It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays "Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays";

and he also stated:

"It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality" - Eugene Wigner - (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 - received Nobel Prize in 1963 for 'Quantum Symmetries'

Of supplemental note to the preceding Wigner 'consciousness' quotes, it is interesting to note that many of Wigner's insights have now been experimentally verified and are also now fostering a 'second' revolution in quantum mechanics,,,

Eugene Wigner – A Gedanken Pioneer of the Second Quantum Revolution - Anton Zeilinger - Sept. 2014 Conclusion It would be fascinating to know Eugene Wigner’s reaction to the fact that the gedanken experiments he discussed (in 1963 and 1970) have not only become reality, but building on his gedanken experiments, new ideas have developed which on the one hand probe the foundations of quantum mechanics even deeper, and which on the other hand also provide the foundations to the new field of quantum information technology. All these experiments pay homage to the great insight Wigner expressed in developing these gedanken experiments and in his analyses of the foundations of quantum mechanics, http://epjwoc.epj.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2014/15/epjconf_wigner2014_01010.pdf

Thus, since Wigner’s insights into the foundational role of the ‘conscious observer’ in Quantum Mechanics are bearing fruit with a ‘Second Quantum Revolution’, then that is certainly very strong evidence that his ‘consciousness’ insights are indeed true. DNA_Jock, In further note to man having a transcendent component to his being that is not reducible to a material basis, I have a question for you. When material bodies die here on earth they rapidly start to decay. I can even demonstrate it in real time for you:

Rabbit decomposition time-lapse (higher resolution) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6sFP_7Vezg

My question for you DNA is,,,

“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 The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings – Stephen L. Talbott Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings

Now, as a Theist who believes that we have eternal souls that live past the deaths of our material bodies, I have a ready answer as to 'what holds off that moment for precisely a life time?'. i.e. Our transcendent souls hold off that moment for precisely a lifetime! But DNA, as a deist/atheist, who does not believe you have an eternal soul, you have no coherent answer to that question. Moreover, I can provide empirical evidence for my belief that we have a transcendent component to our being that is 'holding us together' for precisely a lifetime. As Talbott mentioned in his article, the information that was keeping us alive all our lives suddenly goes 'missing' upon the death of our material bodies. Where did it go? In clarifying this point of the relatedness of 'missing' information and the soul, it is helpful to learn about the nature of information. In regards to the ‘transcendent’ nature of information. Dr. Stephen Meyer states:

“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Intelligent design: Why can’t biological information originate through a materialistic process? – Stephen Meyer – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8

Materialists/atheists would believe, since they hold information to be merely emergent from a material basis, that the information in the organism simply, suddenly, ceased to exist and disappeared into then air upon the death of an organism. But our science tells us otherwise. In learning what actually happens to the information of an organism, information that was keeping the organism alive, upon death of an organism, it is helpful to learn a little bit about the hierarchy of information in the body. There are two types of information in an organism. First, there is the ‘normal’ classical/digital information, which Darwinists and ID proponents constantly debate over, that we find encoded in DNA, RNA and Proteins:

Every Bit Digital: DNA’s Programming Really Bugs Some ID Critics – Casey Luskin – 2010 Excerpt: “There’s a very recognizable digital code of the kind that electrical engineers rediscovered in the 1950s that maps the codes for sequences of DNA onto expressions of proteins.” http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo12/12luskin2.php

And then there is also the much well less known 'non-local', beyond space and time, quantum information within life. In other words, besides the ‘normal’ classical/digital information that is found in life, there is now also found to be non-local ‘quantum’ information in life that is not reducible to a material basis. Moreover, this quantum information is found in every DNA and Protein molecule:

Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA – short video https://vimeo.com/92405752 Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature – Elisabetta Collini and Gregory Scholes – University of Toronto – Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73 Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state. http://www.scimednet.org/quantum-coherence-living-cells-and-protein/ Physicists Discover Quantum Law of Protein Folding – February 22, 2011 Quantum mechanics finally explains why protein folding depends on temperature in such a strange way. Excerpt: First, a little background on protein folding. Proteins are long chains of amino acids that become biologically active only when they fold into specific, highly complex shapes. The puzzle is how proteins do this so quickly when they have so many possible configurations to choose from. To put this in perspective, a relatively small protein of only 100 amino acids can take some 10^100 different configurations. If it tried these shapes at the rate of 100 billion a second, it would take longer than the age of the universe to find the correct one. Just how these molecules do the job in nanoseconds, nobody knows.,,, Their astonishing result is that this quantum transition model fits the folding curves of 15 different proteins and even explains the difference in folding and unfolding rates of the same proteins. That’s a significant breakthrough. Luo and Lo’s equations amount to the first universal laws of protein folding. That’s the equivalent in biology to something like the thermodynamic laws in physics. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/423087/physicists-discover-quantum-law-of-protein/ etc.. etc..

bornagain77

wallstreeter, You have repeatedly chastised others for their ignorance of the AWARE study, but when I quote the most important data from that study verbatim, your excuse for not recognizing the quote is that you read the study three months ago? Really?"" Really DNA, but if course an ultra hardcore atheist like u would t believe me . I was actually on one of the. It's active forums that dealt with the aware study , skeptiko . But of course if u do t believe doctor parnia , why would u believe me lol The easiest way for atheist to respond when u have them cornered is to just say they don't believe what anyone in the study said. Notice that DNA trusted everything else the 57 year old said that was confirmed by oarnia and the other witnesses but when there was an evidence that was confirmed that slam dunked DNA jock , he wiggled out by saying that he simply didn't believe parnia and the patient . This is simply amazing . The fact that was confirmed by parnia ""he heard 2 specific bleeps, not beeps . Parnia confirmed this as accurately describing the device " and how does fan in his honest supposedly deistic fashion answer? I don't believe him ""lol All I have to say here is SLAM DUNK , POINT PROVEN and THE ATHEIST HAS BEEN FLUSHED OUT;) wallstreeter43

Sorry it's my ipad spell checker . ""Regarding the 2 beeps: I am certain that the patient remembers hearing two beeps. I do not concede that he actually heard two beeps. There’s a difference."" Actually it's a bleep and he saw the device , this was confirmed by parnia . You can keep saying you don't believe him but we both know that if parnia confirmed the opposite you would have paraded the results around as disproving Nde's . Lets get this straight . You don't believe parnia and u don't believe the patient. And with the wave of his magic wand the atheist just waves away everything by saying he doesn't believe anyone . So by your admission we can't believe 99% of science since we haven't confirmed it ourselves lol. There is no sense in arguing with someone like this. You are correct in stating that u are not an atheist . You are in fact an ultra hardcore militant atheist . Now the agnostics and seeker can see the way a militant atheist reasons and how unreasonable he is with anything that goes against hs position , Thank God my deist uncle isn't into going online or he would have rolling his eyes every time u claimed that ur a deist lol. You ain't no deist my friend . Dawkins would have been proud . wallstreeter43

No idea what "major co penny’s of the nde example " means. Please type more slowly, you are getting somewhat incoherent. Regarding the 2 beeps: I am certain that the patient remembers hearing two beeps. I do not concede that he actually heard two beeps. There's a difference. DNA_Jock

wallstreeter, You have repeatedly chastised others for their ignorance of the AWARE study, but when I quote the most important data from that study verbatim, your excuse for not recognizing the quote is that you read the study three months ago? Really? DNA_Jock

""Wallstreeter, I see that you have joined bornagain in calling me a liar. Your cognitive biases are showing: “anyone who does not agree with me must, absolutely must carry some ideological blinkers that are preventing them from seeing the TRVTH.” Motes and beams, kids."" Sorry dna I call it like it is . U can claim whatever u like but when u ignore major co penny's of the nde example and focus only on the ones that fit ur atheistic worldview that sends up huge read flags . I'm a Trekkie and if captain Picard were here red alerts would be flashing throughout this ship. DNA the 2 bleeps heard clearly were heard and confirmed and this is why parnia said that the patient coupon have only heard these bleeps after his heart stopped beating . I think I'll take parnia word over yours, as he is the he who did the study . He's the main guy . 2 bleeps is 3 minutes , and u can sptwist , dodge , lie and conflab all you want but u can't run away from this fact of the study , no matter how much your atheistic brain tries . When I OT deception I'm like a bulldog . It must be the OCD part of me . Do you concede that this man heard 2 bleeps or not ! Now if your satisfied with being a dogmatic religiously blind faith end atheist that's ok , America is the land of free will and free choice :) wallstreeter43

Well, I haven’t read a lot of the nde literature, but it appears that you have read even less! You have been going on and on interminably about how seminal the AWARE study is, but when I point you to my post 42 you respond:"" Actually I did read it but I was just making sure as when inreac it , it was months back . But again instead of responding to my claims about the patient clearly hearing 2 bleeps and this was even confirmed by doctor parnia , you dodged it completely . Why ? Dude may eu need to start laughing at urself because even parnia confirmed that he did hear the device bleep twice . wallstreeter43

Wallstreeter, I see that you have joined bornagain in calling me a liar. Your cognitive biases are showing: "anyone who does not agree with me must, absolutely must carry some ideological blinkers that are preventing them from seeing the TRVTH." Motes and beams, kids. DNA_Jock

""You`ve written this a couple of times now. Each time I read it, I laugh. Does this 57-y-o man see with his d#ck?"" Apparently his d ck can critically think better then an atheist like u , and with more intellectual tual honesty than an atheist like u ;) Sorry to expose ur atbeism my friend but it's better to come out if the closet now then later ;) wallstreeter43

BA said ""walk like a duck, talk like a duck, probably is a duck? Ehh wallstreeter! That’s my test. DNA, Perhaps you should put a small disclaimer on the bottom of your posts, “NO! , I AM NOT AN ATHEIST!”, so people will not continually confuse you with being an atheist? "" I have never seen anyone be as delusional as DNA jockey . At least Piotr have an excuse fir their dodging the evidences. They admit they are atheists . DNA is clearly ashamed of being called what he really is : a full fledge 100% practicing atheist . It's amazing how he called himself a deist and twisted every evidence away to make it look like a pro atheist fact. I know quite a few deists . In fact I have 2 other friends who are deists and their heads would have exploded if they had seen the way DNA jock had twisted the aware study example the way he just did . DNA why don't u come on over to the skeptiko forum . Those guys would have a field day with a pseudo skeptic atheist like u. U just have studied under professor patricia churchland cause ur wrists were worthy of how she twisted doctor Lommel into looking like he was. Skeptic of Nde's when he is one if the. Ingest pro nde guys out there. Granted he was a materialist atheist before his study , but at least he had the intellectual honesty to follow the evidence to where it lead him. You apparently are a different brand of atheist ;) wallstreeter43

There is lots of evidence e that u didn’t push I to like the fact that the man described the nurse even though he had a sheet draped over his groin area.

You`ve written this a couple of times now. Each time I read it, I laugh. Does this 57-y-o man see with his d#ck? DNA_Jock

wallstreeter, you crack me up! You chastise me thus:

It’s obvious to me that u didn’t look deep into the literature to see these examples which tells me that you have. Clear atheistic type bias .

Well, I haven't read a lot of the nde literature, but it appears that you have read even less! You have been going on and on interminably about how seminal the AWARE study is, but when I point you to my post 42 you respond:

just as I thought u cherry picked the evidence that favored the atheistic position. Here is an example . And also where is the link frim your category 5 recollection from the aware study and was it from the 57 year old social worker?

which is really awkward for you, since my blockquote in post 42 is taken verbatim from the AWARE preprint It is Table 2 of Parnia et al. Resuscitation. 2014 Dec;85(12):1799-805 Category 5 recollector #1 was 57 years old. The simplest explanation is that you have not actually read the AWARE study. IDists do score the most delightful own-goals. DNA_Jock

Also be aware (heh) that the subjective timelines that people experience can be highly distorted as compared with time measured with a clock. So your assertion that a veridical nde occurred at a time when there was no brain function is not supported."" And again here as this man had his nde after his heart failed and he heard the device bleep twice . Now your wiggling out if this by saying its subjective.. He heard 2 bleeps , and this can't be distorted . Read my lips , 2 bleeps =3 minutes . There can be no arguing this fact. This is why the smarter atheists are trying to say that they should have interviewed him on the spot lol. Man U are clearly reaching here to try to distort the story to fit your atheistic worldview . Why indeed would u call out a fellow atheist ;) Imagine the scenario that it was found out that this man clearly had his nde during the time op of brain activity . We both know that it would have been a clear and cut case. DNA jock so why are u going to admit to us that ur really an atheist and not a deist ;) Come on man , let it out wallstreeter43

walk like a duck, talk like a duck, probably is a duck? Ehh wallstreeter! That's my test. :) DNA, Perhaps you should put a small disclaimer on the bottom of your posts, "NO! , I AM NOT AN ATHEIST!", so people will not continually confuse you with being an atheist? :) bornagain77

""me, the nurse, and another man who had a bald head. . .I couldn’t see his face but I could see the back of his body. He was quite a chunky fella. . . He had blue scrubs on, and he had a blue hat, but I could tell he didn’t have any hair, because of where the hat was."" Again DNA jock this was one of the staff that was facing his body . Now if you really were seeking the full and unbiased truth here you would have known that that this bald guy was facing the body and if the patient were physiologically aware he would have seen the front of his face , not the back of his head like the patient who was on the side of the room . He had no access to this man before. Your post smacks of bias in every which way . If you were honest you would have asked urself how could this man have seen what he saw from the vantage point of where he as at during this time. You didn't and this tells me that you have an atheistic -materialistic bias that is on the extreme side .the you gave urself away by posting this info, so thank u for debunking yourself . And again we see this clear atheistic bias as was shown above , except here it's much worse . ""I have watched two women put on “X-ray vision glasses” that allowed them to see the naked bodies of clothed people. Or so they believed at the time. It was absolutely hilarious as they pointed and laughed, but also thought-provoking. How did their minds synthesize images that they found credible? Unless of course you think that the glasses worked as advertised…"" How does any normal critical thinking person compare this story with a. Veridical nde which was confirmed by the hospital staff . It's clear to me DNA jock that you have a clear bias . It's almost as if you don't want them to be true . Doctor Antony flew , even though i respected the man very much was asked once that since he now is a deist and believes sin a creator , does he believe in an afterlife. His response was very interesting because he said they he really hoped that there wasn't one . That this was the end of him because he couldn't fathom being eternally alive as he would get bored out if his mind. But you dna are clearly unlike any deist I have ever met. I see an atheist . There is lots of evidence e that u didn't push I to like the fact that the man described the nurse even though he had a sheet draped over his groin area. You can claim that he made up those images in his brain, but fir him to recognize these people when he wok up doesn't jive. The fact that u didn't catch these subtle nuances tells me that u didn't want to. It's clear that your a sharp guy , but fior some reason ,ur story of wanting them to be true is err bologna . The true answer is that u don't want them to be true . One day u will come out if the closet and admit that ur an atheist . Your not fooling anyone here . I know many deists and none of them are as atheistically biased as u are . Nice try though ;) "" wallstreeter43

DNA jock , just as I thought u cherry picked the evidence that favored the atheistic position. Here is an example . And also where is the link frim your category 5 recollection from the aware study and was it from the 57 year old social worker? DNA jock said ""wallstreeter – Consider the following: A Christian who believes that NDEs are ‘spiritual’ would predict that both Christians and Hindus would have ‘Christian’ NDEs. A Hindu who believes that NDEs are ‘spiritual’ would predict that both Christians and Hindus would have ‘Hindu’ NDEs. Anyone who believes the NDEs have a physiological explanation, whether they be Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or atheist, would predict that Christians would have ‘Christian’ NDEs, and Hindus would have ‘Hindu’ NDEs. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3950600 Ho hum."" And while many of them were having these types ogpfbhigh Nde's you conveniently forgot the many Nde's that were the complete opposite of what you just predicted . Howard storm was a hardcore atheist professor yet saw Jesus in his nde and is a pastor today. Ian McCormick was also another atheist who believed that religion was. Afairy take, he also saw Jesus and is a pastor today. You also have Muslims having Christian Nde's etc. It's obvious to me that u didn't look deep into the literature to see these examples which tells me that you have. Clear atheistic type bias . I have yet to see one religious person have an nde that told them atheism was true or even agnosticism . As I said before it's clear to me that if you are a deist , you clearly have an atheistic bias :) It's clear enough to anyone watching your posts , except of course if we preach to the atheistic choir. wallstreeter43

wallstreeter, I have looked at the results of the AWARE study. In my post 42 you can read the sum total of the category 5 recollections from this study, and my reasons for finding them completely unconvincing, much as I might wish otherwise. I therefore find Piotr's so-called "failure" to address the AWARE study entirely reasonable, and I have no reason to "call him out on it". Also be aware (heh) that the subjective timelines that people experience can be highly distorted as compared with time measured with a clock. So your assertion that a veridical nde occurred at a time when there was no brain function is not supported. DNA_Jock

BA said ""wallstreeter, the over the top bias has been a mystery to me too for a long while. I keep asking myself, ‘What is the payoff for these guys for such a lopsided bias towards atheism’? ‘Diary of a Madman’ indeed!"" BA I have a friend that's a nihilist and whenever we talk about these issues he tells me that he understand s why we Christians are so passionate about them, but he can't for the life of him understand why atheists argue them so patssiinately . He says that they are being dishonest with themselves , and that if atheism is true then why are they wasting precious time arguing it. Instead they should do what he has been doing all his life and that is amass as much material wealth and get as much physical pleasure as they can out of life cause in their meaningless worldview, there is no purpose to this life . As a nihilist he understands this which is why he always tells me that the only honest atheist is a nihilist . wallstreeter43

Humbled said ""As amusing as their lack of logic and their attempts at trying to reconcile their cherished theory with science may be, their actions, philosophies and behaviour is a rather serious issue. They are responsible for mass human slaughter in the past and their anti-human philosophies are responsible for the slaughter of billions more today, especially when one includes abortion and the bumping off of the sick and elderly in to the equation. They are ill and need to be recognised as such. One only needs to read their anti-human writing’s, actions and philosophies to recognise as much. Look at most societies today since atheism has been allowed to spread. Look at the greed, corruption, immorality and mass slaughter that exists in our societies presently. Look at how these zealots have hijacked and corrupted science. Laugh and ridicule them by all means (many of us do so often ) but don’t lose sight of how dangerous and corrosive their philosophies and actions are / have been."" By all means humbled I agree that it is a very serious issue which is why when we get them on a particular issue such as BA explaining them the difference between a person with anesthesia awareness and an nde are worlds apart we keep hammering and never let go of the hammer . Not be uses we are sadistic , but because there are lurkers and seekers watching this discussion very carefully . The rest of us like u , me ,BA and others already know how ridiculous their way if assessment evidence is but seekers and newbies don't . The thing that strikes me most is that they don't believe that they are being irrational in their hyper skepticism , but it's the same way when unsee most atheist sites call themselves free thinkers or brites . Notice that the only ones who are calling them free thinkers or brites are each other. This tells me that there is a defect somewhere in how they process info.. It's like the scientific American article on the study that was done in atheists .in the study it showed them arguing teleologically, then they reject that they are . There is a mental issue somewhere but medical science still hasn't studied the issue much yet. wallstreeter43

wallstreeter, the over the top bias has been a mystery to me too for a long while. I keep asking myself, 'What is the payoff for these guys for such a lopsided bias towards atheism'? 'Diary of a Madman' indeed! bornagain77

Sparc Said ""Is impression correct that BA77 didn’t address the points Piotr made at 106 but rather ducked away. chorus: diggy diggy hole"" Look at the atheist mentality here. Notice that Sparc said nothing about the way Piotr completely dodged every part of the aware study example we brought yet focused on a plotting teeth evidences and not on the many errors worlee made in his comparison between aphis anasthesia explanation and true Nde's . Ask yourself nde job is this a fair assessment of the discussion. A truly honest deist would have also called out the atheist for dodging all the evidences that were against his view . Piotr made no attempt whatsoever in explaining how the aware study patient could have had this nde with his brain. DNA jock is this a correct assessment ? If so the. Why didn't u call Piotr out on it L Is it because you sympathize with his beliefs ? If so then are u truly a deist ?this isn't also for Sparc because we both know that he is a dogmatic religious atheist wallstreeter43

BA, this is what I don't understand about atheists like Piotr , it's almost as if they want atheism to be correct , and no one in their right mind, if they really thought of it would want atheism to be correct . The kind of thinking that Piotr uses is the very definitiin of insanity. And speaking of dodging Piotr, you completely dodged the awarr study which is the most current up to date evidence on Nde's and instead decided to focus on non issue speculation of such silly questions as "why does the mind need the body to see if the mind can see without eyes "" Piotr you know that this has nothing to so with disproving the example from the aware study and you know it. This is why I was shocked at fud ing out that DNA jock is a deist, be use he asus he employed the same type of thinking that Piotr used , and for a deist it simply isn't warranted . And as BS said doctor weorlie misrepresented Pam's case big time and ignored all the parts that didn't fit in with his extreme atheistic worldview . There are many examples in the nde literature of patients having veridical Nde's in which they traveled miles away from their body and brought back into that they couldn't have possibly known with their eyes in the situation they were in. Now this questiin is addressed more to DNA jock then to Piotr because it's obvious that Piotr is a religiously motivated atheist who doesn't care aboit the evidence and he will spin it into his atheistic worldview. DNA jock if you really are a deist then I implore you to take a look at that example from the aware study and tell me how you can attribute his veridical nde to any natural brain explanation factors . Be honest and be moderate . This is all we ask.. A true deist would look at the evidence without leaning either way and then make an opinion based on.whatbthe evidence is telling u. Are u an honest deist ? I'm hoping you are :) wallstreeter43

Well sparc, if you are interested, here is the whole book: The Passage https://books.google.com/books?id=GtpA4jVL-jMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Myself, I found Piotr's criticism of the book to be, as usual, dogmatically biased towards atheism. Moreover, I was not hanging much on that cite since, as I noted. I found it in one google click! But hey, if such superficial refutation of such a superficial cite trips your trigger go for it. Just curious, why are you not equally concerned with Woerlee's blatant dishonesty towards Pam Reynolds's NDE since that has been much more deeply discussed and documented on this thread? Or are you merely concerned with scoring cheap rhetorical points for atheism and you really could care less for the truth of the matter? as is usual for atheists? bornagain77

Is impression correct that BA77 didn't address the points Piotr made at 106 but rather ducked away. chorus: diggy diggy hole sparc

DNA jock and I notice that you completely ignored the aware study where it was shown that the man had a veridical nde 2.5 minutes into the stage where there is a non functional brain. Ty for disclosing ur worldview . My uncle is also a deist . Very sharp guy that speaks 8 languages :) I'm curious as to what type of deist are you ? A spiritual one or non spiritual one ? I would think that as a deist you would be very excited about the aware study? Remote viewing study was done by the government so u can't say that utts was in on it . I remember reading an article where she was brought into a committee where she explained the evidences very rationally and held her own despite the panel filled with almost all skeptics . DNA , now you can wiggle on the Pam Reynolds case but it's almost impossible on the case of the awarr study as very strict protocols were put into place . Doctor parnia is very banal when it comes to protocols and already had to stop the study once and restart it again because news of the study leaked to the hospital staff. After the aware study , the only objection by skeptics is that they start nitpicking . For example one skeptic neuro doctor (not gonna name names ) complained that they didn't interview the patient on the spot . This is ridiculous and unethical because the guy was just brought back to life . Give him Time to re over out of courtesy . The reason why you surprised me when you said your a deist is that usually deists would jump at the Veridcal nde in the aware study , but you acted just like an atheist , which confused me . Also to belive that Pam's brain generated her nde is stretching it a bit because her eyes were taped shut and she simply didn't have access to the drill .now other scientists have been able to recreate obe like states but obe but none have been able to recreate the veridical experimence , in other words the part of the nde that is verified as really happening by outside witnesses . Man as a deist my uncle would have been able to look at this from a totally unbiased point of view . Forget atheist , forget religion. Ask yourself if a purely brain based explanation makes sense of where the current evidence is leading us . If you do you will see that brain based explanations are getting weaker and weaker as each year passes .ths is exactly what alex tsakiris is saying as well and he is anti religion , but he's also anti pseudo skepticism , in other words skepticism that is way to extreme and borders on the ridiculous . I think you should look at the many interviews done on skeptiko. wallstreeter43

DNA, as to: "Deist, thank you for asking." Your worldview is an incorrect view of reality:

The Galileo Affair and the resurrection of Jesus as the true "Center of the Universe" Excerpt: I find it extremely interesting, and strange, that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its 'uncertain' 3D state is centered on each individual conscious observer in the universe, whereas, 4D space-time cosmology (General Relativity) tells us each 3D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. These findings of modern science are pretty much exactly what we would expect to see if this universe were indeed created, and sustained, from a higher dimension by a omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal Being who knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at the same time. These findings certainly seem to go to the very heart of the age old question asked of many parents by their children, “How can God hear everybody’s prayers at the same time?”,,, i.e. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that you or I, or anyone else, should exist? Only Theism, Christian Theism in particular, offers a rational explanation as to why you or I, or anyone else, should have such undeserved significance in such a vast universe. [15] Psalm 33:13-15 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHAcvrc913SgnPcDohwkPnN4kMJ9EDX-JJSkjc4AXmA/edit

bornagain77

Wallstreeter, I note that you have nothing to say about the rest of my post 115; only my comment on remote reviewing generated any response. While ganzfeld, specifically autoganzfeld, represents the best in psi research, that isn`t saying much. I reckon that the jury is still out. Here’s why. 1) The quotes from Utts that you used refer to her meta-analysis, which included earlier ganzfeld studies with known methodological flaws. That’s a no-no (which also applies to Storm et al, see below) 2) Her relationship with May makes her a not entirely independent reviewer. That you call her one is misleading. 3) The SAIC dataset, which represents the core of her analysis, is deeply problematic since there was only a single judge, who just happened to be the director of the research program. Someone who definitely had a vested interest in seeing positive results. Finally, and most relevant to the autoganzfeld data, ALL meta-analyses suffer from the risk that failures to replicate may not be reported. This issue is HUGE, and I am very familiar with it because of its effect on clinical research, where the issue is well-known and much discussed (drug companies avoid publishing negative results). The worrying thing about psi research is that the effect sizes always shrink as the protocols get more rigorous. This, and the unfortunate history of self-delusion and fraud that the field suffers from, make skepticism appropriate. The same thing applies to the meta-analyses on which the psi community relies: Storm et al (2010) report a statistical significance of 2.13 x 10^-8 (one in 47 million! Enough to make almost anyone a believer!). Rouder, Morey and Province took Storm et al’s dataset and , applying Bayesian analysis, showed that they could achieve significance at the 1 in 6 billion level (no non-believers on earth!). Unfortunately, when Rouder et al audited the dataset, removing the studies with inadequate randomization and including unsuccessful studies that Storm had omitted, the significance dropped over a million-fold to a rather paltry 1 in 330. You only need a couple of unpublished failures-to-replicate (highly likely here) and the significance disappears altogether. So until an appropriately sized, multi-center research program reports positive results for their full dataset, the most parsimonious explanation remains “statistical artefact”. P.S. Not that it has any effect on the data analysis, but I did laugh at your use of the Daily Mail as a source. You do know that that tabloid is the closest thing the UK has to the National Enquirer, right? You would make a much better case if you cited real articles on the subject, like Honorton & Hyman’s Joint Communique. Then again, maybe you think that National Enquirer is a reputable source… Yikes. P.P.S. Deist, thank you for asking. DNA_Jock

wallstreeter43 says "Atheists are funny ;) " As amusing as their lack of logic and their attempts at trying to reconcile their cherished theory with science may be, their actions, philosophies and behaviour is a rather serious issue. They are responsible for mass human slaughter in the past and their anti-human philosophies are responsible for the slaughter of billions more today, especially when one includes abortion and the bumping off of the sick and elderly in to the equation. They are ill and need to be recognised as such. One only needs to read their anti-human writing's, actions and philosophies to recognise as much. Look at most societies today since atheism has been allowed to spread. Look at the greed, corruption, immorality and mass slaughter that exists in our societies presently. Look at how these zealots have hijacked and corrupted science. Laugh and ridicule them by all means (many of us do so often ;) ) but don't lose sight of how dangerous and corrosive their philosophies and actions are / have been. humbled

wallstreeter, So lets see if we can get all this atheistic illusion business straight. According to atheists, consciousness is an illusion of the brain, free will is also an illusion of the brain, and even my own sense of self, the most sure thing I can know about reality, is also an illusion of the brain. Or like Dr. Pearcey recently put it:

Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself - Nancy Pearcey - March 8, 2015 Excerpt: Steven Pinker writes, "Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not." The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion -- and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value. So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself.,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality. The reason so few atheists and materialists seem to recognize the problem is that, like Darwin, they apply their skepticism selectively. They apply it to undercut only ideas they reject, especially ideas about God. They make a tacit exception for their own worldview commitments. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar094171.html

And here are a few references backing up Dr. Pearcey's contention that the atheistic worldview defeats itself from within:

The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – January 2014 Excerpt: Well and good. But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 "that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.” Francis Crick - "The Astonishing Hypothesis" 1994 There is only one sort of stuff, namely, matter-the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology-and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon. In short, the mind is the brain. Daniel Dennett How does the brain go beyond processing information to become subjectively aware of information? The answer is: It doesn’t. The brain has arrived at a conclusion that is not correct. When we introspect and seem to find that ghostly thing — awareness, consciousness, the way green looks or pain feels — our cognitive machinery is accessing internal models and those models are providing information that is wrong. Michael S. A. Graziano Sam Harris's Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It - Martin Cothran - November 9, 2012 Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state -- including their position on this issue -- is the effect of a physical, not logical cause. By their own logic, it isn't logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/11/sam_harriss_fre066221.html

So in effect under atheism, 'I' am not really a real person having the subjective experience that 'I' freely choose to eat vanilla ice cream instead of choosing to eat chocolate ice cream. No, under materialism, 'I' merely am an illusion of a person having an illusory subjective experience of free choice. In other words, the illusory person that I think is 'me', (man atheism can be confusing), is under the illusion that his illusory self freely choose to eat vanilla ice cream rather than chocolate. You got all that??? If 'you' did get it then please try to explain it to 'me'. And please try to pretend that 'I' really exist when 'you' try to explain it to 'me'. :) Thus, it is no wonder that atheists think Near Death Experiences are illusory, they think that they themselves are illusory. In effect, when an atheist says that NDEs are illusory he is merely extending his illusion and saying that it is merely an illusion of a person having an illusion of an NDE! :) But then again, under materialism, the atheist had no choice to say anything else than what he said. He merely is under the illusion that he could have freely chosen to say otherwise and say that NDEs are not an illusion. :) ,,, Decartes must be up in heaven splitting his sides with laughter seeing the philosophical quagmire that atheists have imprisoned themselves in!

Cogito ergo sum "I think, therefore I am", or "I am thinking, therefore I exist" - René Descartes. David Chalmers on Consciousness (Philosophical Zombies and the Hard Problem) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo

On the other hand, Theists hold that there is really only one real illusion to be dealt with in all this materialistic mess. and that illusion to be dealt with is none other than the atheist's own illusion that material reality is the only reality that exists. As referenced previously in post 119, Leggett's inequality, in over the top fashion (120 standard deviations), falsified materialism as to being the true 'ultimate' reality. (In fact, materialism is often called 'illusory' and 'naive' in Quantum mechanics) Here are many more references, from quantum mechanics, falsifying materialism as being true and validating Theism as to being true:

A Short Survey Of Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Excerpt: Putting all the lines of evidence together the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this: 1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality. Four intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uLcJUgLm1vwFyjwcbwuYP0bK6k8mXy-of990HudzduI/edit The Mental Universe - Richard Conn Henry - Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.,,, Physicists shy away from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke "decoherence" - the notion that "the physical environment" is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in "Renninger-type" experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf

As to the atheist's poverty of evidence in ever rationally explaining consciousness, here are a few quotes:

Darwinian Psychologist David Barash Admits the Seeming Insolubility of Science’s “Hardest Problem” Excerpt: ‘But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.’ David Barash – Materialist/Atheist Darwinian Psychologist “We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.” Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor

Here are a few more quotes on the empirical poverty within materialism to ever explain consciousness coherently:

There is simply no direct evidence that anything material is capable of generating consciousness. As Rutgers University philosopher Jerry Fodor says, "Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious. So much for the philosophy of consciousness. Regardless of our knowledge of the structure of the brain, no one has any idea how the brain could possibly generate conscious experience." As Nobel neurophysiologist Roger Sperry wrote, "Those centermost processes of the brain with which consciousness is presumably associated are simply not understood. They are so far beyond our comprehension at present that no one I know of has been able even to imagine their nature." From modern physics, Nobel prize-winner Eugene Wigner agreed: "We have at present not even the vaguest idea how to connect the physio-chemical processes with the state of mind." Contemporary physicist Nick Herbert states, "Science's biggest mystery is the nature of consciousness. It is not that we possess bad or imperfect theories of human awareness; we simply have no such theories at all. About all we know about consciousness is that it has something to do with the head, rather than the foot." Physician and author Larry Dossey wrote: "No experiment has ever demonstrated the genesis of consciousness from matter. One might as well believe that rabbits emerge from magicians' hats. Yet this vaporous possibility, this neuro-mythology, has enchanted generations of gullible scientists, in spite of the fact that there is not a shred of direct evidence to support it." http://www.merkawah.nl/public_html/images/stories/ccvsgwrepr.pdf

Verse and Music:

John 8:58 "Very truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" I AM - MARK SCHULTZ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hILaSh78yHQ

bornagain77

""The experience(s) she reported (especially immediately after the procedure rather than three years later) fit well within the realm that others experience when they are under insufficient anesthesia."" Actually it doesn't at all and doctor spitzer even talked about it. You can make assertiins all you want franklin but I can bring you the experys testimony . These are nde researchers not some 2 but atheistic hyper skeptic anasthesiologist that no one takes seriously . BA77 Moreover, there is a huge problem with you trying to say her experience was merely an illusion of the mind: It was an illusion of a body and mind experiencing insufficient anesthesia during a surgical procedure."" Your making an assertion that you can't possibly back up lol. She saw her operation from above her body and saw her leg area being operated on and she described everything perfectly . She could not have seen what she saw and then have it verified by the hospital staff. Her eyes were taped shut dude she didn't form any visions . She saw what was happening and described it perfectly . She also didn't have access to the saw that they used on her head . Franklin if your comfortable being a religious dogmatic atheist that's ok. Whatever floats your boat dude , but no normal person will be able to look at her nde and say it was an illusion caused. Y her mind. If it was then the doctor and nursing staff were having the same hallucination lol Atheists are funny ;) wallstreeter43

Franklin said ""Now how about you explaining how pamela reynolds NDE starts (granted her experience begins with an alleged OBE) while she is at normal body temperature and normal heartbeat and under general anesthesia. How does her case study not fit the anesthesia awareness/insufficient anesthesia conclusion? You can start by working through her timeline of events and her medical procedure timeline. anesthesia awareness does occur 20-40,000 each year and Pam Reynolds case fits all the diagnostic criteria."" Franklin you skirted around the facts again. As doctor Jeffrey long said and I will have to repeat myself twice on, the nde experience and the anesthesia expletive are 2 different experiences , and you claim of her having alleged one is you poisoning the well yet again. She could not have seen what she saw from the vantage point that she had anesthesia awareness or not , and I also pointed out to you the 26 cases that doctor long studied which you conveniently ignored which pushes the odds to a ridiculous point . She could nit have seen her leg from the vantage point she was at . The anesthesia awareness theory is ridiculous .. All of these assertion from ur end have been made mute by the ward study patient who was timed at having his nde during a period of non brain function, even past the deep brain surge . Another thing that by u don't know is that general anesthesia destroys the theory of the deep brain surge . Because none of the human patients or rays had a deep brain electrical surge when given anesthesia . I'm well aware of the Pam Reynolds case , but your side was completely decimated by the aware study Veridcal nde example. wallstreeter43

BA&&

Pam Reynolds case certainly does not fit ‘all the diagnostic criteria’,

Of course it does, BA77, follow the evidence where it leads....unless you let your confirmation bias trip you up... BA77

nor does her near death experience remotely resemble the negative experience that is commonly reported during anesthesia awareness.

The experience(s) she reported (especially immediately after the procedure rather than three years later) fit well within the realm that others experience when they are under insufficient anesthesia. BA77

Moreover, there is a huge problem with you trying to say her experience was merely an illusion of the mind:

It was an illusion of a body and mind experiencing insufficient anesthesia during a surgical procedure. franklin

Boy these atheists never do stop lying do they wallstreeter? Pam Reynolds case certainly does not fit 'all the diagnostic criteria', nor does her near death experience remotely resemble the negative experience that is commonly reported during anesthesia awareness. Moreover, there is a huge problem with you trying to say her experience was merely an illusion of the mind:

Dr Jeffrey Long's Near Death Experience Research a Game Changer for Science - video snippet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO_YHdD9evI Dr. Jeffrey Long Responds to “NDEs are an Illusion” - interview http://www.skeptiko.com/118-jeffrey-long-responds-to-parnia/

Moreover,,,

‘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/

Other than the fact that the experiences are 'even more real than real', then the atheists may have had a case to say the experiences were merely illusions. :) But facts that directly contradict them never bothered atheists before, why should facts start to bother them now ? But we do have scientific evidence of something being an illusion. That something that is scientifically proven to be an illusion is none other than the entire materialistic worldview that undergirds atheistic thought:

Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry - Physics Professor - John Hopkins University Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the "illusion" of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry's referenced experiment and paper - “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 - “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett's Inequality: Violated, as of 2011, to 120 standard deviations) http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html

bornagain77

WS43

Maybe good ole franklin could explain to us how Pamela saw what she saw with her eyes taped shut .

I know you think it is impossible to form visions with your eyes closed but give it a try sometime you might be surprised at the results. How many of us, who have set in a dentist chair upon hearing the sound of the dentist drill (with our eyes closed) form an image in our mind of the dentist pneumatic drill? Now how about you explaining how pamela reynolds NDE starts (granted her experience begins with an alleged OBE) while she is at normal body temperature and normal heartbeat and under general anesthesia. How does her case study not fit the anesthesia awareness/insufficient anesthesia conclusion? You can start by working through her timeline of events and her medical procedure timeline. anesthesia awareness does occur 20-40,000 each year and Pam Reynolds case fits all the diagnostic criteria. franklin

DNA jock, nice video how about posting something legit about remote viewing like when the government spent 20 million dollars to study it and 2 independent scientists were given the task of sifting through the evidence . Lets see what me of these scientists had to say about remote viewing shall we ? http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2009/09/skeptic-agrees-that-remote-viewing-is.html Excerpt from a January 2008 item in the UK's The Daily Mail newspaper: In 1995, the US Congress asked two independent scientists to assess whether the $20 million that the government had spent on psychic research had produced anything of value. And the conclusions proved to be somewhat unexpected. Professor Jessica Utts, a statistician from the University of California, discovered that remote viewers were correct 34 per cent of the time, a figure way beyond what chance guessing would allow. She says: "Using the standards applied to any other area of science, you have to conclude that certain psychic phenomena, such as remote viewing, have been well established. "The results are not due to chance or flaws in the experiments." Of course, this doesn't wash with sceptical scientists. Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, refuses to believe in remote viewing. He says: "I agree that by the standards of any other area of science that remote viewing is proven, but begs the question: do we need higher standards of evidence when we study the paranormal? I think we do."" DNA jock now who does the skeptic remind u of here ? wallstreeter43

Quest exactly, when he came to a different conclusion , Whether it was from science or from the bible these new atbeists were going to ridicule him as he didn't believe as they dogmatically believed anymore. DNA jock fair enough, you didn't state your worldview , how about stating it now .? wallstreeter43

Wallstreeter, you repeatedly ascribe to me positions that I do not hold, and have never given you any reason to believe that I hold. This is a further demonstration of your cognitive biases. You should really try to stop doing that. It’s an embarrassment -- please stop it.

wallstreeter@66: Dna jock said

Like News, I wouldn’t expect someone to come back from an NDE with next week`s lotto numbers, but I agree with CHartsil that it would be rather good evidence in their favor. There’s no inconsistency there. Your condescension is as misplaced as it is impressive. Personally, I would settle for an accurate description of the placard on the shelf. Unfortunately, out of the 330 cardiac arrest patients in AWARE who survived their hospital stay, only two had category 5 (auditory/visual awareness) memories and neither of these was in a room with placards. The point remains: until someone comes back with information that they could not possibly have arrived at through other means, there isn`t any evidence for a ‘spiritual’ explanation of NDEs, much as we all might wish it otherwise.

Just as I suspected DNA you play the same push the goalposts back that Chartsil used. I’m noticing the same delusional hyper skepticism being used here so maybe it’s not something atheists do on purpose but it’s definately not normal.

You are claiming that I am an atheist despite that fact that I wrote to ba77@48: “I’ll forgive you for your erroneous assumption that I am an atheist. That hasn’t come up on this thread.” What’s your excuse? Please stop it.

The man was in no condition to get this information as the study shows

I don`t know what ‘information’ you are referring to. If (1) the placard, I clearly state (in the passage you quote) that neither category 5 event occurred in a room with placards, if (2) the resuscitation procedures, these are too generic (see post 42) and easily the result of memory synthesis.

but of course you take the stance that either he was cheating or the hospital staff was cheating or lying

No, I do not. Having synthesized memories is not lying or cheating. Please stop.

And as I pointed out to Chartsil , I’m going to have to point out to you and that is psychic phenomenon is a different area than Nde’s and this area of research is completely different and psychics and remote viewers can have these experiences without an nde and in fact psychic studies are being done without Nde’s , so yoir assertion that psychic information can only be done through Nde’s is not only ridiculous but it shows that your hyper skepticism is in fact abnormal.

Where on earth to you get my “assertion that psychic information can only be done through nde’s”? Please stop it. On the other hand, if you know someone who can do remote viewing, they could make you both a LOT of money.

This is bordering on some type of mental problem.

Nice. Reminds me again of “I’m sorry Ma`am. I thought the car must be stolen.”

My bringing up Nde’s and the aware study wasn’t to try to convince people like u and Chartsil who have already made up your minds and mold the evidence to fit your predisposed worldview . It is for the open minded atheist ,agnostics and fence sitters.

I’m still not an atheist. Please stop.

One such atheist I have already direct to this thread who is lurking and he even agrees that your degree of hyper skepticism is crazy. Ladies and gentlemen is like to thank DNA jock and Chartsil for their unbelievably ridiculous assertion . Thanks guys . You have helped my atheist friend more then you can imagine

Stupidity is not restricted to theists, I guess. ? wallstreeter@101:

Chartsil and do jock both looked foolish in claiming that a vertical nde without a functioning brain wasn’t good enough, especially since the person got info that they simply didn’t have access to.

My statement was “until someone comes back with information that they could not possibly have arrived at through other means, there isn`t any evidence for a ‘spiritual’ explanation of NDEs, much as we all might wish it otherwise.” A true veridical nde would meet my criterion, given IANDS`s definition “Veridical perception occurs when NDErs apparently accurately perceive earthly events from a vantage point outside their physical bodies - events that are imperceptible from the vantage point of their physical bodies. ”, so long as the details went beyond the generic. Stop it.

The problem here is that the atheists here have ignored the latest research on node’s from the aware study and instead are attacking the Pam Reynolds case and ignoring the evidence for her having a vertical nde.

Still not an atheist, and I have (up until now) only discussed the AWARE study, and not the Reynolds case. Please Stop it. Regarding remote viewing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMwc1c0HRQ DNA_Jock

It was pretty much the same disbelief few years back when Anthony Flew publicly announced that DNA had to have been designed... When it became apparent that Flew wasn't going to change his mind, the Darwinian propaganda machine begun its smearing campaign... Quest

Plus Franklin forgot one little tidbit about the Pamela Reynolds nde . Maybe good ole franklin could explain to us how Pamela saw what she saw with her eyes taped shut . But then again we knew that franklin would leave this little bit of info out . Is ask Chartsil to explain this but I'm afraid if I did it might make him retreat back into his laboratory and stay there :( How would he be able to get up to date on current nde research so he could ignorantly deny it ;) Wouldn't be more prudent if the atheists leave Nde's alone ? Wouldn't it be easier to stay ignorant and an atheist at the same time ? Just saying :( wallstreeter43

Piotr, your assuming that you would know the mind of the creator and that his thoughts are like our thoughts. All very interesting questions but how about u explain these experiences with the brain as the explanation. Or if you admit that the evidence is strongly against the grain being the mind we can then engage in imaginative conversation and speculation on why the creator designed us this way or that way. At least your other trying to wiggle out of it like chartsil trying to land next week's win in lotto numbers . Chartsil you sly little lab atheist on trying to get rich off of someone's nde ;) wallstreeter43

Wallstreeter43, Why do we have eyes, ears, and other sensory organs, eh? Wouldn't it be more economical to see, hear, smell and taste directly with our minds? We could have unlimited microscopic, telescopic, radiotelescopic, polariscopic, X-ray-scopic and supercalifragilistiscopic vision absolutely free. Everyone who believes in psychokinesis, raise my hand. Piotr

Mapou said ""This is an excellent and perfectly legitimate question to throw at Christians, mostly the fundamentalist and the Catholics. They have no answer. And I say this as a Christian."" Mapou it's an interesting question but I'm still trying to understand what pertinence this has over whether these types of Nde's are caused. Y the brain or not . I certainly would love to discuss this some more and I'm sure there are many theories . We can look into remote viewing which shows that the human soul or consciousness can see things in this world that are thousands of miles away and even more as Ingo swann did many times which is why he was recruited by the CIA . I remember watching a former college of swann talking about one of the tests they (the CIA ) put him through a series of tests to see if his ability was on the level . One of these tests involved them asking him to describe the shape of one particular part of a nuclear reactor (if my memory recalls correctly ) that no one knew about but the people who designed the reactor (and they weren't there ), and he described this part even though it was way underground . The video is on the skeptiko forum , I'll try to find it again one of these days .fascinating stuff . wallstreeter43

Piotr says Wallstreeter43, Pray, tell us why there are blind people in the first place if the mind needs no eyes to see"" Good question piotr . The honest answet is we don't fully know all the answer and we are just starting to peer into the spiritual realm, but again this is a very silly question only in regards to it doesn't diminish or refute what's happening at all. And again Piotr please tell us how this disproves veridical Nde's ? You can't ? Of course you can't. Your just trying to find a way to distract yourself from answering how these experiences can be correlated to the brain. And we don't even need the Pamela Reynolds cause the aware study cause was officially timed as happening during the time with no brain function and everything he experienced was verified as 100% accurate by doctor parnia! the medical staff and other researchers and peer reviewed . Plus he had a sheet over his groin which even restricted visual access to me of the nurses . Using anasthesia awareness is just the last desperate attempt from a desperate atheist to allow himself to follow the evidence to wherever it may lead him. If only most atheists were as honest as doctor Antony flew . We would defnately have a lot less atheists in this world and more intellectually homestead and satisfied firmer atheists ;) Big hug for my new best friend franklin Come here big boy ::::::hug::::; wallstreeter43

Franklin lets answer this questions and show you how ridiculous yoir claims about anasthesia awareness is shall we ? http://www.skeptiko.com/jeffrey_long_takes_on_critics_of_evidence_of_the_afterlife/ Since you are my brother franklin , I'll let u in on a. Little secret . Professor wourlie was debunked on this a lomg time ago and he was down so by a physician and top nde researcher Jeffrey long . Franklin were you hoping no one would see what you failed to disclose about the differences between anasthesia and Nde's ? Man ur my buddy and it's job to educate my buddy ;) For one thing the odds are closer to 1 in 10000 then in in 1000 or 2000, but then again we knew u would pick the number with grafter odds lol. Another thing is that there are profound differences between anesthetic awareness and an nde . The problem is that instead of studying both sides you only look up ur side , which shows your intellectual dishonesty and makes it much easier for me to refute you :) Jeffrey long first makes the odds even worse as he has studied a group of 26 nde cases , all under general anasthesia , so lets even give u the erroneous odds of 1 in 1000 . What are the odds that every me of these 26 patients that were under general anesthetics that had an nde were physically conscious . Once you get to this realization you start to understand how ridiculous and ignorant u look ;) """If you say, as you do, that you studied 26 cases of near-death experiences under general anesthesia, then he comes back and says yeah, but every once in a while – I think it’s like 1 in 10,000 – people have regained some consciousness during anesthesia. Then you say that’s not only extremely likely, but if it did happen, then the symptoms would make it unlikely that they would have this lucid experience. Then he comes back and says yeah, but there are some cases where people did have a lucid experience. So it just goes on and on like this. Then you step back and say what are really the odds of this 1 out of 10,000 thing happening in every single case? And on top of that, that this even rarer occurrence of them not experiencing the normal symptoms and on top of that, that their experiences would match up with all the people that had a different set of medical conditions? As you would normally look at this in science, at some point don’t the odds become enormously outrageous to where you wouldn’t even go there?" ""Dr. Jeffrey Long: That’s a really good point. I agree with everything you said, Alex, and there’s even more. In fact, if you look at the book, Evidence of the Afterlife, on pages 103 to 104, I talk directly about this so-called anesthetic-awareness that Dr. Woerlee discusses. As an overview, let me say that these anesthetic-awareness experiences are so very, very rare that I hope this never dissuades anybody from having medically appropriate general anesthesia. Please don’t let any of the discussion here be an issue in preventing appropriate medical care. As I say in the book, and this is a direct quote, “Rather than the type of coherent NDEs you read here, anesthetic-awareness results in a totally different experience.” And I provide a number of references on that, by the way, for interested listeners. I go on to say, “Those who experience anesthetic-awareness often report very unpleasant, painful and frightening experiences. Unlike NDEs which are predominately visual experiences, this partial awakening during anesthesia more often involves brief and fragmented experiences that may involve hearing but usually not vision.” Again, I emphasize that anesthetic-awareness is very rare under anesthesia. By the way, I’m not aware of any near-death experiences that occurred under general anesthesia on the NDERF website that described the typical content of anesthetic-awareness experiences. Dr. Woerlee brings up a few anecdotal discussions about anesthetic-awareness but I have a number of references. These are the scholarly people that have actually studied a number of anesthetic-awareness experiences and published them in peer-reviewed journals in the past. That’s my source of that. As all of your listeners can easily see, you just don’t have near-death experiences that are predominately hearing but no vision. You don’t essentially ever have near-death experiences that involve brief, fragmented experiences that are painful or frightening. In fact, none of the general anesthesia near-death experiences that I reviewed had any of those components of them. Really, there’s no doubt about that. These are completely different experiences. That being anesthetic-awareness and near-death experiences. I don’t think Dr. Woerlee quite got that point how clear that was; how crystal clear the distinction between those two types of experiences is."" So as you can see franklin the anesthesia awareness theory doesn't hold water to anyone that has actually studied the literature , cause unlike Woerlee who is an anesthetic guy doctor long is a physician and a serious nde researcher with much more experience in this field . See franklin as your friend I helped u solve your problem. You can remain an intellectually satisfied atheist still..... As lomg as you bury ur head in the same and ignore the evidences , but then again is t that what you guys do best ? wallstreeter43

Wallstreeter43, Pray, tell us why there are blind people in the first place if the mind needs no eyes to see. Piotr

#79 BA77, That passage is not a patient's report (which should be clear at a glance: who would speak like that when spontaneously recounting a personal experience?). It comes from Dr. Bobby L. Scurlock's book The Passage: From Death to Life (2002, Universal Publishers, pp. 38-39). Universal Publishers is an Internet-based self-publishing (print-on-demand) company. They claim to specialise in academic non-fiction, but don't seem to be too fussy about quality control. I have said it before, but it will bear repeating: note that if someone styles oneself "Dr." on the cover of the book, on the title page and in the running header of every second page, it's a sure sign you are dealing with a quack flashing his doubtful credentials. At least, however, "Doc" Bobby narrates the tale of John Star in the third person. The website you linked copied the story verbatim, but changed it into a first-person narrative. It's about as credible as Stephen Hawking's conversion and his non-existent brother's NDE. Piotr

Piotr said ""77 PiotrMarch 13, 2015 at 6:10 pm It’s also interesting that the mind’s eyes and ears have the same limitations (in terms of light wavelength, colour discrimination, sound frequency range, speech sound spectrum, etc.) as physical eyes and ears. NDE survivors don’t report seeing things in infrared or ultraviolet, perceiving radio waves, polarisation effects, neutrinos flitting by, hearing ultrasounds, or anything of the sort. They are “out of their bodies”, but still limited by their anatomy and physiology. Why should their perception be constrained in this way? "" And again how does refute the validity of these experiences . Again they don't. And in fact when nde experiencers leave this realm they report a hyper real experience ,especially with sight . Now instead of focusing on what ur imagination can answer how these events can be caused by the brain please , especially in the aware study wallstreeter43

Piotr said ""#67 A good point. Wallstreeter43, try curing blindness by telling blind people to see directly “with their minds”."" Piotr is that your refutation of veridical Nde's by people born blind ? Now please tell us how this refutes the veridical nde itself . The answer is you can't and since you couldn't, instead of admitting it you come out with more bologna that have nothing to do with refuting the validity of these experiences as being more then the brain . This is classic dumbed down pattern of argumentation by atheists . When the evidence is against you , dodge , divert and do everything you can, but avoid the truth at all costs lol I think u should stick to evolution , cause ur exposing your religiously motivated atheistic beliefs wallstreeter43

The problem here is that the atheists here have ignored the latest research on node's from the aware study and instead are attacking the Pam Reynolds case and ignoring the evidence for her having a vertical nde. Chartsil and do jock both looked foolish in claiming that a vertical nde without a functioning brain wasn't good enough, especially since the person got info that they simply didn't have access to. As to Keith asking the ridiculous question as to if we can see without our eyes when we are disembodied why would we need our eyes when we are back in our bodies. As a Christian I would say the answer is 'no one knows' But the more important answer is , how in blue blazes does it disprove Christianity, and how does it disprove nde. Maybe there are 2 ways we can see, the more primitive way with out eyes, the greater or more spiritual way is with out souls. This is a silly question and doesn't add to this discussion at all. But seeing chartsil squirm and avoid the aware study brings such joy to my earthly eyes lol I'm still waiting for his evidence that ndes are caused the brain but we all know that this is a blind faith belief he made up because he didn't have the intellectual honesty to admit that he didn't read the nde literature. But then again me and chartsil are best friends , and what are best friends for the to educate them and making sure that the next TIME THEY lie they do a better job of looking good lol wallstreeter43

keith s:

My question is simple and obvious. If our souls can see and hear without eyes and ears during an NDE, then why do we need eyes and ears when we’re embodied? Why are you so frightened of such a simple, straightforward question? You strike me as one of those people who cling to their faith not because they’re convinced that it’s true, but because they’re terrified that it isn’t.

This is an excellent and perfectly legitimate question to throw at Christians, mostly the fundamentalist and the Catholics. They have no answer. And I say this as a Christian. Mapou

ppolish,

So, does anyone know what led Stephen to have a change of heart?

Ask Denyse. LOL keith s

So, does anyone know what led Stephen to have a change of heart? ppolish

So pretty much you expect us to do your work for you. Not how it works. Your claims, your burden. ChristopherH

Well, I can see that you guys are determined to chase your own tails in a circle. I'm satisfied with my responses. And I'm satisfied that the unbiased readers can see through you guy's shallow games. It's all getting rather boring for me now, so I'll let you guys have the last words. Good night. bornagain77

BA77,

keith s, since I know you rank among the most dogmatic of stubborn atheists, I know you will never accept the answer I gave.

You didn't even answer my question. You couldn't answer it, so you made up a different question altogether and answered that one instead. My question is simple and obvious. If our souls can see and hear without eyes and ears during an NDE, then why do we need eyes and ears when we're embodied? Why are you so frightened of such a simple, straightforward question? You strike me as one of those people who cling to their faith not because they're convinced that it's true, but because they're terrified that it isn't. Ponder that. I think you'll recognize yourself in that description. keith s

BA77

“did not have a OBE but did experience insufficient anesthesia during her surgical procedure.” Says who?

Well all the evidence of course. I am not backing anyone. I am following the evidence where it leads BA77

Tell you what, I know how to settle it once and for all. Let’s just wait until we die and then you can see for yourself that you are wrong. I’m willing to wait for you to get your answer, are you?

This is the intellectual depth and rigor you bring to the debate? How sad. franklin

"did not have a OBE but did experience insufficient anesthesia during her surgical procedure." Says who? you and Woerlee, a guy who was caught lying on another NDE?, and fudged the anesthesia awareness factors in this one to make it seem like he was credible? Yep, no bias in your analysis! NOT! franklin, I back Chris Carter and Stuart Hameroff, whom I trust, and you are backing a dogmatic and dishonest atheist, whom I do not trust one iota. Tell you what, I know how to settle it once and for all. Let's just wait until we die and then you can see for yourself that you are wrong. I'm willing to wait for you to get your answer, are you? Verse and Music:

Matthew 16:26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg

bornagain77

keith s, since I know you rank among the most dogmatic of stubborn atheists, I know you will never accept the answer I gave. None-the-less I am confident, that for the fair and unbiased reader, the answer I gave is sufficient. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/stephen-hawking-says-intelligent-design-of-the-universe-is-highly-probable/#comment-553712 Particularly: Dr. Quantum in Flatland – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=takn4FPkId4 of note: The preceding video is the lead off video for the outreach page of Dr. Zeilinger's quantum group in Vienna bornagain77

BA77

franklin, considering you did not even honestly admit you elementary mistake on the nature of Out of Body Experiences, color me VERY unimpressed with your armchair refutation of Carter’s devastating critique of Woerlee’s analysis of anesthesia.

not even a remote elementary mistake, ba77. Pam Reynolds did not have a OBE but did experience insufficient anesthesia during her surgical procedure. That you can't even discern this obvious fact from the evidence speaks loudly to your confirmation bias. You don't have to contend with just Woerlee's account but the entire field of pharmacology. I notice that you could not refute the statistic on anesthesia awareness, aka. insufficient anesthesia. Very telling. Sadly so I must add. BA77

Moreover, you didn’t even get the references in the correct order for crying out loud.Moreover, you didn’t even get the references in the correct order for crying out loud.

I only posted one reference. How could I get it out of order in a list of one out of one? BA77

http://www.merkawah.nl/public_.....gwrepr.pdf

this is a repeat link you have posted. I read it the first time I wonder if you have even read it once. the author clearly states that the statistic for anesthesia awareness is 1 or 2 per 1000. Now in Carter's analysis he cites and presents the data from Sebel et al. (2004), p. 836. which had a sample size of 25 as a summary representative of anesthesia awareness. Given your ability to analyze the data do you think that a sample size of 25 is representative of the 20,000 to 40,000 incidences of anesthesia awareness that occur each and every year? What does your power analysis tell you about the veracity of the data and it being potentially representative of the spectrum of experiences of insufficient anesthesia? franklin

BA77, Still no answer to my question? If you don't know, why not just say "I don't know"? keith s

ChristopherH, since I know of many Bible scholars that take prophecy seriously, especially concerning Israel, then I can find far more than one person who finds your criteria excessive. But, back to the main point, why should I lift a finger when google is right in front of you? If you truly were interested in Bible prophecy you would google the subject yourself. As it stands, it is more than clear to me that you just want to 'play games' and that you really have no honest intention of being forthright with the evidence. bornagain77

franklin, considering you did not even honestly admit your elementary mistake on the nature of Out of Body Experiences, color me VERY unimpressed with your armchair refutation of Carter's devastating critique of Woerlee's analysis of anesthesia. Moreover, you didn't even get the references in the correct order for crying out loud. http://www.merkawah.nl/public_html/images/stories/ccvsgwrepr.pdf Moreover, franklin, why are you so biased in your weighing of evidence? I mean, why are you not even one tenth as skeptical of Darwinian claims as you are of NDEs? The evidence for the validity of NDEs absolutely crushes any supposed evidence 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 '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

I'm telling you what I'll accept as evidence and I doubt you'll find anyone that thinks my criteria to be excessive. You just refuse (read; are unable) to present them. ChristopherH

BA77@87 anthesia awareness occurres in 1 to 2 cases per 1000 surgical procedures involving general anesthesia. It is not a uncommon or unknown experience by any means. How in the world you think the salon article in anyway debunks the timeline and diagnosis of insufficient anesthesia is beyond me....outside of your deep confirmation bias. Your University of Google degree has failed you once again...... franklin

"Rather it does support the well known characteristics of insufficient anesthesia." That particular point was thoroughly refuted by Carter in the paper I linked. He showed Woerlee to be way off base in his claims about awareness during anesthesia : As to the timeline, Pam had 'merely' an out of body experience prior to being declared dead. Out Of Body Experiences happen more frequently when the person is still alive than when they are dead:

An excellent survey performed by Twemlow in 1982 revealed the surprising information that most out of body experiences occur during a state of relaxation, and that only a relative few occur during near death experiences (10%). Even more surprisingly, out of body experiences sometimes also occur in states of extreme arousal such as: during severe pain, sexual orgasm, or fever. This means that out of body experiences occur during states of relaxation as well as excitement, which is a real surprise. Here is an extract of the table in the article of Twemlow showing the relative frequencies of the situations during which out of body experiences occur. http://www.neardth.com/out-of-body-experiences.php

Moreover, Pam's near death experience does not start until she is declared dead. Here is the timeline again:

Excerpt: At 8:40 a.m., the tray of surgical instruments was uncovered, and Robert Spetzler began cutting through Pam’s skull with a special surgical saw that produced a noise similar to a dental drill. At this moment, Pam later said, she felt herself “pop” out of her body and hover above it, watching as doctors worked on her body. Although she no longer had use of her eyes and ears, she described her observations in terms of her senses and perceptions. “I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar,” she said. “I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not.” She also described the Midas Rex bone saw (“The saw thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it … ”) and the dental-drill sound it made with considerable accuracy. Meanwhile, Spetzler was removing the outermost membrane of Pamela’s brain, cutting it open with scissors. At about the same time, a female cardiac surgeon was attempting to locate the femoral artery in Pam’s right groin. Remarkably, Pam later claimed to remember a female voice saying, “We have a problem. Her arteries are too small.” And then a male voice: “Try the other side.” Medical records confirm this conversation, yet Pam could not have heard them. The cardiac surgeon was right—Pam’s blood vessels were indeed too small to accept the abundant blood flow requested by the cardiopulmonary bypass machine, so at 10:50 a.m., a tube was inserted into Pam’s left femoral artery and connected to the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. The warm blood circulated from the artery into the cylinders of the bypass machine, where it was cooled down before being returned to her body. Her body temperature began to fall, and at 11:05 a.m. Pam’s heart stopped. Her EEG brain waves flattened into total silence. A few minutes later, her brain stem became totally unresponsive, and her body temperature fell to a sepulchral 60 degrees Fahrenheit. At 11:25 a.m., the team tilted up the head of the operating table, turned off the bypass machine, and drained the blood from her body. Pamela Reynolds was clinically dead. At this point, Pam’s out-of-body adventure transformed into a near-death experience (NDE): http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained/

So basically, since Out of Body Experience happen more frequently when alive, and Woerlee fudged his claims on anesthesia awareness, you got nothing but imaginary complaints. As I said earlier, you should REALLY do a little research before you start throwing anything you can think of on the wall to see if it sticks. It makes you look bad when you are so easily refuted with just one google search! bornagain77

as I said "Since you reject them, why should I bother with anything else for you?" bornagain77

BA77

Actually Franklin, I do follow the evidence. and I trust Hameroff’s and Carter’s testimony on anesthesia far more than I do Woerlee’s testimony,

If you are following the evidence where it leads then how do you explain that Pam Reynolds NDE began over two hours prior to the cooling procedure of her body? At that time she had a normal body temperature and normal heartbeat. To me, considering that evidence, it seems unlikely that she was dead and more importantly not even close to death. Rather it does support the well known characteristics of insufficient anesthesia. franklin

Instead of a 90 minute video how about you post a few that aren't vague, self fulfilling or self confirmed in the text itself? ChristopherH

For those who cannot afford the $16, here is a brief outline of the main points of the debate between Woerlee and Carter in the IANDs magazine: http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/michael_prescotts_blog/2012/05/click-on-this.html Judge for yourselves whether Woerlee is being dogmatic in his actions bornagain77

ChristopherH, and why don't you believe the prophecies of the Bible? Is that not evidence for 'supernatural' knowledge? The Bible: The Word of God? Extraordinary Claims Demand Extraordinary Evidence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqKqRHNVYb0 Since you reject them, why should I bother with anything else for you? bornagain77

Actually Franklin, I do follow the evidence. and I trust Hameroff's and Carter's testimony on anesthesia far more than I do Woerlee's testimony, Reply to Woerlee’s Rejoinder on the Pam Reynolds Case – Chris Carter (2012 or 2013) Excerpt: In summary, I agree with the assessment of this case by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard,, http://www.merkawah.nl/public_html/images/stories/ccvsgwrepr.pdf Response to "Could Pam Reynolds Hear?" Stuart Hameroff, M.D. Response to "Could Pam Reynolds Hear?" Chris Carter, P.P.E., M.A. Moreover, Woerlee's credibility with me was especially shot after I learned that he directly contradicted the testimony of the medical staff on the scene in the following NDE in order to try to make his case. Near-Death Experience Skeptics Running Out of Excuses As to her amazing near-death experience during which she left her body and was able to look down on medical stuff during their frantic attempt to revive her, Woerlee offered this explanation, “…she hears the conversations. She feels the sensations. And she also is a woman who also has seen films and she knows how these things go. She hears the conversations, why? Because she is awake. That does not surprise me.” Dr. Woerlee’s claims contradict the accounts of medical staff on the scene. They indicated she was clinically dead, “what we call sheet-faced”, and under heavy anesthesia making it medically impossible for her to have a consciousness memory of the experience. http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptics-running-out-of-excuses/ Why is it that I always find dishonesty whenever atheists are ever involved in things like this? You atheists REALLY have to work on your credibility issue. I've heard said that Americans would rather elect a Muslim than an Atheist for president. That should tell you something! :) bornagain77

BA77, any in which they come back possessing knowledge they could not have possibly had without having been contacted by a supernatural force? ChristopherH

Actually Piotr, I've heard many testimonies of people remarking on their extraordinary perceptional abilities during NDEs. In fact, a quick google found this The 10 Most Common Elements of a Near-Death Experience http://paranormal.about.com/od/neardeathexperiences/a/The-10-Most-Common-Elements-Of-A-Near-death-Experience.htm and this: Excerpt: "The world that I had entered was now as solid and real as the world that I had left behind, but the light was still visible. It was a living light. It had vitality and feeling. It was focused in every living thing just as the sun can be focused to a point with a magnifying glass. There were colors, too, not only the colors that I had known on Earth but many octaves of color. Surrounding all my friends and every other living thing was color, arranged in intricate geometrical patterns, each pattern unique, every pattern original. Permeating the colors and patterns was sound, countless octaves of sound. It was as though the colors could be heard. It reminded me of bagpipes. Filling the entire region were the droning sounds. Octave upon octave of invigorating, vitalizing sound. It was very subtle, practically imperceptible but immense, it seemed to reach to infinity. Superimposed on this vast life-giving hum was the melody, which was created by the individual sound of every living thing. Light and sound, color and geometrical patterns were all combined into a totality of harmonic perfection. "It seemed like years had gone by. There was no way to tell, though, whether it had been minutes, hours or years. Where I was now, be-ing was the only reality. Be-ing, which was inseparable from the moment, inseparable from the eternal NOW, inseparable from the life that was in all other beings. Even though this place was as solid and real as the world I left behind, time and space was not an obstacle. "To an animal, a closed door is an insurmountable obstacle. They do not have the faculties necessary to overcome such a barrier. In the world that I had left behind, time and space were just such an insurmountable obstacle. I did not have the faculties necessary to overcome such a barrier. Now I was free, like an animal that had learned how to work a doorknob. I could go in and out of worlds without getting stuck. I could stay inside as long as I wanted. I could become acquainted with people that lived there and get to know their particular customs and their curious opinions, conclusions and beliefs. Then I could leave that world and return to a world without end - a place where there were no opinions, conclusions, or beliefs. It was a place where there was only be-ing, a place of awesome beauty and joy, a place of total harmonic perfection. http://www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers01.html bornagain77

BA77

Here is a more technical refutation of Franklin’s timeline by Woerlee

Did you notice, BA77, that your citation addresses none of the observations and timing of Pam Reynold's surgical procedure. If you wish to continue to not follow the evidence where it leads (an intellectually dishonest position) then you will need to address the actual timeline of what happened to Pam Reynolds. Once you do it is clear that everything she remembered (three years later at that) occurred either prior to the procedure or after the procedure but no memories during the procedure. A clearer case of insufficient anesthesia would be difficult to find. franklin

It's also interesting that the mind's eyes and ears have the same limitations (in terms of light wavelength, colour discrimination, sound frequency range, speech sound spectrum, etc.) as physical eyes and ears. NDE survivors don't report seeing things in infrared or ultraviolet, perceiving radio waves, polarisation effects, neutrinos flitting by, hearing ultrasounds, or anything of the sort. They are "out of their bodies", but still limited by their anatomy and physiology. Why should their perception be constrained in this way? Piotr

BA77, That was pretty entertaining, but you didn't answer my question. I didn't ask whether or why blind people could see during NDEs. I asked why our bodies have eyes and ears if our souls can see and hear without them. keith s

,,,And here is the evidence that quantum information is in fact ‘conserved’;,,,

Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html Quantum no-deleting theorem Excerpt: A stronger version of the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem provide permanence to quantum information. To create a copy one must import the information from some part of the universe and to delete a state one needs to export it to another part of the universe where it will continue to exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_no-deleting_theorem#Consequence

Besides providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims as to the generation of information solely from a material basis, the implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’ quantum information in molecular biology, on such a massive scale, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious:

Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068

Verse and Music:

Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise." Third Day - Tunnel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7V5t9ECZXo

Of supplemental note: Regardless of how much energy we pour into a particle of matter, we can never ‘push’ the particle of matter to the higher dimension of the speed of light:

Question: If a particle with rest-mass were to, in theory, travel at the speed of light, would its mass actually be infinite, or just very, very, very, large, just like it would supposedly take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate the particle to the speed of light in the first place? How can you calculate this? Answer 4: A particle with non-zero rest-mass cannot be accelerated to the speed of light. Put in other terms, the energy of a moving particle with rest-mass m equals E=(r-1)mc2, where the factor r=1/sqrt(1-(v/c)2), with v the speed of the particle and c the speed of light. You can use this formula in an Excel sheet to try different values of rest-mass m and speed v. This equation tells you that you need an infinite amount of energy to accelerate a particle to (exactly) the speed of light, however, you can always take it to, say 99.99999% the speed of light with a finite (but huge) amount of energy. http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1571 “By special relativity, the energy needed to accelerate a particle (with mass) grow super-quadratically when the speed is close to c, and is infinite when it is c. Since you can’t supply infinite energy to the particle, it is not possible to get (a particle with mass) to 100% c.”

bornagain77

Vicky Noratuk's 'tunnel' testimony is interesting to look at because the testimony also includes testimony of her being 'a body of energy, or of light':

“I was in a body, and the only way that I can describe it was a body of energy, or of light. And this body had a form. It had a head, it had arms and it had legs. And it was like it was made out of light. And it was everything that was me. All of my memories, my consciousness, everything.”,,, “And then this vehicle formed itself around me. Vehicle is the only thing, or tube, or something, but it was a mode of transportation that’s for sure! And it formed around me. And there was no one in it with me. I was in it alone. But I knew there were other people ahead of me and behind me. What they were doing I don’t know, but there were people ahead of me and people behind me, but I was alone in my particular conveyance. And I could see out of it. And it went at a tremendously, horrifically, rapid rate of speed. But it wasn’t unpleasant. It was beautiful in fact. I was reclining in this thing, I wasn’t sitting straight up, but I wasn’t lying down either. I was sitting back. And it was just so fast. I can’t even begin to tell you where it went or whatever it was just fast!" – Vicki’s NDE – Blind since birth – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65KhcCS5-Y

But do we have evidence that humans are ''a body of energy, or of light'? The answer to that question is, surprisingly, yes! Yes we do have evidence that humans are 'beings of light'

Are humans really beings of light? Excerpt: “We now know, today, that man is essentially a being of light.”,,, “There are about 100,000 chemical reactions happening in every cell each second. The chemical reaction can only happen if the molecule which is reacting is excited by a photon… Once the photon has excited a reaction it returns to the field and is available for more reactions… We are swimming in an ocean of light.” http://viewzone2.com/dna.html The Real Bioinformatics Revolution - Proteins and Nucleic Acids 'Singing' to One Another? Excerpt: the molecules send out specific frequencies of electromagnetic waves which not only enable them to ‘see' and ‘hear' each other, as both photon and phonon modes exist for electromagnetic waves, but also to influence each other at a distance and become ineluctably drawn to each other if vibrating out of phase (in a complementary way).,,, More than 1 000 proteins from over 30 functional groups have been analysed. Remarkably, the results showed that proteins with the same biological function share a single frequency peak while there is no significant peak in common for proteins with different functions; furthermore the characteristic peak frequency differs for different biological functions. ,,, The same results were obtained when regulatory DNA sequences were analysed. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/TheRealBioinformaticsRevolution.php

You can see an actual picture of humans emitting the weak 'biophotonic' light here:

Strange! Humans Glow in Visible Light - Charles Q. Choi - July 22, 2009 Schematic illustration of experimental setup that found the human body, especially the face, emits visible light in small quantities that vary during the day. B is one of the test subjects. The other images show the weak emissions of visible light during totally dark conditions. The chart corresponds to the images and shows how the emissions varied during the day. The last image (I) is an infrared image of the subject showing heat emissions. http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/006/481/original/090722-body-glow-02.jpg?1296086873

Moreover, this light coming from the human body is found to a emitted by a quantum process, it is not emitted by a classical process:

Photocount distribution of photons emitted from three sites of a human body - 2006 Excerpt: Signals from three representative sites of low, intermediate and high intensities are selected for further analysis. Fluctuations in these signals are measured by the probabilities of detecting different numbers of photons in a bin. The probabilities have non-classical features and are well described by the signal in a quantum squeezed state of photons. Measurements with bins of three sizes yield same values of three parameters of the squeezed state. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16520060

Thus Vicky Noratuk's testimony that she was ''a body of energy, or of light' during her NDE finds strong support from our present scientific evidence for biophotonics in our material bodies. Moreover, besides the finding of massive biophotonic communication within, and emission from, our material bodies, it is now found that transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule).

Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint – 2010 Excerpt: When the researchers analysed the DNA without its helical structure, they found that the electron clouds were not entangled. But when they incorporated DNA’s helical structure into the model, they saw that the electron clouds of each base pair became entangled with those of its neighbours. “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/ Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA - short video https://vimeo.com/92405752 Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature – Elisabetta Collini and Gregory Scholes – University of Toronto – Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73 Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state. http://www.scimednet.org/quantum-coherence-living-cells-and-protein/ Physicists Discover Quantum Law of Protein Folding – February 22, 2011 Quantum mechanics finally explains why protein folding depends on temperature in such a strange way. Excerpt: First, a little background on protein folding. Proteins are long chains of amino acids that become biologically active only when they fold into specific, highly complex shapes. The puzzle is how proteins do this so quickly when they have so many possible configurations to choose from. To put this in perspective, a relatively small protein of only 100 amino acids can take some 10^100 different configurations. If it tried these shapes at the rate of 100 billion a second, it would take longer than the age of the universe to find the correct one. Just how these molecules do the job in nanoseconds, nobody knows.,,, Their astonishing result is that this quantum transition model fits the folding curves of 15 different proteins and even explains the difference in folding and unfolding rates of the same proteins. That's a significant breakthrough. Luo and Lo's equations amount to the first universal laws of protein folding. That’s the equivalent in biology to something like the thermodynamic laws in physics. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/423087/physicists-discover-quantum-law-of-protein/

bornagain77

The reason why blind people can see during Near Death Experiences, and not while they are in their material bodies, is related to the reason why we cannot see higher dimensions while our souls are embodied in our material bodies, and yet people having NDEs can see higher dimensions during their NDEs. Simply put, higher dimensions are invisible to our '3-Dimensional' sight. This following video, which is the first video featured on Anton Zeilinger group's video outreach page,,, https://vcq.quantum.at/outreach/multimedia/videos.html ,,,gets this 'we are blind to higher dimensions' point across quite clearly,,

Dr. Quantum in Flatland - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=takn4FPkId4

People may think we have no evidence for higher dimensions above this one. They would be wrong in that presupposition. In fact, we have far more evidence for a higher dimension(s) above this one than we have for the infinite universes that are postulated by materialists to try to get around the theistic implications of fine-tuning for this universe. In Theism, particularly Christian Theism, it is held there are two ultimate destinies for our eternal souls. Heaven or Hell! And in physics we find two very different ‘eternities’ just as Theism has held for millenia. An orderly eternity associated with Special Relativity and a destructive eternity associated with General Relativity. In this post I will focus on the eternity associated with Special Relativity. One eternity in physics is found ‘if’ a hypothetical observer were to accelerate to the speed of light. In this scenario time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop for the hypothetical observer. To grasp the whole ‘time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light’ concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same ‘thought experiment’ that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.

Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ - video https://vimeo.com/93101738 “I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest – 2005

Some may think that time, as we understand it, coming to a complete stop at the speed of light is pure science fiction, but, as incredible as it sounds, Einstein’s infamous thought experiment has many lines of evidence now supporting it.

Velocity time dilation tests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....tion_tests “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

This following confirmation of time dilation is my favorite since they have actually caught time dilation on film (of note: light travels approximately 1 foot in a nanosecond (billionth of a second) whilst the camera used in the experiment takes a trillion pictures a second):

Amazing — light filmed at 1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second! – video (so fast that at 9:00 Minute mark of video you can briefly see the time dilation effect of relativity caught on film!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_9vd4HWlVA

This higher dimension, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is also warranted, by logic, because light is not ‘frozen within time’, i.e. light appears to move to us in our temporal framework of time, yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light. The only way this is possible is if light is indeed of a higher dimensional value of time than our temporal time is otherwise it would simply be ‘frozen in time’. Another line of evidence that supports the inference that ‘tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday’, at the ‘eternal’ speed of light, is visualizing what would happen if a hypothetical observer were to approach the speed of light. Please note, at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.).

Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/

And, as pointed out previously in this thread, we have testimonies from NDE's testifying to these 'higher dimensional attributes' that are witnessed in Special Relativity. Specifically, we have testimony for both the 'eternal' attribute and the 'tunnel' attribute. Here is testimony from Near Dearth Experiencers experiencing the 'eternal' attribute of special relativity:

‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ - Kimberly Clark Sharp – NDE Experiencer ‘There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.’ - John Star – NDE Experiencer ‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video https://vimeo.com/92172680

And here is testimony from Near Dearth Experiencers experiencing the 'tunnel' attribute of special relativity:

“Very often as they’re moving through the tunnel, there’s a very bright mystical light … not like a light we’re used to in our earthly lives. People call this mystical light, brilliant like a million times a million suns…” - Jeffrey Long M.D. – has studied NDE’s extensively “I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.” Barbara Springer – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel – video https://vimeo.com/79072924 Life After Life – Raymond Moody – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel, The Light, The Life Review – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z56u4wMxNlg

bornagain77

as to: "Why is it too much to ask for someone to come back with non-general knowledge that they could not have possibly had otherwise after an NDE?" They have! See Mickey Robinson's testimony. Why is it too much too ask you guys to investigate a little before you draw such sweeping conclusions. bornagain77

Why is it too much to ask for someone to come back with non-general knowledge that they could not have possibly had otherwise after an NDE? ChristopherH

F/N: Looked at the early exchanges a little while ago, to see DNA_J utterly misconstruing my comment on wanting to know if the claim regarding Hawking had primary source evidence: video or transcript; the question mark in the OP is also relevant context. That misreading speaks to a serious attitude problem of suspicion and contempt towards design thinkers that needs to be noted and addressed. KF kairosfocus

keith s Why don't you ask Vicky Noratuk that question? Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience (NDE) – Pim von Lommel – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyQJDZuMHE Or perhaps you can ask Dr. Pim von Lommel that question? The Mystery of Perception During Near Death Experiences - Pim van Lommel - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avyUsPgIuQ0 A Reply to Shermer Medical Evidence for NDEs (Near Death Experiences) – Pim van Lommel Excerpt: For decades, extensive research has been done to localize memories (information) inside the brain, so far without success.,,,,So we need a functioning brain to receive our consciousness into our waking consciousness. And as soon as the function of brain has been lost, like in clinical death or in brain death, with iso-electricity on the EEG, memories and consciousness do still exist, but the reception ability is lost. People can experience their consciousness outside their body, with the possibility of perception out and above their body, with identity, and with heightened awareness, attention, well-structured thought processes, memories and emotions. And they also can experience their consciousness in a dimension where past, present and future exist at the same moment, without time and space, and can be experienced as soon as attention has been directed to it (life review and preview), and even sometimes they come in contact with the “fields of consciousness” of deceased relatives. And later they can experience their conscious return into their body. http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htm Dr Pim Van Lommel's scientific studies on near-death experiences and consciousness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8scc2YbXUk bornagain77

#67 A good point. Wallstreeter43, try curing blindness by telling blind people to see directly "with their minds". Piotr

wallstreeter43, If the immaterial soul can see and hear without eyes and ears while outside of the body, then why do we need eyes and ears to see and hear while we are embodied? keith s

Dna jock said ""Like News, I wouldn’t expect someone to come back from an NDE with next week`s lotto numbers, but I agree with CHartsil that it would be rather good evidence in their favor. There’s no inconsistency there. Your condescension is as misplaced as it is impressive. Personally, I would settle for an accurate description of the placard on the shelf. Unfortunately, out of the 330 cardiac arrest patients in AWARE who survived their hospital stay, only two had category 5 (auditory/visual awareness) memories and neither of these was in a room with placards. The point remains: until someone comes back with information that they could not possibly have arrived at through other means, there isn`t any evidence for a ‘spiritual’ explanation of NDEs, much as we all might wish it otherwise."" Just as I suspected DNA you play the same push the goalposts back that Chartsil used. I'm noticing the same delusional hyper skepticism being used here so maybe it's not something atheists do on purpose but it's definately not normal. The man was in no condition to get this information as the study shows , but of course you take the stance that either he was cheating or the hospital staff was cheating or lying but if you knew about the protocols taken you would know that this just wasn't realistic to believe . Also take the fact that he was in the none functional brain zone and it makes ur stance a very delusional one to take . And as I pointed out to Chartsil , I'm going to have to point out to you and that is psychic phenomenon is a different area than Nde's and this area of research is completely different and psychics and remote viewers can have these experiences without an nde and in fact psychic studies are being done without Nde's , so yoir assertion that psychic information can only be done through Nde's is not only ridiculous but it shows that your hyper skepticism is in fact abnormal. This is bordering on some type of mental problem. My bringing up Nde's and the aware study wasn't to try to convince people like u and Chartsil who have already made up your minds and mold the evidence to fit your predisposed worldview . It is for the open minded atheist ,agnostics and fence sitters. One such atheist I have already direct to this thread who is lurking and he even agrees that your degree of hyper skepticism is crazy. Ladies and gentlemen is like to thank DNA jock and Chartsil for their unbelievably ridiculous assertion . Thanks guys . You have helped my atheist friend more then you can imagine ;) Keep up the good work lol wallstreeter43

Here is a more technical refutation of Franklin's timeline by Woerlee Reply to Woerlee’s Rejoinder on the Pam Reynolds Case - Chris Carter (2012 or 2013) Excerpt: In summary, I agree with the assessment of this case by neuroscientist Mario Beauregard,, http://www.merkawah.nl/public_html/images/stories/ccvsgwrepr.pdf bornagain77

coherence not a strong suit for you is it? "if" I knew for a fact you were lying, rudeness or not, I would have no problem telling you take it how you want." English classes are on another website! bornagain77

So your defense, bornagain, is that you "knew for a fact" that I was lying when I said that I wished NDEs were real. You really are a poster child. Keep digging that hole; I love it. DNA_Jock

DNA_Jock, as I said, if I knew for a fact you were lying, rudeness or not, I would have no problem telling you that you did. So take it how you want. bornagain77

Franklin, Here is the accurate timeline here: Near death, explained New science is shedding light on what really happens during out-of-body experiences -- with shocking results. Mario Beauregard - 2012 Pam was brought into the operating room at 7:15 a.m., she was given general anesthesia, and she quickly lost conscious awareness. At this point, Spetzler and his team of more than 20 physicians, nurses, and technicians went to work. They lubricated Pam’s eyes to prevent drying, and taped them shut. They attached EEG electrodes to monitor the electrical activity of her cerebral cortex. They inserted small, molded speakers into her ears and secured them with gauze and tape. The speakers would emit repeated 100-decibel clicks—approximately the noise produced by a speeding express train—eliminating outside sounds and measuring the activity of her brainstem. At 8:40 a.m., the tray of surgical instruments was uncovered, and Robert Spetzler began cutting through Pam’s skull with a special surgical saw that produced a noise similar to a dental drill. At this moment, Pam later said, she felt herself “pop” out of her body and hover above it, watching as doctors worked on her body. Although she no longer had use of her eyes and ears, she described her observations in terms of her senses and perceptions. “I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar,” she said. “I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not.” She also described the Midas Rex bone saw (“The saw thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it … ”) and the dental-drill sound it made with considerable accuracy. Meanwhile, Spetzler was removing the outermost membrane of Pamela’s brain, cutting it open with scissors. At about the same time, a female cardiac surgeon was attempting to locate the femoral artery in Pam’s right groin. Remarkably, Pam later claimed to remember a female voice saying, “We have a problem. Her arteries are too small.” And then a male voice: “Try the other side.” Medical records confirm this conversation, yet Pam could not have heard them. The cardiac surgeon was right—Pam’s blood vessels were indeed too small to accept the abundant blood flow requested by the cardiopulmonary bypass machine, so at 10:50 a.m., a tube was inserted into Pam’s left femoral artery and connected to the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. The warm blood circulated from the artery into the cylinders of the bypass machine, where it was cooled down before being returned to her body. Her body temperature began to fall, and at 11:05 a.m. Pam’s heart stopped. Her EEG brain waves flattened into total silence. A few minutes later, her brain stem became totally unresponsive, and her body temperature fell to a sepulchral 60 degrees Fahrenheit. At 11:25 a.m., the team tilted up the head of the operating table, turned off the bypass machine, and drained the blood from her body. Pamela Reynolds was clinically dead. At this point, Pam’s out-of-body adventure transformed into a near-death experience (NDE): She recalls floating out of the operating room and traveling down a tunnel with a light. She saw deceased relatives and friends, including her long-dead grandmother, waiting at the end of this tunnel. She entered the presence of a brilliant, wonderfully warm and loving light, and sensed that her soul was part of God and that everything in existence was created from the light (the breathing of God). But this extraordinary experience ended abruptly, as Reynolds’s deceased uncle led her back to her body—a feeling she described as “plunging into a pool of ice.” Meanwhile, in the operating room, the surgery had come to an end. When all the blood had drained from Pam’s brain, the aneurysm simply collapsed and Spetzler clipped it off. Soon, the bypass machine was turned on and warm blood was pumped back into her body. As her body temperature started to increase, her brainsteam began to respond to the clicking speakers in her ears and the EEG recorded electrical activity in the cortex. The bypass machine was turned off at 12:32 p.m. Pam’s life had been restored, and she was taken to the recovery room in stable condition at 2:10 p.m. http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained/ Moreover, your boy Woerlee is shown to be grasping for straws here on another NDE: Near-Death Experience Skeptics Running Out of Excuses As to her amazing near-death experience during which she left her body and was able to look down on medical stuff during their frantic attempt to revive her, Woerlee offered this explanation, “…she hears the conversations. She feels the sensations. And she also is a woman who also has seen films and she knows how these things go. She hears the conversations, why? Because she is awake. That does not surprise me.” Dr. Woerlee’s claims contradict the accounts of medical staff on the scene. They indicated she was clinically dead, “what we call sheet-faced”, and under heavy anesthesia making it medically impossible for her to have a consciousness memory of the experience. http://www.skeptiko.com/near-death-experience-skeptics-running-out-of-excuses/ In other words, Woerlee is just another typical atheist who refuses to believe anything that contradicts his worldview, and will 'explain away' any evidence to the contrary. bornagain77

So if I hold that you may personally believe that you are being fair, but I personally don’t think you are being fair, then that means that I am accusing you of lying in your book?

No, it does not. If, however, I state that I wish NDEs were real, and you reply "I don’t buy your ‘wish’ for a moment", THAT is an accusation of lying. Who is and who is not being fair in evaluating the evidence is a separate issue, one on which we obviously do not agree. That's fine. It is the accusation of lying that is rude. Sad that you cannot see the difference. "Telling", even. DNA_Jock

So if I hold that you may personally believe that you are being fair, but I personally don't think you are being fair, then that means that I am accusing you of lying in your book? For your information DNA_Jock, I would have to actually accuse you of knowingly stating a falsehood in order for it to be true that I accused you of lying. ,,, Which, by the way, I would have no problem doing if I knew for a fact that you were doing as such (as I do with Nick Matzke). Right now the worse I can hold against you is that you are being personally dishonest with yourself in evaluating the evidence. And I think that point is more than obvious for the unbiased reader. bornagain77

BA77

Franklin, as the surgeon in the video I cited testified, what she ‘saw’ in the operating room simply was not ‘available’ for her to see. I suggest you check more carefully before throwing whatever you can think of on the wall to see what sticks::

You are not following the evidence where it leads, BA77. There is a well documented timeline for her case and it all supports insufficient anesthesia. http://neardth.com/pam-reynolds-near-death-experience.php you may feel free to debunk each step in the timeline if you wish but the case is clear that what this case constitutes and it is not NDE. franklin

So your argument is that she knew what an OR looked like and your only explanation is magic? ChristopherH

DNA_Jock, I have no doubt that you might believe you are being fair. I said that I don’t buy your ‘wish’ for a moment, and made my case as to why I think you are not being fair to the evidence.

Accusation of lying highlighted.

I’ll leave it to the unbiased reader to decide who has made his case with the empirical evidence and who has not.

Good luck finding one hereabouts. LMAO DNA_Jock

DNA_Jock, I have no doubt that you might believe you are being fair. I said that I don't buy your 'wish' for a moment, and made my case as to why I think you are not being fair to the evidence. I'll leave it to the unbiased reader to decide who has made his case with the empirical evidence and who has not. bornagain77

Franklin, as the surgeon in the video I cited testified, what she 'saw' in the operating room simply was not 'available' for her to see. I suggest you check more carefully before throwing whatever you can think of on the wall to see what sticks:: Her testimony is truly extraordinary People Have Near-Death Experiences While Brain Dead http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html bornagain77

bornagain, Thank you again for your honesty, in particular your frankness in accusing me of lying. Your extreme confirmation bias is driving you to new depths. This place is a wonderful showcase. I am reminded of the joke about the cop who pulled over the car with the chi-rho bumper sticker because the driver was cutting off other drivers and flipping them the bird. "I'm sorry Ma`am. I thought the car must be stolen." DNA_Jock

BA77

The extremely ‘monitored’ NDE of Pam Reynolds – video

Pam Reynold's experience is a clear cut case of insufficient anesthesia. franklin

How Strong is the Quantum Evidence for a Transcendent Soul? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yHsXAzI4Tw2xOW2lpsUE4os70Ot22eXBOZ6qauoJfZQ/edit bornagain77

Well DNA_Jock, I don't buy your 'wish' for a minute. I pay attention to facts. The facts are that your very own standard for believing NDE's, i.e. bringing back 'information' that could not have been known beforehand, has been meet time and again. Besides Parnia's testimony, here are three more 'very credible' accounts that meet your threshold:

The extremely ‘monitored’ NDE of Pam Reynolds – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k “I think death is an illusion. I think death is a really nasty, bad lie. I don’t see any truth in the word death at all” – Pam Reynolds Lowery (1956 – May 22, 2010) 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 supposedly ‘dead’. Famous Cardiac Surgeon’s Stories of Near Death Experiences in Surgery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08 Michaela’s Amazing NEAR death experience – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTcHWz6UMZ8

Moreover, it is not as if NDEs are physically impossible from a physics standpoint and you are arguing from some limitation in physics that would preclude NDEs from being possible. In fact, that the soul is separable from the temporal body is a question that is no longer confined to philosophical discussion but is a position that has empirical support from the physics of the body https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZJUjfAQUP8IxnZOS1wLCIH9XSR642GCdPZlL5wWrOzY/edit As well, Special Relativity itself offers support for the validity of NDEs Please note, at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.).

Seeing Relativity – Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnHTKZBTI4

As well there is evidence that time comes to a complete stop at the speed of light

“I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest – 2005 Albert Einstein – Special Relativity – Insight Into Eternity – ‘thought experiment’ video https://vimeo.com/93101738 “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12

And yet, in unexpected conjunction with Relativity, People who have NDE's commonly report going through a tunnel to a higher heavenly dimension and also report entering a 'timeless eternity':

"Very often as they're moving through the tunnel, there's a very bright mystical light ... not like a light we're used to in our earthly lives. People call this mystical light, brilliant like a million times a million suns..." - Jeffrey Long M.D. - has studied NDE's extensively “I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.” Barbara Springer – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel – video https://vimeo.com/79072924 Life After Life – Raymond Moody – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel, The Light, The Life Review – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z56u4wMxNlg 'Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything - past, present, future - exists simultaneously.' - Kimberly Clark Sharp - NDE Experiencer 'There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.' - John Star - NDE Experiencer ‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video https://vimeo.com/92172680

Thus, DNA_Jock, you may claim that you are not overly skeptical of NDEs and that you 'wish' NDEs were real, but I simply do not buy it. Your very own threshold of 'information from beyond' has been met, and even physical reality itself reveals, through Special Relativity, that NDEs are concordant with reality. From a scientific standpoint, you simply have no excuse for being so skeptical no matter how much you claim that you 'wish' the accounts were credible. bornagain77

111 bornagain77

bornagain, Thank you for your honesty. I wanted to give you another opportunity to display your confirmation bias, and you came through for me. In spades. If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that I have twice on this thread (in comments that you have replied to) stated that I wish NDEs were real. I'll forgive you for your erroneous assumption that I am an atheist. That hasn't come up on this thread. Unlike your confirmation bias. DNA_Jock

DNA_Jock, I think your a-priori commitment to materialism/naturalism blinds 'you', (if there were really a 'you' in materialism to begin with), to any evidence for NDEs, or for intelligent design in general for that matter. I suggest reading Nancy Pearcey's article to see how selective atheists are in their skepticism: Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself - Nancy Pearcey - March 8, 2015 Excerpt: Steven Pinker writes, "Our brains were shaped for fitness, not for truth. Sometimes the truth is adaptive, but sometimes it is not." The upshot is that survival is no guarantee of truth. If survival is the only standard, we can never know which ideas are true and which are adaptive but false. To make the dilemma even more puzzling, evolutionists tell us that natural selection has produced all sorts of false concepts in the human mind. Many evolutionary materialists maintain that free will is an illusion, consciousness is an illusion, even our sense of self is an illusion -- and that all these false ideas were selected for their survival value. So how can we know whether the theory of evolution itself is one of those false ideas? The theory undercuts itself.,,, Of course, the atheist pursuing his research has no choice but to rely on rationality, just as everyone else does. The point is that he has no philosophical basis for doing so. Only those who affirm a rational Creator have a basis for trusting human rationality. The reason so few atheists and materialists seem to recognize the problem is that, like Darwin, they apply their skepticism selectively. They apply it to undercut only ideas they reject, especially ideas about God. They make a tacit exception for their own worldview commitments. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/why_evolutionar094171.html bornagain77

borngain77, a quick question. What do you think drives my skepticism of NDE accounts? DNA_Jock

Funny DNA_Jock, Parnia, who is among the most skeptical of NDE researchers, personally testifies of a patient who brought back information to him that he could not possibly have known. Parnia also personally describes his testimony as 'very credible' and yet you do not accept that testimony as good enough. Color me unimpressed with your skepticism! On the one hand you unskeptically accept that unguided material processes can create, without any guidance whatsoever, the unfathomable complexity of our brain, (more complex than the entire internet combined), even though you cannot produce evidence for a single molecular machine arising by unguided material processes, yet on the other hand you dismiss any and all claims for a reality beyond the material realm even though the testimonies from many credible NDEs stand up to scrutiny. Along the line of compelling evidence for NDEs: Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their Near Death Experiences (NDEs). 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. (of note: This 'anomaly' is also found for deaf people who can hear sound during their Near Death Experiences(NDEs).) http://www.newdualism.org/nde-papers/Ring/Ring-Journal%20of%20Near-Death%20Studies_1997-16-101-147-1.pdf Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience (NDE) - Pim von Lommel - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyQJDZuMHE Coast to Coast - Vicki's Near Death Experience (Blind From Birth) part 1 of 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65KhcCS5-Y Quote from preceding video: 'I was in a body and the only way that I can describe it was a body of energy, or of light. And this body had a form. It had a head. It had arms and it had legs. And it was like it was made out of light. And 'it' was everything that was me. All of my memories, my consciousness, everything.' - Vicky Noratuk bornagain77

Folks, I would think the crucial case is the one with after death experiences with altogether over 500 witnesses. KF kairosfocus

It should be noted: All foreign, non-Judeo-Christian culture, NDE studies I have looked at have a extreme rarity of encounters with 'The Being Of Light' and tend to be very unpleasant NDE's save for the few pleasant children's NDEs of those cultures that I've seen (It seems there is indeed an 'age of accountability'). The following study was shocking for what was found in some non-Judeo-Christian NDE's: Near-Death Experiences in Thailand - Todd Murphy: Excerpt:The Light seems to be absent in Thai NDEs. So is the profound positive affect found in so many Western NDEs. The most common affect in our collection is negative. Unlike the negative affect in so many Western NDEs (cf. Greyson & Bush, 1992), that found in Thai NDEs (in all but case #11) has two recognizable causes. The first is fear of 'going'. The second is horror and fear of hell. It is worth noting that although half of our collection include seeing hell (cases 2,6,7,9,10) and being forced to witness horrific tortures, not one includes the NDEer having been subjected to these torments themselves. http://www.shaktitechnology.com/thaindes.htm Near Death Experience Thailand Asia - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8M5J3zWG5g A Comparative view of Tibetan and Western Near-Death Experiences by Lawrence Epstein University of Washington: Excerpt: Episode 5: The OBE systematically stresses the 'das-log's discomfiture, pain, disappointment, anger and disillusionment with others and with the moral worth of the world at large. The acquisition of a yid-lus and the ability to travel instantaneously are also found here. Episode 6: The 'das-log, usually accompanied by a supernatural guide, tours bar-do, where he witnesses painful scenes and meets others known to him. They give him messages to take back. Episode 7: The 'das-log witnesses trials in and tours hell. The crimes and punishments of others are explained to him. Tortured souls also ask him to take back messages to the living. http://www.case.edu/affil/tibet/booksAndPapers/neardeath.html?nw_view=1281960224&amp India Cross-cultural study by Dr. Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia Medical School and Dr. Satwant Pasricha of the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, India Excerpt: "Suddenly I saw two big pots of boiling water, although there was no fire, no firewood, and no fireplace. Then, the man pushed me with his hand and said, "You'd better hurry up and go back." When he touched me, I suddenly became aware of how hot his hand was. Then I realised why the pots were boiling. The heat was coming from his hands! When I regained consciousness, I had a severe burning sensation in my left arm." Mangal still had a mark on his left arm that he claims was a result of the burning. About a quarter of Dr Pasricha's interviewees reported such marks. http://www.rediff.com/news/1999/apr/06pas.htm Near-Death Experiences of Hindus Pasricha and Stevenson's research Except: "Two persons caught me and took me with them. I felt tired after walking some distance; they started to drag me. My feet became useless. There was a man sitting up. He looked dreadful and was all black. He was not wearing any clothes. He said in a rage [to the attendants who had brought Vasudev] "I had asked you to bring Vasudev the gardener.,,, In reply to questions about details, Vasudev said that the "black man" had a club and used foul language. Vasudev identified him as Yamraj, the Hindu god of the dead. http://www.near-death.com/hindu.html Near-Death Experiences Among Survivors of the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake (Chinese) Excerpt: Our subjects reported NDE phemenological items not mentioned, or rarely mentioned in NDE's reported from other countries: sensations of the world being exterminated or ceasing to exist, a sense of weightlessness, a feeling of being pulled or squeezed, ambivalence about death, a feeling of being a different person, or a different kind of person and unusual scents. The predominant phemenological features in our series were feeling estranged from the body as if it belonged to someone else, unusually vivid thoughts, loss of emotions, unusual bodily sensations, life seeming like a dream, a feeling of dying,,, These are not the same phemenological features most commonly found by researchers in other countries. Greyson (1983) reported the most common phemenological feature of American NDE's to be a feeling of peace, joy, time stopping, experiencing an unearthly realm of existence, a feeling of cosmic unity, and a out of body experience. http://www.newdualism.org/nde-papers/Zhi-ying/Zhi-ying-Journal%20of%20Near-Death%20Studies_1992-11-39-48.pdf The Japanese find death a depressing experience - From an item by Peter Hadfield in the New Scientist (Nov. 30th 1991) Excerpt: A study in Japan shows that even in death the Japanese have an original way of looking at things. Instead of seeing 'tunnels of light' or having 'out of body' experiences, near-dead patients in Japanese hospitals tend to see rather less romantic images, according to researchers at Kyorin University. According to a report in the Mainichi newspaper, a group of doctors from Kyorin has spent the past year documenting the near-death experiences of 17 patients. They had all been resuscitated from comas caused by heart attacks, strokes, asthma or drug poisoning. All had shown minimal signs of life during the coma. Yoshia Hata, who led the team, said that eight of the 17 recalled 'dreams', many featuring rivers or ponds. Five of those patients had dreams which involved fear, pain and suffering. One 50-year-old asthmatic man said he had seen himself wade into a reservoir and do a handstand in the shallows. 'Then I walked out of the water and took some deep breaths. In the dream, I was repeating this over and over.' Another patient, a 73-year-old woman with cardiac arrest, saw a cloud filled with dead people. 'It was a dark, gloomy day. I was chanting sutras. I believed they could be saved if they chanted sutras, so that is what I was telling them to do.' Most of the group said they had never heard of Near-Death Experiences before. http://www.pureinsight.org/node/4 It should also be noted that there are hellish NDE's reported within Judeo-Christian cultures: Mesiah from I Survived Beyond and Back part 2 - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FehcSO5YNUI video - Howard Storm continues to share his gripping story of his own near death experience. Today, he picks up just as Jesus was rescuing him from the horrors of Hell and carrying him into the glories of Heaven. http://www.daystar.com/ondemand/joni-heaven-howard-storm-j924/#.UKvFrYYsE31 "I knew for certain there was no such thing as life after death. Only simple minded people believed in that sort of thing. I didn't believe in God, Heaven, or Hell, or any other fairy tales. I drifted into darkness. Drifting asleep into anihilation.,,(Chapter 2 - The Descent),, I was standing up. I opened my eyes to see why I was standing up. I was between two hospital beds in the hospital room.,,, Everything that was me, my consciousness and my physical being, was standing next to the bed. No, it wasn't me lying in the bed. It was just a thing that didn't have any importance to me. It might as well have been a slab of meat in the supermarket",,, Howard Storm - former hard-core atheist - Excerpt from his book, 'My Descent Into Death' (Page 12-14) bornagain77

Interesting stuff, but the actual recollections were:

Category 5 recollections Recollection # 1 (Before the cardiac arrest) “I was answering (the nurse), but I could also feel a real hard pressure on my groin. I could feel the pressure, couldn’t feel the pain or anything like that, just real hard pressure, like someone was really pushing down on me. And I was still talking to (the nurse) and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t. I must have (blanked out). . ..but then I can remember vividly an automated voice saying, “shock the patient, shock the patient,” and with that, up in (the) corner of the room there was a (woman) beckoning me. . .I can remember thinking to myself, “I can’t get up there”. . .she beckoned me. . . I felt that she knew me, I felt that I could trust her, and I felt she was there for a reason and I didn’t know what that was. . .and the next second, I was up there, looking down at me, the nurse, and another man who had a bald head. . .I couldn’t see his face but I could see the back of his body. He was quite a chunky fella. . . He had blue scrubs on, and he had a blue hat, but I could tell he didn’t have any hair, because of where the hat was. The next thing I remember is waking up on (the) bed. And (the nurse) said to me: “Oh you nodded off. . .you are back with us now.” Whether she said those words, whether that automated voice really happened, I don’t know. . .. I can remember feeling quite euphoric. . . I know who (the man with the blue had was). . .I (didn’t) know his full name, but. . .he was the man that. . .(I saw) the next day. . .I saw this man [come to visit me] and I knew who I had seen the day before.” Post-script – Medical record review confirmed the use of the AED, the medical team present during the cardiac arrest and the role the identified “man” played in responding to the cardiac arrest. Recollection # 2 “At the beginning, I think, I heard the nurse say ‘dial 444 cardiac arrest’. I felt scared. I was on the ceiling looking down. I saw a nurse that I did not know beforehand who I saw after the event. I could see my body and saw everything at once. I saw my blood pressure being taken whilst the doctor was putting something down my throat. I saw a nurse pumping on my chest. . .I saw blood gases and blood sugar levels being taken.”

I have watched two women put on "X-ray vision glasses" that allowed them to see the naked bodies of clothed people. Or so they believed at the time. It was absolutely hilarious as they pointed and laughed, but also thought-provoking. How did their minds synthesize images that they found credible? Unless of course you think that the glasses worked as advertised... Color me underwhelmed by these generic descriptions of resuscitation, as seen on TV. As I wrote earlier, until someone comes back with information that they could not possibly have arrived at through other means [e.g. the image on the shelf], there isn`t any evidence for a ‘spiritual’ explanation of NDEs, much as we all might wish it otherwise. DNA_Jock

wallstreeter - Consider the following: A Christian who believes that NDEs are 'spiritual' would predict that both Christians and Hindus would have 'Christian' NDEs. A Hindu who believes that NDEs are 'spiritual' would predict that both Christians and Hindus would have 'Hindu' NDEs. Anyone who believes the NDEs have a physiological explanation, whether they be Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or atheist, would predict that Christians would have 'Christian' NDEs, and Hindus would have 'Hindu' NDEs. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3950600 Ho hum. DNA_Jock

as to: "The point remains: until someone comes back with information that they could not possibly have arrived at through other means, there isn`t any evidence for a ‘spiritual’ explanation of NDEs, much as we all might wish it otherwise." 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 The extremely ‘monitored’ NDE of Pam Reynolds – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNbdUEqDB-k "I think death is an illusion. I think death is a really nasty, bad lie. I don’t see any truth in the word death at all" – Pam Reynolds Lowery (1956 – May 22, 2010) 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 supposedly 'dead'. Famous Cardiac Surgeon’s Stories of Near Death Experiences in Surgery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1oDuvQR08 Michaela's Amazing NEAR death experience - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTcHWz6UMZ8 "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. bornagain77

as to: Ba77, if you actually read my post, you would know that I don’t think that a Spiegelman monster, or any other example of a complicated machine arising without guidance, would refute ID because (as I wrote) ID has no entailments. and in that you would be wrong: to repeat: your claim that ID has no ‘entailments’ is an interesting claim for a Darwinist to make since ID is much more easily falsifiable than neo-Darwinism is: “In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.” Karl Popper – The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge http://izquotes.com/quote/147518 It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness – David L. Abel Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.” If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_ bornagain77

Wallstreeter43, Like News, I wouldn’t expect someone to come back from an NDE with next week`s lotto numbers, but I agree with CHartsil that it would be rather good evidence in their favor. There’s no inconsistency there. Your condescension is as misplaced as it is impressive. Personally, I would settle for an accurate description of the placard on the shelf. Unfortunately, out of the 330 cardiac arrest patients in AWARE who survived their hospital stay, only two had category 5 (auditory/visual awareness) memories and neither of these was in a room with placards. The point remains: until someone comes back with information that they could not possibly have arrived at through other means, there isn`t any evidence for a ‘spiritual’ explanation of NDEs, much as we all might wish it otherwise. Ba77, if you actually read my post, you would know that I don’t think that a Spiegelman monster, or any other example of a complicated machine arising without guidance, would refute ID because (as I wrote) ID has no entailments. DNA_Jock

Plus news whether Nde's being caused by the brain or not isn't dependent on a psychic event such as telling the future or past. Chartsil didn't know about the aware study and instead of admitting to it he tried to cover his tracks by making this ridiculous argument . This fact right here shows that he has a religious commitment to his atheism/materialism worldview and really isn't interested in the scientific evidence. Unless it favors his cult like blind faith in his atheism . And this isn't limited to scientists like Chartsil who is way out of his element . As you can see in the links I provide below alex tsakiris of skeptiko completely destroyed professor patricia churchland who is a professor of philosophy of neuroscience at ucsd . He got her so flustered on the evidence for Nde's that she basically hanged up on him and pretended that it was a problem with her audio. Then alex called her up twice and each time the audio was working but when alex caught her lying in her book when she claimed in her book that doctor Lommel believed that Nde's were. A used by the brain and alex told her that in fact doctor Lommel believed the opposite that again her audio stopped working twice when she was supposed to answer. When he sent her an email there was no response anymore . This is a professor that teaches at a presigious university and she is either ignirant or willingly ignored the evidence against the brain being the cause of Nde's Watch the audio interview , it's totally hillarious and she's even. Orr ognorant about Nde's then Chartsil is lol. And alex isn't even a Christian http://youtu.be/7a6ZaivvCnE http://www.skeptiko.com/237-patricia-churchland-sandbagged-by-near-death-experience/ Oh and I almost forgot , professor churchland is oxford educated . Wow an oxford edi actiin in her area of expertise must not require much rigor lol wallstreeter43

This thread has been interesting and instructive. It started with me crowdsourcing a rumour I doubted, and got good results (in terms of articulable reasons for doubt). There'll be a lot more of this on the Internet, so we may as well get used to it. One couldn't discount the possibility because, in the last years of his life, Antony Flew, longtime reputable atheist, converted to deism. Many showmen suddenly face the reality others have always lived in. Note: Reading post just above, if someone claimed an NDE brought him info re winning Lotto picks, we must know that it is false. A person in that position would not care about winning Lotto picks. No one would care about such matters in the midst of a heart attack. Most likely, the guy making the claim knows someone who scams lotteries, which can happen more often than many people admit , especially if they believe that life if just a giant lottery:

One guy we covered in February was honest: Statistician Mohan Srivastava of Toronto, Canada, picked winning Ontario Lottery scratch cards by assuming that they were assigned by a software tool called a pseudo-random number generator. Instead of ripping off, he picked 19 of 20 proposed winners correctly and took the unscratched cards to the lottery commission. Which pretty much ended that game. And we’ve all heard about the Texas “lucky star” lotto queen too.

Jabr reports that Srivastava told Ontario lotto that some techniques do produce truly random sequences – techniques using thermal noise, for example.

News

Maybe DNA jock also believes that Nde's are caused by the brain . Somehow I don't think he will make the same ignorant error that chartsil made who tried to dig himself out of his deep hole by claiming that if the guy brought back information of next weeks winning lotto picks then his nde would be believable . Few people are really that ignorant right folks ;) wallstreeter43

What an entertaining train wreck this thread has been. keith s

DNA_Jock is this the supposed falsification of Behe you were talking about?

Spiegelman Monster is the name given to an RNA chain of only 218 nucleotides that is able to be reproduced by an RNA replication enzyme. It is named after its creator, Sol Spiegelman, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Spiegelman introduced RNA from a simple bacteriophage Q? (Q?) into a solution which contained Q?'s RNA replication enzyme, some free nucleotides, and some salts. In this environment, the RNA started to replicate. After a while, Spiegelman took some RNA and moved it to another tube with fresh solution. This process was repeated. Shorter RNA chains were able to replicate faster, so the RNA became shorter and shorter as selection favored speed. After 74 generations, the original strand with 4,500 nucleotide bases ended up as a dwarf genome with only 218 bases. Such a short RNA had been able to replicate very quickly in these unnatural circumstances. In 1997, Eigen and Oehlenschlager showed that the Spiegelman monster eventually becomes even shorter, containing only 48 or 54 nucleotides, which are simply the binding sites for the reproducing enzyme RNA replicase. M. Sumper and R. Luce of Eigen's laboratory demonstrated that a mixture containing no RNA at all but only RNA bases and Q? replicase can, under the right conditions, spontaneously generate self-replicating RNA which evolves into a form similar to Spiegelman's Monster. http://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Spiegelman%20Monster

So this is your big falsification of ID by unguided material processes? And you think this falsifies Behe (and Meyer) how exactly? a few related notes that the unbiased reader may be interested in:

Nick Lane Takes on the Origin of Life and DNA - Jonathan McLatchie - July 2010 Excerpt: As Stephen Meyer has comprehensively documented in his book, Signature in the Cell, the RNA-world hypothesis is fraught with problems, quite apart from those pertaining to the origin of information. For example, the formation of the first RNA molecule would have required the prior emergence of smaller constituent molecules, including ribose sugar, phosphate molecules, and the four RNA nucleotide bases. However, it turns out that both synthesizing and maintaining these essential RNA building blocks -- especially ribose -- and the nucleotide bases is a very difficult task under origin-of-life conditions. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/07/nick_lane_and_the_ten_great_in036101.html An Evolutionist Just Gave Up On a Fundamental Just-So Story (And Then Made Up Another to Replace it) - March 2012 Excerpt: "I'm convinced that the RNA world (hypothesis) is not correct," Caetano-Anollés said. "That world of nucleic acids could not have existed if not tethered to proteins.",, The ribosome is a "ribonucleoprotein machine," a complex that can have as many as 80 proteins interacting with multiple RNA molecules,,,, Furthermore, "you can't get RNA to perform the molecular function of protein synthesis that is necessary for the cell by itself."… It appears the basic building blocks of the machinery of the cell have always been the same from the beginning of life to the present: http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/03/evolutionist-just-gave-up-on.html The RNA world hypothesis: the worst theory for the early evolution of life (except for all the others) - July 2012 Excerpt: "The RNA World scenario is bad as a scientific hypothesis" - Eugene Koonin “The RNA world hypothesis has been reduced by ritual abuse to something like a creationist mantra” - Charles Kurland "I view it as little more than a popular fantasy." - Charles Carter http://www.biology-direct.com/content/pdf/1745-6150-7-23.pdf New findings challenge assumptions about origins of life - September 13, 2013 Excerpt: But for the hypothesis to be correct, ancient RNA catalysts would have had to copy multiple sets of RNA blueprints nearly as accurately as do modern-day enzymes. That's a hard sell; scientists calculate that it would take much longer than the age of the universe for randomly generated RNA molecules to evolve sufficiently to achieve the modern level of sophistication. Given Earth's age of 4.5 billion years, living systems run entirely by RNA could not have reproduced and evolved either fast or accurately enough to give rise to the vast biological complexity on Earth today. "The RNA world hypothesis is extremely unlikely," said Carter. "It would take forever." Moreover, there's no proof that such ribozymes even existed billions of years ago. To buttress the RNA World hypothesis, scientists use 21st century technology to create ribozymes that serve as catalysts. "But most of those synthetic ribozymes," Carter said, "bear little resemblance to anything anyone has ever isolated from a living system.",,, The (current) study leaves open the question of exactly how those primitive systems managed to replicate themselves—something neither the RNA World hypothesis nor the Peptide-RNA World theory can yet explain. http://phys.org/news/2013-09-assumptions-life.html Origin of life researchers say they are one step closer to RNA world - January 17, 2014 Excerpt: "Holliger lab,, made an RNA molecule that is able to accurately copy RNA sequences that are longer than itself – more than 200 building blocks long" Informed sources note that the molecule can replicate other template RNAs if it is given activated nucleotides, the right buffer, and other advantages. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/origin-of-life-researchers-say-they-are-one-step-closer-to-rna-world/ Biological Information: The Puzzle of Life that Darwinism Hasn’t Solved - Stephen C. Meyer Thus, as my book Signature in the Cell shows, Joyce’s experiments not only demonstrate that self-replication itself depends upon information-rich molecules, but they also confirm that intelligent design is the only known means by which information arises. http://www.evolutionnews.org//2009/06/biological_information_the_puz.html Stephen Meyer Responds to Fletcher in Times Literary Supplement - Jan. 2010 Excerpt: everything we know about RNA catalysts, including those with partial self-copying capacity, shows that the function of these molecules depends upon the precise arrangement of their information-carrying constituents (i.e., their nucleotide bases). Functional RNA catalysts arise only once RNA bases are specifically-arranged into information-rich sequences—that is, function arises after, not before, the information problem has been solved. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/01/stephen_meyer_responds_to_flet.html

bornagain77

Stilling digging, I see. DNA_Jock

In fact, not only does Evolution not have any universal law to appeal to, Entropy, a law with great mathematical explanatory power in science, almost directly contradicts Darwinian claims that increases in functional complexity can be easily had:

Entropy Contradicts Darwinism https://docs.google.com/document/d/1No_jMMDJDaMsNHdn8CrQnKRgiFDf8CXcqZGn3lSYIZc/edit Biological Information – Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems 11-22-2014 by Paul Giem (A. McIntosh) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR_r6mFdwQM

One of the primary reasons why a rigid mathematical basis for Darwinism will never be formulated is because of the insistence by atheistic Darwinists for the ‘randomness postulate’ at the base of Darwin’s theory:

Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science - Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/paulijcs8.pdf “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109. Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness - Talbott - Fall 2011 Excerpt: The situation calls to mind a widely circulated cartoon by Sidney Harris, which shows two scientists in front of a blackboard on which a body of theory has been traced out with the usual tangle of symbols, arrows, equations, and so on. But there’s a gap in the reasoning at one point, filled by the words, “Then a miracle occurs.” And the one scientist is saying to the other, “I think you should be more explicit here in step two.” In the case of evolution, I picture Dennett and Dawkins filling the blackboard with their vivid descriptions of living, highly regulated, coordinated, integrated, and intensely meaningful biological processes, and then inserting a small, mysterious gap in the middle, along with the words, “Here something random occurs.” This “something random” looks every bit as wishful as the appeal to a miracle. It is the central miracle in a gospel of meaninglessness, a “Randomness of the gaps,” demanding an extraordinarily blind faith. At the very least, we have a right to ask, “Can you be a little more explicit here?” http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness

Moreover, in so far as math can be applied to Darwinian claims, math consistently shows us that Darwinism is astronomically unlikely:

HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY – WISTAR DESTROYS EVOLUTION Excerpt: A number of mathematicians, familiar with the biological problems, spoke at that 1966 Wistar Institute,, For example, Murray Eden showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. coli,—with 5 billion years in which to produce it! His estimate was based on 5 trillion tons of the bacteria covering the planet to a depth of nearly an inch during that 5 billion years. He then explained that,, E. coli contain(s) over a trillion (10^12) bits of data. That is the number 10 followed by 12 zeros. *Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/20hist12.htm Darwin's Doubt - Chapter 12 - Complex Adaptations and the Neo-Darwinian Math - Dr. Paul Giem - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFY7oKc34qs&list=SPHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t&index=7 Biological Information - Overlapping Codes 10-25-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OytcYD5791k&index=4&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUUhiC9VwPnhl-ymuObyTWJ See also Mendel's Accountant and Haldane's Ratchet: John Sanford Walter ReMine

bornagain77

DNA_Jock, I googled your “Sumer and Luce’s monsters” cite and the only link it kicked back with those words in it was your post. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&gws_rd=ssl#q=molecular+machine+Sumer+and+Luce%E2%80%99s+monsters Which is interesting since Behe's appeal for falsification certainly was not done in a dark corner somewhere but was done out in the open. You would think that the falsification of Behe's claim would generate more than your one remark. Indeed I would expect the falsification to generate at least a few pages from google! Perhaps you can be a little more specific as when, where and exactly Behe was falsified? Moreover, your claim that ID has no 'entailments' is an interesting claim for a Darwinists to make since ID is much more easily falsifiable than neo-Darwinism is:

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge http://izquotes.com/quote/147518 It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness - David L. Abel Excerpt: "If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise." If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: "No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone." https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_

In fact DNA_Jock, I don't even consider Darwinism to be a proper science in the first place, but consider neo-Darwinism to be a pseudo-science along the lines of tea leaf reading. Perhaps you disagree?!? If so, then please provide the rigid falsification criteria against which we can test it against to potentially falsify neo-Darwinism:

“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” - Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003 Darwinians Try to Usurp Biomimetics Popularity - October 9, 2014 Excerpt: "it is remarkable, therefore, that formal mathematical, rather than verbal, proof of the fact that natural selection has an optimizing tendency was still lacking after a century and a half later.",,, More importantly, its proponents are still struggling, a century and a half after Darwin, to provide evidence and the mathematical formalism to demonstrate that random natural processes have the creative power that Darwin, Dawkins, and others claim it has. Everyone already knows that intelligent causes have such creative power. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/darwinians_try090231.html Active Information in Metabiology – Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II – 2013 Except page 9: Chaitin states [3], “For many years I have thought that it is a mathematical scandal that we do not have proof that Darwinian evolution works.” In fact, mathematics has consistently demonstrated that undirected Darwinian evolution does not work.,, Consistent with the laws of conservation of information, natural selection can only work using the guidance of active information, which can be provided only by a designer. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.4/BIO-C.2013.4

Chaitin is quoted at 10:00 minute mark of following video in regards to Darwinism lack of a mathematical proof - Dr. Marks also comments on the honesty of Chaitin in personally admitting that his long sought after mathematical proof for Darwinian evolution failed to deliver the goods.

On Algorithmic Specified Complexity by Robert J. Marks II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No3LZmPcwyg&feature=player_detailpage#t=600 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True - Roger Highfield - January 2014 Excerpt:,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—'laws'—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468

bornagain77

DNA_Jock as to: “You appear to have no clue whatsoever about what constitutes ‘evidence’.” well by golly DNA_Jock, you are just the man I want to talk to! I am more than open to evidence! Why don’t you go ahead and list all the molecular machines that have been produced in the lab by unguided material processes??? Just one such example would falsify ID!

Well by golly bornagain, I'm tempted to respond "Sumer and Luce's monsters", but we both know they don't falsify ID because ID has no entailments. Blog posts from Luskin, Behe and Nelson? And a quote from Tour? You are making my point for me. Really, try to stop digging. DNA_Jock

DNA_Jock as to: "You appear to have no clue whatsoever about what constitutes ‘evidence’." well by golly DNA_Jock, you are just the man I want to talk to! I am more than open to evidence! Why don't you go ahead and list all the molecular machines that have been produced in the lab by unguided material processes??? Just one such example would falsify ID!

PNAS Paper Admits Understanding the Origin of Cellular Features Is a "Glaring Gap" in Evolutionary Biology - Casey Luskin - December 10, 2014 Excerpt: In 2001, biochemist Franklin Harold wrote in an Oxford University Press monograph that "there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations." Last month, a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, "Evolutionary cell biology: Two origins, one objective," admitted much the same thing.,,, ,,,"a full mechanistic understanding of evolutionary processes will never be achieved without an elucidation of how cellular features become established and modified." Though they don't put it quite as bluntly as Franklin Harold, this paper's message is no less potent: modern evolutionary biology lacks explanations for the origin of molecular machines. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/pnas_paper_admi091901.html Michael Behe - No Scientific Literature For Evolution of Any Irreducibly Complex Molecular Machines http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5302950/ Talking Back to Goliath: Some Advice for Students in the Evolutionary Biology Classroom - Paul Nelson - September 30, 2014 Excerpt: (if neo-Darwinism) is true, we should be able to find in the scientific literature the detailed explanations for the origin of complex structures and behaviors, rendered strictly in terms of random variation plus natural selection. Guess what? Those explanations aren't there; they don't exist. If anyone doubts this, he should try looking for himself. Choose any complex structure or behavior, and look in the biological literature for the step-by-step causal account where the origin of that structure (that is, its coming-to-be where it did not exist before) is explained via random variation and natural selection. You'll be looking a long time. The explanations just aren't there, and this fact is well known to evolutionary biologists who have become disenchanted with received neo-Darwinian theory. When proponents of the received theory, such as Richard Dawkins, face the task of making random variation and natural selection work, they resort to fictional entities like Dawkins's "biomorphs" -- see Chapter 3 of The Blind Watchmaker (1986) -- or flawed analogies such as the "methinks it is like a weasel" search algorithm scenario. No one would have to employ these toy stories, of course, if evidence were available showing the efficacy of random variation and selection to construct novel complexity. "Research on selection and adaptation," notes Mary Jane West-Eberhard, a disenchanted evolutionary theorist, "may tell us why a trait persisted and spread, but it will not tell us where a trait came from....This transformational aspect of evolutionary change has been oddly neglected in modern evolutionary biology" (2003, p. 197). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/talking_back_to_1090141.html

Dr. James Tour, who, in my honest opinion, currently builds the most sophisticated man-made molecular machines in the world, will buy lunch for anyone who can explain to him exactly how Darwinian evolution works:

Top Ten Most Cited Chemist in the World Knows Darwinian Evolution Does Not Work - James Tour, Phd. - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y5-VNg-S0s “I build molecules for a living, I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God." James Tour – one of the leading nano-tech engineers in the world - Strobel, Lee (2000), The Case For Faith, p. 111 Science & Faith — Dr. James Tour – video (At the two minute mark of the following video, you can see a nano-car that was built by Dr. James Tour’s team) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR4QhNFTtyw

bornagain77

Bornagain77 writes:

DNA_Jock, and why do you not apply the same level of criticism to Darwinian ‘just so stories’? For instance, you are told that your brain, which is far more complex than the entire internet combined, evolved by unguided material processes. But unguided material processes have yet to produce a single molecular machine! Thus, why do you not demand the same level of integrity for these fantastic Darwinian ‘just so stories’ that saturate our mainstream headlines that you do of News’s reporting? It is a hypocritical double standard that you keep when you are so harsh on News mistakes and so blind to the much worse mistakes of Darwinism!

I don’t expect you to believe me*, but I do apply the same level of criticism to biology research. I am highly critical of guys like, say, Spector, and anyone who publishes shoddy work. As a mere graduate student, I got stuck reviewing a paper by a well-regarded researcher, Lacroute. I thought the work was rather shoddy, and told the journal editors why. It had to be substantially re-written and toned down before it could be published. The point being: scientists are highly critical of each others’ work – it is part of the process. But the criticism is based on facts and logic, not personal incredulity. Decades later, critically reviewing research is still part on my job -- I have merely moved from molecular biology to medical research. That you cite a popular book by Behe, verses from the bible, a facebook post by Randall Niles (!!) and youtube bleeding videos (wtf?) as ‘evidence’ to support your position is quite ‘telling’, as kf would say. You appear to have no clue whatsoever about what constitutes ‘evidence’. *It’s a further demonstration of the confirmation bias that is rampant here at UD. It’s an issue that I have raised with various posters here, including Dionisio, gpuccio, and Silver Asiatic. It’s the reason I enjoy this site so. Do you disagree with my statement that it was obvious that worldnewsdailyreport.com is a satirical website? Do you disagree with me that News’ comment “Maybe Hawking will put out a correction if he did not in fact say it.” implies that whether he said it or not is an open question, and that there is ZERO evidence to suggest that he did? You are making my point for me. Hence Piotr’s comment “Stop digging” P.S. News @17, I am not an American, so Hillary is not going to be my “next Prez”. LOL DNA_Jock

It IS true that Intelligent Design of the Universe is highly probable, so at least the fake article has truth embedded into it. The article is "trending", so at least some will be exposed to some truth. Silver lining:) http://fake.trendolizer.com/2015/03/stephen-hawking-admits-intelligent-design-is-highly-probable.html ppolish

Piotr 'start digging',,, for the truth Matthew 13:44 "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. bornagain77

#23 BA77, Stop digging. Piotr

DNA_Jock, and why do you not apply the same level of criticism to Darwinian 'just so stories'? For instance, you are told that your brain, which is far more complex than the entire internet combined, evolved by unguided material processes. But unguided material processes have yet to produce a single molecular machine! Thus, why do you not demand the same level of integrity for these fantastic Darwinian 'just so stories' that saturate our mainstream headlines that you do of News's reporting? It is a hypocritical double standard that you keep when you are so harsh on News mistakes and so blind to the much worse mistakes of Darwinism!

EVOLUTIONARY JUST-SO STORIES Excerpt: ,,,The term “just-so story” was popularized by Rudyard Kipling’s 1902 book by that title which contained fictional stories for children. Kipling says the camel got his hump as a punishment for refusing to work, the leopard’s spots were painted on him by an Ethiopian, and the kangaroo got its powerful hind legs after being chased all day by a dingo. Kipling’s just-so stories are as scientific as the Darwinian accounts of how the amoeba became a man. Lacking real scientific evidence for their theory, evolutionists have used the just-so story to great effect. Backed by impressive scientific credentials, the Darwinian just-so story has the aura of respectability. Biologist Michael Behe observes: “Some evolutionary biologists--like Richard Dawkins--have fertile imaginations. Given a starting point, they almost always can spin a story to get to any biological structure you wish” (Darwin’s Black Box).,,, http://www.wayoflife.org/database/evolutionary_just_so_stories.html "Grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined imagination" Dr. Michael Behe - 29:24 mark of following video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s6XAXjiyRfM#t=1762s Finally, a Detailed, Stepwise Proposal for a Major Evolutionary Change? - Michael Behe - March 10, 2015 Excerpt: I would say its (Nick Matzke's 2004 proposal for the evolution of the flagellum) chief problem is that it's terminally fuzzy, bases most of its speculation on sequence comparisons, and glides over difficulties that would have to be dealt with in nature.,,, That's one reason I wrote The Edge of Evolution -- to say that we no longer have to rely on our imaginations, that we have good evidence to show what Darwinian processes are capable of doing. When we look to see what they do when we are watching, we never see the sorts of progressive building of coherent systems that Darwinists imagine. Rather, we see tinkering around the edges with preexisting systems or degradation of complex systems to gain short-term advantage. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/03/finally_a_detai094271.html

bornagain77

ba77 @19 and Rob @21 I criticized comments of News's that she made after she was informed of, and partially recognized, her mistake. It was her two-pronged defense of her error : (1) it was not obvious (!) that the site was satirical and (2) maybe it is still true (as in "Maybe Hawking will put out a correction if he did not in fact say it.") that I found unfortunate. A simple "Ooops, I was had! My bad" without getting all defensive would suffice. I did also offer a more general criticism of UD: News was joined by the first three posters, Silver Asiatic, kairosfocus, and JoeG - all favorites of mine - in buying the story hook, line, and sinker. Thank heavens for the reality-based posters such as REC, heh? As I said : a truly wonderful showpiece of confirmation bias. I love it. DNA_Jock

BA77 @ 19: I thought the same thing, as I'm sure many of us did, since it's easy to recognize the childishness of attacking a person even after they've admitted/retracted a previous error. Everyone is an expert when they disagree with something. It's astonishing to see so many attacks against the authors on this site about bias and integrity when there are so few sites like this where we can get points of view on a worldview that isn't brainwashed into us by the main media. A materialistic point of view (e.g. evolution, multiverse, etc.) is all we get from the main media and people who offer alternative points of view are attacked relentlessly. Rob

Somewhere in the Multiverse Stephen DID say that. In a Many World, Sir Stephen is a raging Theist like Sir Issac was in this world. That Stephen is a much more brilliant Scientist than our Stephen. Too bad we're stuck with dull Stephen sigh. ppolish

It is strange that Darwinists on this thread are so keen on belittling News for her supposed lack of journalistic integrity, even though she promptly admitted her mistake, and corrected the headline, as soon as she became aware of it. If Darwinists were truly concerned with integrity, instead of just scoring cheap rhetorical points, should they not at least try to make some effort to apply the same measure of demanding integrity to their very own outrageous 'just so' stories of evolution that they continually try to tell others?

Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause! - Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 2005), 168-69) “We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence ‘is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience;’ but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists.” Smith, Wolfgang (1988) Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 'Just told I was ignorant and illogical (and something worse) for believing in a Creator God... So, help me with this logic, Mr. Smarty-Pants: Something from nothing; Life from non-life; Order from disorder; Rationality from randomness; Consciousness from chaos; Design from destruction; Information without intelligence... This is the enlightened "logic" on which you base your life. Rock On!' Randall Niles - in response to a PhD 'Smarty Pants' who was sending him nasty e-mails Anti-Science Irony (Who is really anti-science?) - October 2011 Excerpt: In response to a letter from Asa Gray, professor of biology at Harvard University, Darwin declared: “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” When questioned further by Gray, Darwin confirmed Gray’s suspicions: “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.” http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2011/10/anti-science-irony/ A DEFENSE OF THE (Divine) REVELATION AGAINST THE OBJECTIONS OF FREETHINKERS, BY MR. EULER Excerpt: "The freethinkers (atheists) have yet to produce any objections that have not long been refuted most thoroughly. But since they are not motivated by the love of truth, and since they have an entirely different point of view, we should not be surprised that the best refutations count for nothing and that the weakest and most ridiculous reasoning, which has so often been shown to be baseless, is continuously repeated. If these people maintained the slightest rigor, the slightest taste for the truth, it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors; but their tendency towards stubbornness makes this completely impossible." http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~euler/docs/translations/E092trans.pdf

bornagain77

Wouldn't it just be smart to delete this thread altogether? bFast

DNA-Jock at 15: If you had to sit through a Hill Clinton presser about e-mail accounts, anything is now credible. And she'll be your next Prez, right? Thanks for helping with crowdsourcing if you did. Thanks for upticking our site anyway. News

“Former Beatle Ringo Starr Claims the “Real” Paul McCartney Died in 1966 and Was Replaced by Look-Alike” what? that is not true? http://www.beatlesbible.com/features/paul-is-dead/: The Beatles - I Am The Walrus (HQ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU4uaKgCQ9A The Beatles - Revolution (1968) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR9JMwzxybE bornagain77

News defends her journalist chops:

REC at 4: Those hedders don’t show the source is unreliable if those people really said that.

Say what? The other headlines were “Russian Federal Space Agency to Release Documents Proving US Moon Landings Never Occurred” “Former Beatle Ringo Starr Claims the “Real” Paul McCartney Died in 1966 and Was Replaced by Look-Alike” “North Carolina: 15 State Lottery Winners Given Lucky Numbers by Psychic Medium” Surely the satirical nature of the site is immediately obvious? Also, the photograph of Roger Penrose (!!!) captioned "John Bairns" should have been a tip-off.

Maybe Hawking will put out a correction if he did not in fact say it.

Why on earth would he bother? And you still think that maybe he said this? No-one with half a brain would find this story credible, even before reading the site's disclaimer "All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any persons, living, dead, or undead is purely a miracle." UD continues to be a truly awesome exposition of confirmation bias. Keep it up. DNA_Jock

"Belief is not necessary, it is a matter of logic, science, reason and common sense" Because an uncreated greater complexity having produced the complexity we see is perfectly logical and not special pleading at all. It really is just that simple. A designer would require a designer by the logic of 'complexity necessitates design' so all it's doing is moving the problem elsewhere. It no more solves it than saying aliens seeded earth. Well then where did the aliens come from? If you're saying that we don't have to address the origin of the designer then you're saying that complexity can exist without being accounted for. That makes ID self defeating special pleading. CHartsil

Well, basically, I had two problems to solve this morning. 1. Someone was posting filth to an old Yahoo group I once started, so I got a complaint. Trouble is, I no longer remember my ID for the group (which may be why some porno op stumbled on it.) Trouble is, can't figure out how to contact Yahoo about the problem without that ID. They sure don't make it easy. Not like one can just show a passport or anything. Then someone wrote to ask me if this Hawking story was true. Didn't think it likely. But figured, well, I have two problems to solve, one that can't be resolved by crowdsourcing (if I don't know the ID any more, probably no one else does either) and one that can. So thanks to all crowdsourcers for taking on the second problem. - O'Leary for News News

To bad its fake. That would have been on par with Anthony Flew's conversion:

"I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite intelligence. I believe that the universe's intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source. Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than a half century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it, that has emerged from modern science." Anthony Flew - world's leading intellectual atheist for most of his adult life until a few years shortly before his death The Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel (Nov. 25, 2012) - video http://www.saddleback.com/mc/m/ee32d/

Of note, the closest, that I'm aware of, that Hawking has come to admitting the necessity of Design in the universe was with his caveat to Godel's incompleteness theorem (which he apparently subsequently forgot).

The nature and significance of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems – Princeton – 2006 Excerpt: ,,Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson, among others, have come to the conclusion that Gödel’s theorem implies that there can’t be a (mathematical) Theory of Everything.,, http://math.stanford.edu/~feferman/papers/Godel-IAS.pdf

The incompleteness theorem is extremely bad news for people who believe that there can be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’.

Kurt Gödel – Incompleteness Theorem – video https://vimeo.com/92387853 Godel and Physics – John D. Barrow Excerpt (page 5-6): “Clearly then no scientific cosmology, which of necessity must be highly mathematical, can have its proof of consistency within itself as far as mathematics go. In absence of such consistency, all mathematical models, all theories of elementary particles, including the theory of quarks and gluons…fall inherently short of being that theory which shows in virtue of its a priori truth that the world can only be what it is and nothing else. This is true even if the theory happened to account for perfect accuracy for all phenomena of the physical world known at a particular time.” Stanley Jaki – Cosmos and Creator – 1980, pg. 49

Moreover, incompleteness also adds strong support to the fact that man has a transcendent component to his being that is able to transcend the physical limitations of his body (something that Hawking, as a paraplegic, should resonate with, but apparently hasn't):

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 "Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation." Alfred Russell Wallace, New Thoughts on Evolution, 1910 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.

also of note: Here is an excerpt of an article, (that is well worth reading in full), in which Dr. Gordon exposes Stephen Hawking’s metaphysical ignorance for thinking that mathematical description and agent causality are the same thing.

BRUCE GORDON: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/

bornagain77

humbled @ 10

Belief is not necessary, it is a matter of logic, science, reason and common sense ;)

humbled,it's fake news. Me_Think

..."he believed that “some form of intelligence” was actually behind the creation of the Universe." Belief is not necessary, it is a matter of logic, science, reason and common sense ;) humbled

Shows how much background they do before posting something they want to believe. CHartsil

Some journalistic skills, News! Four days isn't long enough to recognise an obvious hoax? A speedy retraction is in order. Piotr

Well, some of us wondered why the story didn't get more traction before now, and crowdsourcing is the fastest way to find out in such cases. REC at 4: Those hedders don't show the source is unreliable if those people really said that. Have you been following the US gov e-mail scandals? Thanks re John Bairns. We'll see what else turns up. Maybe Hawking will put out a correction if he did not in fact say it. No good this stuff hanging around for years. News

It is a spoof. Try Google. Prof. Paul Alexander is the head of the astrophysics group at Cambridge turell

Does Stephen Hawking have a living brother (cited in the linked)? It looks like perhaps his adopted brother passed away in 2003. daveS

Do News and the UD community believe that "World News Daily Report" is a source worth reprinting? Other headlines: "Russian Federal Space Agency to Release Documents Proving US Moon Landings Never Occurred" "Former Beatle Ringo Starr Claims the “Real” Paul McCartney Died in 1966 and Was Replaced by Look-Alike" "North Carolina: 15 State Lottery Winners Given Lucky Numbers by Psychic Medium" News could try to evaluate the story. Three google searches regarding one quote reveal there is apparently no John Bairns at Cambridge, there is no "Department of Astrophysics" but rather the Cavendish Astrophysics group, and its head is Prof. Paul Alexander. http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/people-contacts/faculty-and-emeritus/ REC

He learned something from Newton after all... Joe

Is there a vid or a definite transcript? kairosfocus

Wow Silver Asiatic