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Britain appoints first Humanist as head chaplain

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File:Atheism.svg For a hospital in the National Health Service:

Lindsay van Dijk will lead three Christian chaplains and a team of 24 volunteers, including a Catholic nun, a Buddhist and a Bahá’í, at the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust. The world-renowned spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville hospital is part of the trust.

Humanists do not believe in an afterlife. “Many people approaching the end of their lives want to reflect on a life well lived,” said van Dijk.

Carolyn Morrice, the trust’s chief nurse, said: “Lindsay’s appointment confirms our commitment to provide a chaplaincy service with individual choice at its heart, catering to all our patients, visitors and staff regardless of faith, denomination or religion, including those who have no faith or religion.” Britain appoints first Humanist as head chaplain, “NHS appoints humanist to lead chaplaincy team” at The Guardian

Of course, the people who say they “have no faith or religion” are not “non-religious.” They give different, non-traditional answers to philosophical questions to which people used to give traditional answers (usually supplied by religion).

Which brings us to another point. Insisting that the universe cannot show evidence of design because there is no God is a religious statement. It is not a statement about evidence.

See also: Should atheism be included in religious education? Teaching beliefs other than atheism as “religion” means that the worldview on which atheists’ choices is based is represented in a confusing way.

Comments
As well, although Atheists have no clue where life originally came from here on earth, (much less do they have a clue where a person's life may go upon death).
An Open Letter to My Colleagues - James Tour - 2017 Excerpt: We synthetic chemists should state the obvious. The appearance of life on earth is a mystery. We are nowhere near solving this problem. The proposals offered thus far to explain life’s origin make no scientific sense. Beyond our planet, all the others that have been probed are lifeless, a result in accord with our chemical expectations. The laws of physics and chemistry’s Periodic Table are universal, suggesting that life based upon amino acids, nucleotides, saccharides and lipids is an anomaly. Life should not exist anywhere in our universe. Life should not even exist on the surface of the earth.17 http://inference-review.com/article/an-open-letter-to-my-colleagues James Tour, a Christian, is one of the leading synthetic organic chemists in the world
And although Atheists have no clue where life originally came from (or where it is going), the Christian, on the other hand, can appeal directly to advances in quantum biology to support his belief in a eternal soul that, number one, keeps our material bodies from disintegrating 'for precisely a life-time and not a moment longer' (Talbott),
The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Stephen L. Talbott - 2010 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
and, number two, to support their belief in a soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our temporal, material, bodies.
Darwinian Materialism vs Quantum Biology - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdD2Am1g5Y
As Hameroff states in the following video, "the quantum information,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
“Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it's possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” - Stuart Hameroff - Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - video (5:00 minute mark) https://youtu.be/jjpEc98o_Oo?t=300
Verse
Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
Of supplemental note to "if there is no God, i.e. no Mind behind it all, then nothing else can be regarded as "real",,, ,,, in the following study materialistic researchers who had a bias against Near Death Experiences being real, set out to prove that they were merely ‘false memories’ or hallucinations by setting up a clever questionnaire that could differentiate which memories a person had were real and which memories a person had were merely imaginary. Simply put, they did not expect the results that they got in their study. Much to their surprise, they found that, to quote the headline, 'Afterlife' feels 'even more real than real',
'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/
Verse:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
bornagain77
September 24, 2018
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Reminds me of this clip from a TV show: "I want a real chaplain who believes in a real God and a real hell."
I want a real chaplain who believes in a real God and a real hell. - February 26, 2013 Dying Doctor: I don’t want to go on. Can’t you see I’m old? I have cancer. I’ve had enough. The only thing that’s holding me back is that I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what comes next. Chaplain: What do you think that is? Dying Doctor: You tell me. Is atonement even possible? What does God want from me? Chaplain: I think it’s up to each one of us to interpret what God wants. Dying Doctor: So people can do anything? They can rape, they can murder, they can steal, all in the name of God, and it’s ok? Chaplain: That’s not what I’m saying. Dying Doctor: What are you saying? Because all I’m hearing is some New Age, God is love, one-size-fits-all crap! I don’t have time for this now! Chaplain: I understand. Dying Doctor: No, you don’t understand! You don’t understand! How could you possibly say that? No, you listen to me. I want a real chaplain who believes in a real God and a real hell. Chaplain: I hear that you’re frustrated; but you need to ask yourself… Dying Doctor: No, I don’t need to ask myself! I need answers, and all your questions and your uncertainty are only making things worse! Chaplain: I know you’re upset. Dying Doctor: God, I need someone who will look me in the eye and tell me how to find forgiveness! Because, I am running out of time! https://www.layman.org/is-forgiveness-even-possible/ Is Forgiveness Possible? ER TV show - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhxURmVl0lQ
As to a "real God" and a "real Hell". First off if there is no God, i.e. no Mind behind it all, then nothing else can be regarded as "real".
“No, I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Max Planck (1858–1947), the main founder of quantum theory, The Observer, London, January 25, 1931 “The principal argument against materialism is not that illustrated in the last two sections: that it is incompatible with quantum theory. The principal argument is that thought processes and consciousness are the primary concepts, that our knowledge of the external world is the content of our consciousness and that the consciousness, therefore, cannot be denied. On the contrary, logically, the external world could be denied—though it is not very practical to do so. In the words of Niels Bohr, “The word consciousness, applied to ourselves as well as to others, is indispensable when dealing with the human situation.” In view of all this, one may well wonder how materialism, the doctrine that “life could be explained by sophisticated combinations of physical and chemical laws,” could so long be accepted by the majority of scientists." – Eugene Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, pp 167-177. He goes toe-to-toe with science big wigs… and so far he’s undefeated. - interview Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: You see we always start from the fact that we are conscious. Consciousness is the only carrier of reality and existence that we can know. Everything else is abstraction; [they] are inferences we make from consciousness. - per skeptiko "In any philosophy of reality that is not ultimately self-defeating or internally contradictory, mind – unlabeled as anything else, matter or spiritual – must be primary. What is “matter” and what is “conceptual” and what is “spiritual” can only be organized from mind. Mind controls what is perceived, how it is perceived, and how those percepts are labeled and organized. Mind must be postulated as the unobserved observer, the uncaused cause simply to avoid a self-negating, self-conflicting worldview. It is the necessary postulate of all necessary postulates, because nothing else can come first. To say anything else comes first requires mind to consider and argue that case and then believe it to be true, demonstrating that without mind, you could not believe that mind is not primary in the first place." - William J. Murray
To further drive the point home that if there is no God, i.e. no Mind behind it all, then nothing else can be regarded as "real", it is also helpful to point out the sheer madness that ensues for atheists if one regards consciousness as being derivative from matter.
Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – 39:45 minute mark https://youtu.be/8rzw0JkuKuQ?t=2387 Excerpt: Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Bottom line, nothing is real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, Paper with references for each claim page; Page 37: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pAYmZpUWFEi3hu45FbQZEvGKsZ9GULzh8KM0CpqdePk/edit
As to a "real" Hell, whereas atheists have no compelling evidence for all these various extra dimensions, parallel universe and/or multiverse scenarios that they have put forth, to try to explain away the beginning, the fine-tuning, and the quantum wave collapse of the universe,,,
Multiverse Mania vs Reality - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQJV4fH6kMo
And whereas, atheists have no compelling evidence for all these various extra dimensions, parallel universe and/or multiverse scenarios that they have put forth, Christians, on the other hand, can appeal directly to the higher dimensional mathematics behind Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity and General Relativity, (i.e. appeal directly to the higher dimensional mathematical basis of our very best theories in science), to support their belief that God upholds this universe in its continual existence, as well as to support their belief in a heavenly dimension and in a hellish dimension.
Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, General Relativity and Christianity - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKggH8jO0pk
bornagain77
September 24, 2018
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