Hands up if you are an atheist - Page 4

Just out of curiosity, would you really expect any near death, technical death experiences to seem "normal"?

i would expect that if consciousness is contained to the space inside my head.

if you perceive yourself, outside of your physical being... in the same environment your physical body is "in reality"-

you are more than electrical impulses in your brain...

right?

Nope, not necessarily, firstly, no matter what, all experiences that dabble with the possibility of OBE's and various esp's, are firmly rooted in the possibility of being delusions and even more so just altered afterthoughts.

As voraciously belief hungry beings, we have more than enough evidence of people will and ability to decieve themselves, or to imbelish or just wrongly account for any number of things.

We see a willingness to believe beyong reason and within reason, but we also tend to see these beliefs proven wrong somehow or changed and altered over time.

Even assuming these things did and do occur, this also does not necessarily indicate functions beyond that of any modern machinary, such as radio waves, transmitters and recievers.

The notion of OBE with sight is a fairly complex notion and has very little to back it up, I've heard tons of speculation and claimed accounts, but we are in an area of untestability and stagnation. But also keep in mind, when referring to points that involve thought both in and out of conciousness, that dreams are capable of creating images percieved as real. This is the most reasonable explanation to any such claim, even the esp aspects of seeing yourself through anothers eyes has at least some pysical sense basis.

But an OBE with independant sight is an intreguing and highly elusive concept. I see some possible ways of making it work, but it wouldn't be that concept that you are embracing, the soul independant of the body that recieves and interprets the sensory information to make up the world you sense and understand is a tricky and difficult idea.

I believe these possibilities exist, but I am extremely cautious about all accounts thus far.

death is not "normal" because it isnt something we experience on a regular basis, but it is "natural"

Maybe not your own death, and depending on your career you may see death every day.

I'm not what most would consider "religious"...but the existence of some "higher power" is only logical...whether that higher power is in any way concerned with individual human beings is another question...My reasoning for believing that some higher power "created" everything is simple...Simple mathemetics...If "before" the beginning there was no space, time or matter, in other words, nothing at all, then how can there be something?...0 will always remain 0, unless someone or something "consciously" adds something of value to it, like a one...In other words, if before the beginning there was nothing, then only a "higher power" could create the universe that sprung from this nothingness...Pure logic.

Unfortunately there is little logic to anything you just said. Not to condescend, but mathmatically reality doesn't make sense. Its evidence is often overwhelming, but it still doesn't add up.

Even in math, how is zero (nothing) ever possible? If anything exists is nothing ever possible, you say nothing or zero can't produce anything, if ever there is nothing then no thing is ever possible.

To say a higher power created everything from nothing is mathmatically rediculous. If there is nothing there is no higher power either.

Its as basically contradictory as saying that evolution, at least without intelligent design, isn't possible because there is obviously design evident and with design there must be a designer. Then going on to argue that the designer, who would obviously be of even greater sophistication in design, has no designer.



And people will argue till they turn blue in the face that this makes sense.

So what do I think it all means, I think it means that we don't know shit.

I think it somehow means that all things somehow both do and don't exist. That we are missing a basic component of understanding. Which just goes back to we don't know shit.

I think it's interesting how people attempt to establish the incorrect thinking of others without the need to establish a framework of defense for their own way of thinking...all your points are valid in the sense that it shows that whether nothing was or never was supports no position with respect to whether there is or is not a higher power...These are questions beyond us..Questions we can never answer conclusively...But then again, when logic is not sufficient enough to decide the question either way, I am more inclined to believe there is a "conscious" reason for this illusiveness...or possibly it is due to some limitations of the human mind which, then of course, implies the existence of a higher, "nonhuman" mind...Oh, well...the debate will continue forever thus...chuckles

I guess you basically agree with me that none of us know shit, then...and that's cool...but do you think mankind will ever come to know for certain how this all came about?...And if not, why not?...I mean, if I get a flat tire but wasn't privy to seeing how that tire became flat, that doesn't mean I can't find out how it happened....I could examine the tire and carry out tests to determine what most likely punctured it, although it would still only be a theory. The theory, however, would be a plausible one. With respect to the iuniverse, there are no plausible reasons for why it all happened in the first place. It's a mystery! Do you think such an illusive mystery could ever be solved by ordinary man?

"seeing" death and "experiencing" death are two very different things.

Indeed, but do not underestimate seeing death as an experience.

Well, we can say that matter was there from the 'beggining', as our every question involves time, which didn't exist before the universe. So as our scope of thinking is limited only within the concept of time, it is fair to say that matter existed from the start, that it was not created at one particular point of time, because there was no point, no beggining, as that implies time.