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Do you believe in God?
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In the case of NDE’s, while they don't prove the existence of an afterlife (at least not yet), those who have experienced them claim that the experience of the separation of body and spirit is firsthand proof to them of an afterlife.
And in fairness to them you can understand why. When you feel you have left your body, or even just part of your body, it is massively off putting. It is really hard to process it.
Mild examples of this are easy enough to produce too. With nothing more than a piece of cardboard, a fake hand, and a feather you can have the experience that the fake hand is your real hand. And when the "switch" happens in your brain it is difficult to explain just how weird it is.
And that is when you are in full control of your faculties. Many of these experiences happen in medical settings, or drug settings, or going in or out of sleep, and so forth. When people are not really in their most critically clear. So this makes it even harder to process.These claims are further supported by the fact that in many documented cases the subject could hear conversations or see things in other rooms and other places, which are later confirmed and verified to be remarkably accurate.
Unfortunately the method of verification is often very poor indeed. Which renders many such anecdotes suspect. When actual controlled studies are done to ensure verification is sound.... suddenly the patients in question are not seeing things in other rooms and places any more. Wonder why
That said though, our brain filters out a lot much of the time. It does not present to you everything coming into your senses. If those filters get compromised or knocked off line for any reasons, it is no surprise you might suddenly start hearing or seeing things you normally would miss.
A rabbi on the "god exists" side of a a god debate I watched once was talking about this. He has an autistic son who can recount the contents of conversations that happened several rooms away. I suspect his son may have not got filters you and I do, rather than him having super human hearing per se.0 -
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nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »And in fairness to them you can understand why. When you feel you have left your body, or even just part of your body, it is massively off putting. It is really hard to process it.
Mild examples of this are easy enough to produce too. With nothing more than a piece of cardboard, a fake hand, and a feather you can have the experience that the fake hand is your real hand. And when the "switch" happens in your brain it is difficult to explain just how weird it is.
And that is when you are in full control of your faculties. Many of these experiences happen in medical settings, or drug settings, or going in or out of sleep, and so forth. When people are not really in their most critically clear. So this makes it even harder to process.
Unfortunately the method of verification is often very poor indeed. Which renders many such anecdotes suspect. When actual controlled studies are done to ensure verification is sound.... suddenly the patients in question are not seeing things in other rooms and places any more. Wonder why
That said though, our brain filters out a lot much of the time. It does not present to you everything coming into your senses. If those filters get compromised or knocked off line for any reasons, it is no surprise you might suddenly start hearing or seeing things you normally would miss.
A rabbi on the "god exists" side of a a god debate I watched once was talking about this. He has an autistic son who can recount the contents of conversations that happened several rooms away. I suspect his son may have not got filters you and I do, rather than him having super human hearing per se.
I've never had an NDE, I've spoken to people who have though and they seem very credible. I experience pre-cognition in dreams from time to time myself, not vague scenarios that are just likely to happen, but things like images of streets in places I've never been before and the faces of people I've never met before as well as things like a specific piercing and clothing they have etc.
I realise that this phenomenon or life beyond death isn't dependent on god existing though, our ability to measure our reality is dependent on the technology we currently have available to us. Maybe some are just more attuned in this regard, this is a good sci-fi film on the subject.
https://www.netflix.com/ie/title/80115857
I can understand agnostics and atheists who are still open-minded to non-ordinary reality. I can't understand the 'settled-science' brigade who just take an absolute position that god in any form or consciousness beyond physical death could not exist.0 -
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Like all history of the time it is not considered certain but it is not dismissed.
Which is exactly where I said I am at. I am far from convinced a single person existed but happily open to it. I reckon it is a mix to be honest. Such a person existed but much of what we ascribe to him is likely an Amalgamation of him, others, legends at the time, and expectations from things like prophecy.
That said though, more people than you appear to be allowing for do argue that he did not exist at all. Some quite strongly and convincingly. Actually that reminds me I bought and own Richard Carriers "On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt" and have never gotten around to reading it Must do that.These people are not describing Lizards. They are describing a personal, human like entity.
So? The fact people who believe in Lizard people believe they are in full human disguise aside.... the point I am making is that I could make up ANY explanation for a collection of anecdote, and simply declare the explanation is validated by that anecdote. It is still a fallacious move to make.And you cant just use the word anecdote because it makes it seem flimsier.
Maybe ask me why I use particular words rather than presuming to read my mind and my intent. I use that word because it is valid to use. I do not see the word as a diminutive so I literally could not use the word with the intention you invent on my behalf.
I ALSO use and used the word testimony it should be noted, but seemingly you focus only on one word I use and ignore the others I use which is telling. You are slipping into ad hominem now and away from the topic in other words. However if we want to get linguistically pedantic: "Anecdote: a short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person."This people are describing seeing or hearing a deity.
If you say so because, despite my asking, you have not actually cited a source. However I doubt they are "are describing seeing or hearing a deity". What I would expect is that they "are describing seeing or hearing" something, and they are deciding it was a deity. Again as I said before: packaging the explanation WITH the anecdote is a fallacious move to make here.
I rarely doubt their experience, which is not true of many skeptics. I am happy to take their experience and description of it entirely at face value. Just not their explanation for it, or worse someone ELSES explanation for it, when it is based on nothing at all.People who saw they saw a flying saucer is evidence that flying saucers exist. People who say they saw aliens is evidence that aliens exist. Again, you might not rate it as strong evidence but evidence it is.
Again not really because what they generally claim to see is UFO. That is UNIDENTIFIED flying object. By definition they did not identify it, and based on that lack of identification they claim to have identified it. That's messed up. Calling it a "flying saucer" does not make it one. Anecdote is not evidence, but it certainly does not alter reality either.
People claiming to see fairies at the end of their garden is not evidence fairies exist. It is at most evidence they saw SOMETHING and through lack of any evidence or data on what it was.... they have decided to identify it with the term "fairy". It is not evidence for anything more than that.
If a large number of people testify to seeing it too, it is evidence SOMETHING there is worth investigating. Again: Nothing more.You analogy only works if someone sees "something" in the sky and concludes it is an alien spacecraft which is not what we are talking about.
But it is. Exactly. People are seeing "something" (they claim) and concluding it is a god. Same thing exactly!Have I exaggerated? Perhaps.
No idea until you offer the citations I asked for. I suspect you have though, quite massively. Testimony of direct interactions of that sort are quite rare in my experience. They had a woman on the Late Late show a few years back because she claims to talk to angels. If millions of people were doing that, I doubt they would have bothered making her a feature on prime television. People tend to end up on shows like that due to being the exception, not the norm.
There are MANY theists in my circles, friends, family, social, political and more. I can not think of a single one claiming any direct experience. That you can think of "dozens" sounds unlikely but even if true says more about the circles you move in, and I do not, rather than it does about the number of people generally actually making such claims.
But without sources, more I can not say.Perhaps thousands is better? Either way, there are a lot of such people.
1000s is not really a lot though. Sounds like a lot, but compare it with the BILLIONS of people who ever existed and exist today. It becomes in the face of such numbers a statistical non-entity then.
And that is before we get into the many.... many many many many..... issues on how such testimony and anecdote is compiled and collated and evaluated.Again, I'm not asking you to except this as proof but the analogy holds.
It really doesn't. Again: With the analogy that a number of people witnessed a murder, you can at least establish the murder actually happened. When people are claiming they witnessed a god, you can not establish a god even exists. The analogy fails for that reason. To make the analogy valid you have to, as I said, have many people claiming to witness a murder but the police can not even validate a murder occurred. THAT analogy would be valid.
But analogy is not evidence either, so it is a moot point really.Again, testimony is evidence. You can't just call it anecdotes and dismiss it.
Again, I did not suggest testimony is not evidence. And I did not "just" call it anecdote nor did I "dismiss it".
What I actually said was that testimony IS evidence, we should not dismiss it, but it is NOT evidence for the conclusions that come pre-packaged with the testimony/anecdote in question.Either these people are delusional or mistaken or mentally unwell or maybe something exists to match their experiences.
I think it is all of the above and more. The testimonies you speak of are quite diverse. Which is another area your "murder" analogy breaks down. When many people witness the same murder they generally give nearly the same account. Testimonies of interactions with what they claim to be deities tend to be quite varied both in content AND context.
In terms of context some are on death beds while dying or unconscious. Others are while under the influence of legal/and or illegal narcotics. Others while ill or medically compromised in other fashions. Some are meditating or seeking altered states of consciousness in other fashions. And so on and so on.
In terms of content the testimonies tend to be varied too. Did the deity actually speak for example? Not always. Many apparitions of Mary for example have Mary simply grinning inanely but lovingly at you.
So I would be wary of explaining away such testimonies too readily with any one brush. I think many such people are delusional. While many OTHER such people are likely mistaken like the NDE neurosurgeon who wrote a book about his NDE. Others are likely unwell.... I mean we know people often have mental or biological issues leading them to hear voices. Even us WELL people hear voices to a degree, from our own internal monologue. While other people are likely lying to us and attention seeking.
I could go on for many pages more coming up with explanations. But the post is long already. Suffice to say I think there is a diverse WEALTH of explanations for such testimonies. What we do not have at this time, to my knowledge unless you know otherwise..... is a shred of an iota of any arguments, any evidence, any data, or any reasoning to suggest that the explanation for their experiences is a visitation from a powerful non-human intentional agent with a seemingly obtuse set of priorities.
The problem is not that these anecdotes are not evidence of god therefore. It is that the people giving those anecdotes CLAIMING that it was an experience of god is not evidence of a god. The problem is again not the testimony, it is the packaging of a pre-assumed conclusion with the testimony that is the big fail.0 -
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