An interesting article on scientific explanations of near-death / out-of-body experiences

by cedars 95 Replies latest jw friends

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  OnTheWayOut

  They can seek out the McDonalds that was in the "dream state" and if they find the cashier with the dragon necklace, they have PROOF POSITIVE evidence that their mind extrapolated real information around them without being physically present to it.

  Now, the person KNOWS that what they experienced was BEYOND illusion or imagination as they have proof. However, this doesn't prove the existence of a spirit realm, but it does provide evidence towards that understanding of existence. Like finding an organic sample in the forest of an unknown creature. The evidence suggests a creature, but the specifics are sketchy. However, drawing a conclusion that there is no creature at all would be unscientific because that's ignoring evidence, it's essentially bias.

  So many of your PROOF POSITIVE evidences are not that at all. How specific was the description of the dragon necklace? Why do you have to seek out a McDonald's restaurant that has a cashier wearing one? How many do you go to before you can give up? If I find a dragon necklace on the cashier's neck in the ChinaTown McDonald's, you declare an out-of-body experience because of such a coincidence? NONSENSE.

  Now, if Sabastious woke up from his near-death experience and said that he noticed the receptionist for the hospital on his way out the door during his out-of-body experience, and said her nametag said "Shelia" and she was wearing a "green and gold" dragon necklace breathing fire into her cleavage, then you would have sufficiently taken on as much coincidence as possible (providing you didn't already know that Shelia worked there).

  Really, all you have to do is apply the same standards of requirements that you apply to rejecting valid evidence of scientific reasons for things and you will reject this kind of nonsense. "Seek out the McDonalds" ! Balderdash!
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  And how was that all documented? I mean, to be valid- it has to be documented that this person could not know what he knew and that it was specific.
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  sabastious

  So many of your PROOF POSITIVE evidences are not that at all. How specific was the description of the dragon necklace? Why do you have to seek out a McDonald's restaurant that has a cashier wearing one? How many do you go to before you can give up? If I find a dragon necklace on the cashier's neck in the ChinaTown McDonald's, you declare an out-of-body experience because of such a coincidence? NONSENSE.

  The experience involved floating down a known street and into a known McDonalds which means there is only one place to check. After awakening the subject travels to the location and to their amazement they find a woman cashier who looks exactly like the one in the dream and has the correct necklace.

  Really, all you have to do is apply the same standards of requirements that you apply to rejecting valid evidence of scientific reasons for things and you will reject this kind of nonsense. "Seek out the McDonalds" ! Balderdash!

  Thanks for flashing your critical thinking muscles, but they are not necessary and you seem to just be attempting to distract from my valid point.

  -Sab
• 

  sabastious

  And how was that all documented? I mean, to be valid- it has to be documented that this person could not know what he knew and that it was specific.

  Yes, that's precisely my point, it CANNOT be documented for others to enjoy and use. That's why I call spirituality personalized science. This is just a PERSONAL thing, but no less real than any other demonstrable experience. Once personal revelation occurs the person is sent on a life long journey and it's always tortuous as most people have to see to believe. Dr Sacks, and people like him, has a long and arduous road ahead of him.

  Right now the general scientific consensus is that there IS NO spiritual realm, no soul and no afterlife. Most have accepted this even though they never had any reason to do so. It was always just a belief. The only support for the notion was that there was no reproducible evidence. However, with the idea that people can be FORCED into personalized science that cannot be documented (ie personal revelation) the old idea of the spirit realm should get a second look. Heaven is OLD NEWS when you think about it, it's just been removed from the table due to lack of reproducible evidence. There has always been loads of evidence, but it's been locked in the confines of the personal experiences of people. Therefore it slipped through the cracks of science, logic and reason.

  Think about it, if I have to use my mind in a way I don't fully understand to accomplish science, how will others document it? What if they cannot use their mind like I can? Many would consider me a fraud and may even justify threatening my life. Simply put we don't know enough about the human mind to create the tests needed to document the activity for others. We simply are just not there yet, but we will be at one point. I suspect at that point all the skeptics are going to have to apologize to the religionists. Because even though everything went corrupt, it was all based on a real phenomenon that isn't totally explained even today. The secular community must concede, it's only a matter of time.

  I have been saying this for quite some time now. The scientific method can be CIRCUMVENTED by entities who have the power and will to do so. We can have valid experience that we cannot demonstate to others. In no way does this make the experience not real or made up. Sure, lots of experiences can be shown to be false, but that doesn't mean that they ALL are and always were.

  -Sab
• 

  GromitSK

  Yes, and such is one of the inherent problems that faces the whole of humanity. Jesus was reported saying to "be like children" when before God and that's because they are so trusting and faithful.

  Didn't Jesus also allegedly say something about being 'as wise as serpents'? Children are generally seen as being in need of protection - why is that? Because they are vulnerable and there are people who will take advantage of them. I don't think you are suggesting we all accept wide-eyed and uncritically any claim to the supernatural that sounds like it might be true? By the same token, I personally don't think it is reasonable to automatically adopt the view that it definitely is not true (unless we know that for a fact) - why not just reserve judgement? True/likely/unlikely/possible/impossible/false are quite useful measures.

  Taking the fact that you say you were in McDonalds OOB (for example), is something that can be taken or left. A person may believe you or not. If they don't have any evidence but your word, and they don't know you, and have never experienced anything themselves is clearly unwise. If they start to shape their life around that belief though, and that is all they have or similar testimony from other - they are embarking on a very dangerous path and have potentiall surrendered their thinking process to another person. That's how many of us on here got into this mess in the first place, that person may have been a parent, devoted to their view of God and genuinely seeing their child's best interest - but they were wrong and potentially wasted many years of their lives and their children's (and in some cases their entire lives) on the basis of 'just knowing they were doing the right thing'.

  I think if God made itself clearly known to most folks they would accept what they were being told. The problem is, he/she/it doesn't.

  everything laid out before us by God should be freely digested without question

  Frankly I don't follow the logic here. Whether there is even a 'God' at all is debateable in the minds of many. Digestion requires processing; if I eat it doesn't just turn into muscle/skin/bone or energy - there is a process to reach that stage. Conviction about OOB/the existence of God/whether a perceived communication is from God or not - requires a process before that information is useful. That process is a rational assessment of the experience. This will vary from person to person depending on the degree of proof they personally need. Trying to convince another person to be convinced because I accept the level of evidence I have is like offering them my toothbrush frankly.
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  GromitSK

  Another thought @ Sab

  What exactly are you asking people to accept? (genuine question).
• 

  skiforever

  Here is one experience:

  A migrant worker named Maria was brought to the Harbor view Medical Center, in Seattle, in cardiac arrest. After three days of convalescing, she went into cardiac arrest for a second time. Shortly after resuscitation, she told the following story to Kimberly Clark Sharp, a critical-care worker in the coronary-care unit. 2 Maria said that while the medical team was resuscitating her, she found herself floating out of her body and toward the ceiling. From there she was able to watch the team working on her body. She described the people in the room, what they were doing, and the equipment they used. She then found herself outside the hospital, where she took note of the design of the emergency entrance. Although all that she described was 100 percent accurate, Sharp admits that she thought Maria was “confabulating” and had learned the details of resuscitation and the hospital’s architecture before admittance. This is all the harder to believe considering Maria had never been in Seattle before.

  Then Maria told her that as she was rising outside the hospital building, she came close to a window on the third story of the north side, where something sitting on the window ledge caught her attention. It was “a man’s dark blue tennis shoe, well-worn, scuffed on the left side where the little toe would go. The shoelace was caught under the heel.” At Maria’s bidding, Sharp went out to look for the shoe, a search Sharp was sure would be futile. Nothing could be seen from the outside, so she made the rounds of the rooms on the third floor from the inside. She came at last to the right room. When she pressed her face against the window pane and peered down at the ledge, she saw it. From her viewpoint inside the building she could not see what Maria had seen from outside, the worn spot at the little toe area, but all the other details were exactly as Maria had described them, even the shoelace tucked under the heel. She opened the window and picked up the shoe. There was indeed a scuff mark on the area of the little toe.
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  GromitSK

  @ski - this is a very old story. I am not saying it's not true. For the people experiencing it, it was probably profound. Hearing it from them if you knew them would be interesting, possibly persuasive. Hearing it from a stranger and being unable to ask questions of the experient is something else. I can't see how any rational person in the latter category could view it as anything more than 'interesting'.
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  sabastious

  Frankly I don't follow the logic here. Whether there is even a 'God' at all is debateable in the minds of many. Digestion requires processing; if I eat it doesn't just turn into muscle/skin/bone or energy - there is a process to reach that stage. Conviction about OOB/the existence of God/whether a perceived communication is from God or not - requires a process before that information is useful. That process is a rational assessment of the experience. This will vary from person to person depending on the degree of proof they personally need. Trying to convince another person to be convinced because I accept the level of evidence I have is like offering them my toothbrush frankly.

  It's a matter of trust or a lack thereof. Taking something through the digestion process is a matter of trust. Would you eat a penny if someone asked you to? It's not a matter of trusting the person, but rather the obvious element of danger. However, if a doctor tells a patient to ingest a cure for an ailment, the patient is left with the decision to trust the practitioner or not. Developing cures require a complex understanding of many scientific processes. If even one "i" isn't dotted or a single "t" crossed a cure could turn into a disease. Sometimes the risk isn't as obvious.

  Just like with any doctor there is a developmental period where trust is built with God. In the end the answer is to take the advice given (digest), but a doctor doesn't mind being questioned. In fact a good one will encourage it.

  What exactly are you asking people to accept? (genuine question).

  People need to accept the idea of a spiritual realm. If you want a definition try, "What is above and beyond." Specifics about this realm have been relentlessly argued about since the dawn of humanity. To me, it's senseless to deem all their work in regards to that realm impractical to the modern world. Experiences such as Dr Sacks reinforce the idea that humanity is connected to what many have called a "higher power." If these highly personalized events are cherry picked out of historical context they can be dismissed as mysteries. Yet, it should be noted that such events are of no consequence to belief structures as they all share a doctrine of an immaterial realm. It simply isn't a mystery to them, just the secular community which seems to run a slower watch when it comes to spirituality. Although it's not unreasonable to reject all ideas about this spiritual realm without clear, reproducible evidence, it certainly is unreasonable to turn people who believe in such things into objects of ridicule. From the spiritualist's perspective, this all has never been an issue of evidence, but one of acceptance.

  -Sab
• 

  GromitSK

  So you're asking people to accept the concept? The possibility? The fact?