Posts by Cold Steel

62

What Happens To You When You Die?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are our dead loved ones watching over us at all or are they really just gone now?

Cold Steel

Evidence suggests that when you die you cease to exist...just like before you were born.

I know of no evidence to support the notion that when one dies he or she ceases to exist, nor is there any evidence, as yet, that we did or didn't exist before our births. With most people it's an article of faith -- a belief. One can state their beliefs one way or the other.

The paranormal shows on TV are Total Bullshit.

And how does one know this?

In the Bible Belt there's a bumper sticker that goes: "The Bible Says It, I Believe It, And that Settles It!"

To say one believes these shows to be total bullshit is different from saying they are total bullshit. Where Christians stick in that part about the Bible, if one simply snips that out and says, "I believe it and that settles it" how is that any different than a diehard JW saying that evolution is total bullshit?

The next logical question is, "How do you know??"

Cofty, you're like the atheist version of what you hate so much in Bible thumpers. Put a label on something, call it a name and hit the "Post Reply" button! For one thing, I doubt you really want to know whether these depictions are true or not. And if you found out that such things are true, I also doubt you'd be intellectually honest enough to admit it.

How does a disembodied "spirit" [grab someone]? How can a spirit pass through solid objects and catch solid objects? If it interacts with material objects then it could be detected and measured. Except it can't.

You assume that a spirit is completely ethereal and cannot touch or be touched. Also, you assume that a spirit is not matter. Actually, there are numerous reports of people feeling hands touching them in spiritual encounters. Some believe that spirit is matter, just more refined. In many near death experiences, people say that the spirit world is not at all ethereal, but is every bit as real as our own. Our perceptions are heightened, but there are colors; people and animals have the same 3D appearance we do here. Sounds are every bit as real and when people touch, it feels much the same as it does here. A number expressed surprise that things were as substantial there as here, and that there are buildings, roads (though different than here). There are no conveyances as we know them here nor is there a central source of light, as all things exude their own light. No one can approve these accounts are true, but they're very consistent.

13

Jehovah or Jesus: Who Is To Come?

by Cold Steel in

one thing i've never understood about jw eschatology is how it views armageddon and the end times.

the leaders and writers have evolved in their understanding of what's supposed to happen in the timeline.

below are bible scriptures relating to biblical armageddon.

Cold Steel

Mephis» ...even within Christianity, certainly within the Anglican communion, there's a lot of questions over some of the assumptions present in just that short sentence. I doubt it would even occur to you to question them. That's fundamentally going to be the gulf between your interpretation of scripture and JWs' too. It would be the same sort of response as if you tried to explain Yahweh being Jesus to a Gnostic. They'd think you were slightly dotty and terribly deluded.

I'm not sure I'm reading you. There are numerous interpretations to many scriptures. Gnostics were considered some of the worst heretics of their time and one of the things that give away Islam is Islam's borrowing of Gnostic claims, such as Jesus not being crucified or resurrected. It got to the point that anything later Christian scholars didn't like were considered Gnostic. That said, there were numerous forces in and out of the church that were robbing the early church of true doctrine and replacing it with the "doctrines of devils."

Jesus' comments and declarations associating himself with YHWH are seen by the JWs as being simply divine investiture of authority. IOWs, it doesn't matter who says it, both are ONE, either a trinitarian ONE or a corporate ONE. But John states, "For the Father judgeth no man, but has committed all judgement to the Son." (John 5:22)

Here seems to be a clear distinction between the Father and the Son that would not occur if John believed in the Trinity. Some might also wonder who was acting as God while Jesus was undergoing mortality? If MAN needs a mediator between him and God, who was that mediator during those 33 years? Does God delegate work to those who have lived on the earth? Who knows? I just can't buy into the Trinitarian notion that one being can manifest itself as multiple beings.

62

What Happens To You When You Die?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are our dead loved ones watching over us at all or are they really just gone now?

Cold Steel

Personally, I think when you die, that's it. Oblivion. No afterlife.

What do you think of all the paranormal shows on television? Do you think these people are lying our that they fake everything? There are people who have been driven from their homes by spirits and unable to return. Whether these are the spirits of the departed or evil spirits is unknown, but when these paranormal investigators go into asylums and other places, I don't believe they're making it all up.

I had a friend from Atchison, Kansas, who had spirits in his home. He told me about his experiences but said these spirits didn't harm them in any way. The family became accustomed to them and that events were relatively rare. On one occasion, my friend said, his mother was carrying laundry upstairs. She tripped and as she fell back, two hands grabbed her by the shoulders and righted her. Assuming it was her husband, she turned and said, "Thank goodness you...." and no one was there. It initially unnerved her, but she reasoned that if the spirit had meant her any harm, it would have let her fall. But every member of the family had their own stories. And no, I don't believe they were lying, crazy or imagining it.

Why would we assume that when we get as low as we can go on the GCS scale we become fully conscious again?

We don't assume anything. If the spirit departs from the body, it is no longer under the restraints of the flesh.

62

What Happens To You When You Die?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are our dead loved ones watching over us at all or are they really just gone now?

Cold Steel

I've read numerous near death experiences. The first one by George Ritchie was what got me interested in researching the subject. In it he speaks of the incredible speeds he reached and the difficulty in finding his own body once he realized he had passed away. He was being conscripted into the war but had died from a fever. He records:

I hurried inside. There was the admissions department partment where I had reported ten days ago. It was evidently still the middle of the night, because the offices were closed and locked. I started off along the left-hand corridor, but stopped when I saw that it led to what looked like a staff dining room.
Where was the ward I had awakened in earlier tonight? At last at the end of several hallways I came to a large room that looked familiar. There was a sleeping ing form in each of the beds that lined the walls, but the one that I was looking for--the one I was now convinced belonged to me--was in one of the small single rooms near the door, that I was sure of. I looked eagerly in all three of these, but the first two were empty and in the last one was a man in traction, both legs encased in plaster casts.
I returned to the corridor and looked up and down, undecided. Where was that little room? What wing of the huge hospital was it in, even? I racked my brain, trying to remember something--anything-that anything-that would help me locate it, but it was no use. I would have been unconscious when they brought me there from the X-ray room, and when I woke up I had been so obsessed with the idea of getting to Virginia that I had rushed off without even a backward glance. The fact was that somewhere in over two hundred barracks there was one tiny room that was infinitely important to me--and it could be in any one of them at all. And so began one of the strangest searches that can ever have taken place: the search for myself.
From one ward to another of that enormous complex I rushed, pausing in each small room, stooping over the occupant of the bed, hurrying on. There were hundreds and hundreds of these narrow single-bed cubicles, each so like every other one, and the wards all so alike, that soon I became confused about which ones I had been to, and whether I was simply retracing my steps over and over. And slowly a far more alarming truth began to register. I had never seen myself! Not really. Not the way I saw other people. From my chest down I had seen myself "in the round" of course, but from the shoulders up, I now realized, I had seen only a two-dimensional mirror-image staring at me from a piece of glass. And occasionally a snapshot, equally two-dimensional. That was all.
The roundedness, the living, space-filling presence of myself, I did not know at all. And that, I now discovered, is the way we recognize each other. Not by the shape of the nose or the color of the eyes, but by the whole three-dimensional impact of all the features at once. I knew my height and weight of course. "Six feet two, one hundred and seventy-eight pounds," I kept repeating, as though memorizing the description of a stranger. But what help was that when the person was lying in bed? Here were row after row of soldiers who all must be around that size. They were all of them, like me, in their late teens or early twenties, all of them in hospital pajamas under brown Army blankets, every one of them with a G.I. haircut. (George Ritchie, Return From Tomorrow)

Ah-ha! some may say. Fever! Must have been a hallucination. But I had a fever once with hallucinations and nothing made sense. There was no 3D, no details in what I saw or remembered. I recall seeing orange tomatoes and calling them pumpkins, then having only the sketchiest of recollections afterwards. It didn't happen the way Ritchie describes here.

Again, no one knows for sure unless they've experienced it. My maternal grandfather had an experience on his deathbed and saw something. He tugged on my mom's sleeve and pointed at the end of his bed and up. And my dad, just a day before his death, was caught smiling at my mother. "What's up with you?" she said. My dad, who while living was a big near death skeptic, simply took her hand and beamed. "I saw her," he said. "I've talked to her...twice."

"Who?" my mom queried.

"My mother," he replied, giving her hand another squeeze. We were all flabbergasted. First, dad wasn't all that much into smiling. Second, he wasn't really into religious experiences. And especially near death experiences.

34

What do you think is the source of your consciousness? Can it be copied or transferred?

by EndofMysteries in

this seems to be a question that even scientifically is still in the air.

right now your consciousness, is it the physical part of the brain?

the electrical signals in the brain?

Cold Steel

Fisherman: ...if you mean to say that name calling refers to insulting the person, then cofty's post is not an offense about your person, only a remark about what you posted. I agreed with his view about your post.

Okay, in that case, your reasoning is nonsensical.

Hmmm...you're right. That was easy. And I said absolutely nothing substantial at all.

34

What do you think is the source of your consciousness? Can it be copied or transferred?

by EndofMysteries in

this seems to be a question that even scientifically is still in the air.

right now your consciousness, is it the physical part of the brain?

the electrical signals in the brain?

Cold Steel

You completely described a coded thought process that could easily be implemented into AI.

Agreed...AI could do that. But would it? AI can give a wonderful emulation of intelligence. You can program it to act frightened in the face of danger or grieved in the loss of a person or animal. But it can't learn to actually feel danger or grief.

There would have to be some curiosity on its part or why would our AI go through the trouble of alarm over detecting a flying object it couldn't identify? Even if it's programmed, the UFO would come across as UNKNOWN. The robot might catalog it, note the location, estimated speed, direction and time, but it can't feel anything. The UFO could land on the lawn of the White House and a Bigfoot could come out of it and our AI robot could feel no more than a toaster! Sure, it could be designed and programmed to act surprised, but code can't feel. The experience can't elicit an emotional response.

To understand intelligence, we must first define it. Going back to Flynn's book, he notes that's one of the primary problems. He recounts some questions and answers with Soviet peasants back in the 70s and recognizes that despite cognitive differences which make the answers hilarious to us, they made perfect sense to them. Even so, they knew the difference between analytic and synthetic propositions, but did not employ the same understanding of logic. "Pure logic cannot tell us anything about facts; only experience can," Flynn writes.

Q: What do a chicken and a dog have in common?
A: They are not alike. A chicken has two legs, a dog has four. A chicken has wings but a dog doesn't. A dog has big ears and a chicken's are small.
Q: Is there one word you could use for them both?
A: No, of course not.
Q: Would the word "animal" fit?
A: Yes.

It's a great book. Hadn't read it for a while; I'm glad the topic came up.

20

How can Jesus be the head of the Jehovah's Witnesses

by Watchtower-Free in

.

Cold Steel

Well actually, Jesus and Jehovah are one and the same.

Both are the First and the Last
Both will come to judge the world and all on it.
Both will come to the Mount of Olives.
Both will destroy the wicked at the time of their coming

When Adam fell, the Father (El Elyon) could no longer deal directly with Man. Jehovah became the Mediator between Man and God. Because he died for the sins of the world, he became Man's advocate with the Father. In Zechariah 12-14, it's clearly Jesus' return that is being prophesied. Read also Ezekiel 38-39. Same event.

62

What Happens To You When You Die?

by minimus in

jw
friends

are our dead loved ones watching over us at all or are they really just gone now?

Cold Steel

Everything stated on this matter is opinion, whether atheistic or religious.

As the ancient church was foundering, various church daters came forward to report what they remember the apostles saying. Origen wrote in the third century: "After death, I think the saints go to Paradise, a place of learning or school of the spirits, in which everything they did on Earth would be made clear to them." This seems to jive with many near death experiences where people report seeing or experiencing "life reviews" -- a not altogether pleasant examination of the right and wrong things one did while they were alive.

This is my view.

However, there's the famous Roman epithet:

I Was Not,

I Was,

I Am Not,

I Care Not!

34

What do you think is the source of your consciousness? Can it be copied or transferred?

by EndofMysteries in

this seems to be a question that even scientifically is still in the air.

right now your consciousness, is it the physical part of the brain?

the electrical signals in the brain?

Cold Steel

Fisherman: Cofty is right about your post even if it was't mormon gibberish it would still be just the same, gibberish -or rubbish. Anyway, that is how I see it.

That's what I find so remarkable about you guys. I can accept your opinions as your views. I may think your views are garbage and ill-conceived, but I don't leave posts with name calling because I don't like them. I assure you that I do not have a high regard of Cofty or his views. I assure you that I find them just as nonsensical as he finds mine.

But that's where intelligence comes in. Code is free of opinions (save those of the one who writes it). Code cannot come to a determination of truth; it only can say, "If A is true, then 1F." Code cannot believe in God or anything else. In the early 70s, my mother and I saw two UFOs over the night skies of Washington, D.C. Intelligence doesn't always come up with the correct conclusions. Some might conclude (as we did) that we simply didn't have enough information to reach an explanation. But others may conclude they were extraterrestrials, or interdimensional, craft. Others might immediately conclude they were secret government aircraft, or some that they were simply hallucinations. But code can only conclude they were simply unidentified, without eliciting the least curiosity afterwards.

In short, intelligence is often accompanied by what others see as irrational conclusions. There's a point of view aspect wholly lacking in intelligence.

34

What do you think is the source of your consciousness? Can it be copied or transferred?

by EndofMysteries in

this seems to be a question that even scientifically is still in the air.

right now your consciousness, is it the physical part of the brain?

the electrical signals in the brain?

Cold Steel

EndOfMysteries: Are our actions really random? Our moods are based upon a release of chemicals in our brain, dopamine, etc. Our actions and reactions are based upon past experience, memories, stimulus of the senses, etc. A robot could be programmed to learn like a human, and if a reward system was programmed to match a human, then I think it's very possible for it to become self aware and learn as a person, but even exceed our intelligence.

No, our actions are not random at all. They may be affected by various brain chemicals and systems, but I don't believe they cause intelligence as much as simply affect it. In recent studies, molecular imaging in conjunction with positron emission tomography are enabling researchers to now track levels of serotonin and endogenous opioids (naturally-occurring pain killers), determining how the brain functions (and malfunctions) when responding to environmental disruptions of a person's work, social, and family life. It also allows researchers to gague the effects of various treatments of abnormal brain functions.

Just today there's news that man's brain is far more comprehensive in its abilities than previously thought.

In an attempt to understand and measure the brain’s synapses, whose shape and size have remained mysterious to scientists, researchers at the University of Texas, Austin and the Salk Institute worked together to determine that the brain’s memory capacity is much larger than previously understood. The results, published in the journal eLife, estimate that an individual human brain may store as much as a petabyte of information—perhaps 10 times more than previously estimated, and about the equivalent of the World Wide Web.

All that horsepower and nowhere to crank it up!

Not only is the diversity of synapses they observed in such a small brain region surprising, the storage capacity of each is “markedly higher than previous suggestions,” write the authors. Prior to this, researchers believed an individual synapse was only capable of storing 1 to 2 bits of information. This suggests we may have underestimated the memory capacity of the brain, which has trillions of synapses, "by an order of magnitude."
According to lead author Terry Sejnowski, in whose lab the study was conducted, "Our new measurements of the brain’s memory capacity increase conservative estimates by a factor of 10 to at least a petabyte, in the same ballpark as the World Wide Web."

This raises an interesting field of study for evolutionists who must now consider just why that horsepower exists and how it developed. I'm just fascinated that it's there.