Warlock
I love the way you whine like a four-year old girl when your passive-aggressive anti-athiestic posturing gets the treatment it calls out for. I am sure having this level of resentment cannot be good for your heart.
I also notice how you evade the issues instead of responding to them. No comment what-so-ever on me pointing out what some religious people take as being applied to them is really applied to the nut jobs; well, of course you'd avoid doing anything like agreeing with me or even trying to find common ground. You decided long ago I was an 'enemy' and in your petty little world that's where reason ends.
So much so you often don't even read or understand what I have said. What difference oes it make? You're trying to prove a point here, LOL.
I said proof TO ME, not to you. Secondly, I didn't say "when I ALMOST DIE", I said WHEN I die.
Now, read what I wrote again and this time do it slower so you understand. I wasn't talking about YOU having a NDE. Nowhere do I say that. Try reading what I wrote, eh? And no where was I talking about anything being proved to me either. Again, try reading what I wrote to avoid embaressing yourself.
I was talking about your last thoughts being like a NDE, as it is reasonable to suppose a DE is like a NDE but without the N.
As such, your last thoughts in your DE would be based on experiences like a NDE, which are most often what a person's beliefs would have them expect.
Thus you would, maybe, see the tunnel of light etc. doo-laly that the brain often produces in believers when they die (due to physiological conditions giving inputs that are interpretted by prexisting beliefs). In your nearly dead state you might well experience a gloating satisfaction that Pascal's wager worked well for you before conciousness ceased. It's about your level.
But if that 'proved' anything to you, like I said, "your standard of proof is sorely inadequate", unless you consider someone on the verge of brain death a reliable witness.
I mean, if NDE's are dictated by belief, then it seems they are internal, i.e. based on a facet of our imagination. The idea that they are external is silly; god must then be awfully indecisive, pulling people up and down tunnels willy-nilly, and also willing to be a Muslim god, a Hindu god or a Christian god according to the beliefs of the dying person.
I am sorry if me making a simple point (if the experiences of survivors of NDE's are anything to go by you might think you had proof for god before your brain stopped working but it wouldn't be) is so taxing for you.
How do you know of ANYTHING that I have learned in life?
By the way you act and the things you say. If all you could do with an afterlife is haunt atheists you have a grudge against, you really are sad and obviously would benefit from re-incarnation to maybe get some better karma.
What I highlighted in my original post is the problem that you and Abaddon have. CONTROL. You hide it under the guise of "we just need to correct foolish belief and thought", just like a J.W. "Sir, your religion is misleading you. See.....right here...........read this scripture along with me".
And slack-jawed uncritical acceptence of nonsense is a good thing? I don't care if people believe in utter nonsense; on a cult-survivor board I consider it wholey appropriate to mention if someone is believing nonsense. Whether someone believes what I say is up to them. Me not saying anything, would be, by my morals, bad.
Or would you let someone eat shit or stick their hand in a fire or invest in a 419 scam because you didn't want to be controlling?
I think this has far more to do with you having a grudge against reasonably educated, confident people and want more attention for yourself. No doubt you will now tell me all about how educated you are, and how setting yourself up as the defender of the board against funky and Abaddon even into the afterlife is modesty on your part...
Mary
I've got a three and a half hour drive ahead of me so will add any further info after the weekend;
http://www.drdjnicholls.clara.net/phd/intro.htm
This site is now a bit broken; I can't find the text I wanted and bookmarked the site for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Death_Studies
"NDE-researchers have also found that the NDE is not a uniquely western experience. The core experience seems to be similar across cultures, but the details of the experience (figures, beings, scenery), and the interpretation of the experience, varies a lot from culture to culture (Mauro, 1992)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
... and obviously it goes without saying that most atheists are raised theists, and say 'oh god!' when annoyed or shocked. Outside of a Pratchettian god which allows each to have the after-life they believed in, it would appear the most safe conclusion is that NDE's prove nothing other than the continued and millenia-long failure of theists to prove a damn thing, and the equally long habit of them blaming non-theists for it.