Most people can't handle the truth. The truth is the most upsetting thing in the world.
And when it comes to the Bible, one can not truly know until after we've died.
It's always easy to crticise. It's far easier to criticise something from a distance than when it's more personal. It's easy to dismiss.
And people are often too willing to dismiss things even on the most tiniest of information.
And nobody has the monopoly on intolerance.
Originally posted by Dataflux
Most people can't handle the truth. The truth is the most upsetting thing in the world.And when it comes to the Bible, one can not truly know until after we've died.
It's always easy to crticise. It's far easier to criticise something from a distance than when it's more personal. It's easy to dismiss.
And people are often too willing to dismiss things even on the most tiniest of information.
And nobody has the monopoly on intolerance.
It all depends on what you are talking about. If you are talking about things that are logical and can be quantified in reality, then the you are correct. However, if you are talking about the supernatural, then you maybe confusing critical thinking with criticism.
Originally posted by Dataflux
Critical thinking is just criticism with an incredible amount of details and there really is no difference. The thing about logic is that people can come to different conclusions based on the same body of evidence.
In other words, anyone who disagrees with you is criticising you?
Originally posted by Dataflux
"In other words, anyone who disagrees with you is criticising you?"Any disagreement of anything is a form of criticism.
Added: and of course by "you" you mean general you not specific.
However, disagreement can be a positive thing. After all, the US disagreed with the Germans killing 6 million Jews in WWII.
What Happens When We Die?
By M.J. STEPHEY
Wed Sep 24, 12:25 PM ET
[Omitted material]
What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?
Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about 500 or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than 10 years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened, and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles - not just the patients' side but also the doctors' side - and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.
Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours?
Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that, well, when you die, you die; that's it. Death is a moment - you know you're either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion, and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels - beyond the level of the atoms - Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy - even Einstein himself didn't believe in it.
Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics. The CERN particle accelerator may take us back to our roots. It may take us back to the first moments after the Big Bang, the very beginning. With our study, for the first time, we have the technology and the means to be able to investigate this. To see what happens at the end for us. Does something continue?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080924/hl_time/whathappenswhenwedie
Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
[b]What Happens When We Die?
By M.J. STEPHEY
Wed Sep 24, 12:25 PM ET[Omitted material]
What was your first interview like with someone who had reported an out-of-body experience?
Eye-opening and very humbling. Because what you see is that, first of all, they are completely genuine people who are not looking for any kind of fame or attention. In many cases they haven't even told anybody else about it because they're afraid of what people will think of them. I have about 500 or so cases of people that I've interviewed since I first started out more than 10 years ago. It's the consistency of the experiences, the reality of what they were describing. I managed to speak to doctors and nurses who had been present who said these patients had told them exactly what had happened, and they couldn't explain it. I actually documented a few of those in my book What Happens When We Die because I wanted people to get both angles - not just the patients' side but also the doctors' side - and see how it feels for the doctors to have a patient come back and tell them what was going on. There was a cardiologist that I spoke with who said he hasn't told anyone else about it because he has no explanation for how this patient could have been able to describe in detail what he had said and done. He was so freaked out by it that he just decided not to think about it anymore.
Why do you think there is such resistance to studies like yours?
Because we're pushing through the boundaries of science, working against assumptions and perceptions that have been fixed. A lot of people hold this idea that, well, when you die, you die; that's it. Death is a moment - you know you're either dead or alive. All these things are not scientifically valid, but they're social perceptions. If you look back at the end of the 19th century, physicists at that time had been working with Newtonian laws of motion, and they really felt they had all the answers to everything that was out there in the universe. When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels - beyond the level of the atoms - Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy - even Einstein himself didn't believe in it.
Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics. The CERN particle accelerator may take us back to our roots. It may take us back to the first moments after the Big Bang, the very beginning. With our study, for the first time, we have the technology and the means to be able to investigate this. To see what happens at the end for us. Does something continue?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080924/hl_time/whathappenswhenwedie [/B]
So . . . death is a hard to define but clearly physiological state that has nothing remotely to do with God? I see.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
So . . . death is a hard to define but clearly physiological state that has nothing remotely to do with God? I see.
Not necessarily. The point is is death truly the end or is there existence beyond this realm. Science doth not haveth alleth the answerethesis. Sorry just felt like being fascetious.
Originally posted by JesusIsAlive
Not necessarily. The point is is death truly the end or is there existence beyond this realm. Science doth not haveth alleth the answerethesis. Sorry just felt like being fascetious.
Neither does religion does have all the answers either, in fact it doesn't even address most of them. So far science's answer about what happens after you die is "you're dead" and all the evidence I know of supports that, preliminary studies by a single researcher don't go very far in science.