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@Jeff_Goldblum
SE Chat Room #2
Posts
Total:
42
"According to the survey, a whopping 60% of people believe that they have seen a ghost."
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@Jeff_Goldblum
A new study of 2,000 people found that most people have a stronger connection to the paranormal than one might think - 60 percent of those studied felt they had seen a ghost in their lifetime.
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@Jeff_Goldblum
"Across thousands of years and in cultures around the world, people have described powerful experiences"
"An NDE may begin with an out-of-body experience—a very clear perception of being somehow separate from one’s physical body, possibly even hovering nearby and watching events going on around the body."
"No scientific explanation so far has satisfactorily accounted for all aspects of NDEs or their effects."
"Near-death experiences (NDEs) are reported by an estimated 200,000 Americans a year, and studies around the world suggest NDEs are a common human experience."
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@Jeff_Goldblum
Could you explain what NDEs and OBEs are?
Just to elaborate a bit more, an NDE (near death experience) is basically when a person has had some type of accident or ailment and the body basically loses its normal functions and becomes clinically "dead". Meaning the heart stops beating and the brain shuts down. So after this takes place an NDE basically describes what a person experiences after physical death but because of one thing or another the person has regained consciousness and are able to relay what they observed after that moment. Obviously had they fully crossed over to the other side it wouldn't be called "near" death, so these are accounts and testimonies of what they saw and went through from the time they left their body and then were able to come back.
Interestingly these aren't religious people so there is no motivation to sell any particular ideas, it's just people who have experienced life after death.
OBE's (out of body experience) are basically the same concept except that there wasn't a death involved, somehow leaving the physical body was induced by another means.
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@EtrnlVw
Thank you for sharing those. I feel like I now have a better idea of the phenomenon you're citing as evidence. My apologies for taking so long to develop an adequate understanding.
Two more questions, if you don't mind:
1) How does a great number of reported supernatural experiences support your belief in an all-present consciousness you described at the beginning of this chat? Could another person look at the same body of evidence and come to a different conclusion about the divine?
2) If you were to lose confidence in the veracity of these supernatural claims, how would that affect your belief confidence?
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@Jeff_Goldblum
1) How does a great number of reported supernatural experiences support your belief in an all-present consciousness you described at the beginning of this chat? Could another person look at the same body of evidence and come to a different conclusion about the divine?
It supports the fact that there is a transcendent reality. I only correlated this type of evidence for the proposition that the soul exists independent of the physical body, or that spiritual beings exist. However that IS a Theistic proposition to begin with, but it's not an argument necessarily for the description I gave of God. We went off track from that when I made reference to spiritual experiences I've had.
2) If you were to lose confidence in the veracity of these supernatural claims, how would that affect your belief confidence?
I already said in one of the posts above that these are not the reason I believe in God, I'm using them for you (as an unbeliever) to see there is evidence for supernatural claims. My confidence in God started way before I started researching evidence for NDE's and the paranormal. You gotta keep up bro lol, we need to tread some new grounds here soon.
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@Jeff_Goldblum
Let me speed things up here a bit, my perception of this world and how I interpret it is the foundation or starting point of my confidence that a Creator exists. This stems all the way back to when I was barely old enough to walk. Let me put it to you this way and it's going to sound strange especially to an atheist lol. There was never a time I didn't believe in God, somehow I understood the concept even while I was in diapers. So I can't really give you any timeline or reason I went from not believing to being confident, rather my confidence continually progresses the more I perceive and the more I learn, the more I think about it all. The more I formulate my perceptions.
Having said that, I've have spiritual encounters over the years which solidified my thoughts about the world and how it got here. As I got older is when I began correlating my observations and interpretations with other sources and with other testimonies which lends evidence to my particular worldview. While I had understanding of God at a young age I of course didn't know how to fully articulate that, so as I began putting more pieces together is how I arrived at my current conception of God, which I shared in my OP. If you want to discuss more of that idea you'll have to further the interview and ask questions that pertain to that.
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@Jeff_Goldblum
So basically, there's not just one thing that gives me confidence that God exists, or that supports my conception of God. It is a myriad of various factors that all intertwine and come together. Spiritual experiences (my own) and testimonies of others is only one of those factors.
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@EtrnlVw
I greatly appreciate your patience with me up to this point. Unfortunately, I think we've reached a point where it's past my capacity to have a productive conversation in the fashion of street epistemology. In other words, I would like to end our dialogue here. I hope you do not view the time you've devoted to this as a waste. If so, I apologize.
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@Jeff_Goldblum
Alright cool, if you get bored in the future and are curious about anything we've discussed just pop back in. There's lots we could go over, heck we haven't even scratched the surface so I'll be here if you ever want to continue.