it is irrational to argue that there's no evidence for the afterlife

Author: n8nrgim

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#121
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@n8nrgim
You ask about whether skeptics are skeptical about ESP or other out-of-body experiences while the individual is alive. That's a fair question but not necessarily persuasive. I have no doubt that there are those who don't believe in a soul, God or life after death but think that the human brain is capable (when alive) of many things that science has yet to discover. There is no necessary connection between the possibility that when alive a brain can do things and that a person has the capability of perception after brain function ceases.

I also don't understand why "people should be hallucinating living people and non family members". People dream about things that their brain can create from the inputs and memories that it has. I dream of speaking to my father but he passed away 5 years ago. That doesn't make it real. I also dream of talking to people who I know who are alive. I similarly dream of people I have never met and situations which couldn't possibly happen. Why would a dream that happens amidst the rush of activity in a NDE be any different? Additionally, I'm confused by the absolute nature of "people would always hallucinate telepathic communication in their experiences" (emphasis mine). In my dreams I often sense communication without seeing anyone's lips move. I also sense floating or flying (sometimes in an airplane, sometimes a car, sometimes, just flying). Why is there anything conclusive about dreams?
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#122
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@rosends
even dreams arent so consistent in seeing dead family members and telepathy.

you do see how ridiculous your argument is right? 'sometimes i dream about my dead family members, and sometime i dream about telepathy... therefore, when people die they will almost always hallucinate dead family members and telepathy'. such a leap of logic.

it's like when someone argues the tunnels in NDEs could be explained by a dying brain and light in the eyes... therefore, apparatenly, it all makes sense that people would hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories when they die too, i guess? makes perfect sense. 

i assume skeptic know that they are making stupid arguments like this, yet just choose to throw out any flimsy argument they can. it's not a rational thought process. 

#123
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@n8nrgim
People dream what they dream and remember what they remember. The anecdotal evidence is thin and not very substantial (and can't be corroborated, tested or repeated). It takes a person with a pre-existing tendency towards belief to accept that low of a threshold or standard for "proof." Not being able to see that not everyone shares that way of thinking is to hold a very narrow world view.

32 days later

#124
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I think one of the main issues tends to be a misunderstanding of what evidence is.
Evidence can be one of two things:
1) Something that, in light of its existence, shows X to be more probably true than false (this is what most people think evidence is).
2) Something that, in light of its existence, shows X to be more probably true than if it did not exist (and this is often neglected).

Something can be evidence of the 2nd kind without it being enough to establish that the thing it is evidence for is more probably true than false, yet often you will find people saying things like "there is no evidence for X" due to the things usually pointed to as evidence not being evidence of the 1st kind.
Cumulative cases for things are cases built on many pieces of evidence of the 2nd kind in order to increase the probability of X to being "more probably true than false," and it is important to note that many conclusions we accept in science, history, etc. are cumulative cases.
A consequence of this is that you can hold that something is likely not true while agreeing that there is evidence for it (whether it is some scientific concept, historical theory, philosophical idea, etc.).
It is rare, then, for there to be a topic worth debating where one side has "no evidence" going for it, even if it doesn't have enough evidence to be "more probably true than false."
So, I do agree with you that it is "irrational to argue that there's no evidence for the afterlife," and I think that most people that do make that claim do so out of a fundamental misunderstanding on what constitutes 'evidence'.
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#125
n8nrgim
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another debate thread at a different debate website

example.
the legal standard of 'evidence' is whether it is probative, whether it increases the likelihood for something being true. an anecdote is just an anecdote... but lots of anecdotes are a trend, and they are evidence. 'anecdotal evidence' and 'circumstantial evidence' are actual concepts, and everything i'm arguing is at the very least anecdotal and circumstantial. you just choose to ignore it. i provide lots of evidence, and all you have in response is philopshical quibbles, you have no science to support your claims other than speculation. you dont even have good philsophy on your side... if you it's common for people to experience elaborate afterlife stories when they die, maybe an afterlife exists? it's not rocket science. we should at least entertain that idea since you are so weak when it comes to the science aspect. 
 'brain chemicals' 'people are seeing something that soothes them', these are the realm of philsophical arguments, not science. what if the afterlife is exactly like these experiences purport them to be? what if you saw that was true when you died? would you claim you had no indication that there was an after life over your whole life? you at least had an indication that there's an afterlife. objectively even if you didn't want to call it evdeince, it indicated something to you, but you chose to disregard it. to quibble and say you had an indicator of an afterlife but no evidence is objectively an irrational statement... you have an indication of the afterlife, thus you have evidence of an afterlife. 

out of body experiences. you just choose to ignore it. when out of body experiences are investigated, they are almost always accurate. someone who just guesses what happened outside of their body are almost always wrong. these incidents involve credible witnesses like doctors. pam reynolds was being monitored the whole time of her surgery and saw medical equipment during her surgery that she could describe that lay people do not know about. it's a well established story. there can be something little like someone seeing shoes on the window sill of another hospital room that they had no access to. the accuracy of these stories are based on science... it's not science to the degree of certitude that you prefer, but it's basic science. these investigations and be repeated and verified as circumstantially accurate, which basic science. 

you also just choose to ignore that blind people struggle to come to grips with having sight during their expereince. for your argument to be true, you, again, just have to ignore this evidence. at best, for this point and all the others, you should be arguing that if the truth is as presented then evidence for the afterlife exists. you should at least be be open minded to that possibility, not just ignoring it all out of hand. 

you dont give good reasons why someone who hallucainte dead family members almost exclusively when they  see earth beings. you have speculation that people are close to family, but it's a weak point, cause not everyone is close to family, some people are close to friends, some people are obsessed with taylor swift or elvis presley... they dont see celebrites or living people, it's almost always dead relatives. your only possible explanations for this are weak. 

you dont even have a plausible explanation for why communication is always telepahtic with these experiences. why aren't they talking during these hallucinations? you have no plausible explantion. 

if it's common for people to no longer fear death and be absolutely sure of an afterlife after these exerpeinces, and they say their expericences were more real than this life... it's just to not think maybe they are being accurate in their reports. 

all you have to argue is philsophy, not science. you dont even have to believe that an afterlife is probable or that it exists, just that evidence for those propositions do exist. all you are proving is that you have a deep seated need to be a skeptic, all you have is empty rhetoric. 

10 days later

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#126
n8nrgim
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article about philosophically why an afterlife obviously exists 

more 
#127
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@n8nrgim
Neuroscientists who study consciousness and have weighed the decades of research into NDEs have said these claims that consciousness survives death are not supported by the research. Though they are highly personal and often transformative for those who experience them, NDEs are nonetheless explained by physiological processes, they said, which have been pieced together over the past 50 years. In the decades since Moody published Life After Life, advances in critical care medicine and resuscitation science have made it easier to revive patients whose hearts have stopped, which has made it easier to systematically identify and study people who have had an NDE. Some estimates now suggest that between 4 to 15 percent of the global population and 10 to 23 percent of cardiac arrest patients have had an NDE.2 We now have a better grasp of how they happen, what purpose they may serve and why they are so transformative for those who experience them. At the most basic level, neuroscientists say, when a person’s brain changes in profound ways—as happens when that person goes into cardiac arrest, for example—their perceptions and emotions change in profound ways, too.
#128
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"The mystical trend of our time, which shows itself particularly in the rampant growth of the so-called Theosophy and Spiritualism, is for me no more than a symptom of weakness and confusion. Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."—Albert Einstein, letter of February 5, 1921
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#129
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"At the most basic level, neuroscientists say, when a person’s brain changes in profound ways—as happens when that person goes into cardiac arrest, for example—their perceptions and emotions change in profound ways, too."

what i see, is that i post scientific evidence, but you choose to ignore it and respond not with a decent scientific response but rather with weak philosophy instead. what you post is more in the realm of philosphy than science, after all. 
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#130
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discussion on why it's irrational to say there's no evidence for afterlife. more philophsic oriented

9 days later

#131
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@FLRW
I respect your stance, but the NDEs might not be the only way to prove the afterlife.

There are experiences in which some people could communicate with the dead loved ones. And far from considering these experiences as hallucinations, the person that could hear a specfic dead relative was able to tell stories that no one would have ever known but only the deceaded person.

I heard a lot of stories about it, and all of them seem to have similar patterns. Of course, there might be people that take advantage of it to deceive other people, but I think the experience is real. I heard the film "Ghost" was based on a real story, so there you have how extended this experience is.

And don't take this post as an attempt to prove the existence of "the God of religions" because I'm pretty sure this doesn't exist. 😆
#132
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@IlDiavolo
The human mind has the potential to overthink.

And brain chemistry has the potential to generate  fantasy and illusion.

AKA storytelling.

Which will inevitably result in gullible people with the potential to believe.
#133
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@zedvictor4
How do you explain this person who contacts with the deceased ones (called mediums) can tell things that only the relatives know about their dead loved ones?

I'm telling it from my own experience, by the way. I can say the same thing about seers. I know some of them that are really highly accurate in their predictions.
#134
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@IlDiavolo
Trickery.

Usually by coercing gullible people with leading questions.

At the end of the day, it's all about making money.



And predictions are easy to make.

Human nature is repetitive and therefore predictable.

And so are natural events.

And some people will remember reasonably accurate predictions with awe, and want to forget about all the inaccurate stuff.

And a few people will make a living from predicting.






#135
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@zedvictor4
And predictions are easy to make.
Human nature is repetitive and therefore predictable.
Exactly. That is why there are people with the skills to predict the future, because it's possible, but not based on observable events, this kind of predictions go beyond what our senses can perceive.

And I can assure you, Zed, I'm not that gullible. 😆
#136
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@IlDiavolo
Exactly.

And that is why some people make a living from predicting the future.

But like I said, if said predictor guesses correctly people are happy to ignore all the incorrect guesses.


And if you watch and analyse a hundred theatrical mediums, you will see that they all use the same technique.

They will target specific pre-selected vulnerable people and elicit information from them using leading questions.

It's actually very entertaining to watch.

Occasionally they get caught out by a prankster......Which is also very entertaining.


Don't be fooled.



#137
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@zedvictor4
I'm not going to convince you otherwise, Zed. You are too old to change your mind (You can be my father).

I know there are some conmen tricking others with this stuff and that's one reason why many people don't believe in it. And I agree we have to be careful with that because only very few in this world, counted on the fingers of one hand, have these skills.

But let's the science speak about it given that you are very incredulous Here in South America there was a very famous medium, I think world famous, his name was Chico Xavier, a brazilian medium. According to a study his work wasnt a hoax.

I suggest you to check that out, he wrote a very interesting book about the other side. When he was sick in a hospital, people thought he was going to die, and the tv camera spotted something like a ghost or spirit getting into his room, Chico Xavier said it was his mom, and only then he started to recover. All what I'm telling you is in a Youtube video.

#138
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@IlDiavolo
Hi Son.

Yes I will check out Chico and give you an honest opinion.

Though I might struggle if it is in Portuguese.

10 days later

#139
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@n8nrgim
The Afterlife is true. It is true, in my perspective, because the Bible says it is true. 

It is also true because it makes sense intuitively.  Since God created the world, then he must have done so for a purpose. That purpose seems to have been articulated in the Bible, although some choose to ignore it. This includes the afterlife. 

It makes sense because life would be unfair otherwise. Not that life has to be fair or course, but since I believe in God, I also believe in justice, either here in this time or in the afterlife. Since not every justice is righted here, there must be another place to right it. 

Life is too short to be all there is.   

Jesus' death on the cross would be a classic case of overkill if there was no afterlife. 

Even culture begins with a religious position. This can't be a coincidence. 

Religion is the result of evolution. The most evolved life form on this planet is religious.  The other life forms have not yet evolved to a spiritual life. 

If evolution is correct, which it is not, but if it is, then evolution means evolving until we become a higher form of life. Perhaps God is an evolved life form from another planet? ( a nonsense argument but interesting all the same) 


96 days later

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#140
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@SethBrown
you look open minded. you might like this thread. id say you look like an open minded christian, but i'm not sure if you are christian? you say things that indicate that you are, but also say things that show you are willing to doubt. if you are christian, you are open to truth as a general rule, and only accept jesus based on your best pursuit of truth, and not cause someone told you to. 
#141
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@n8nrgim
I’d be a big fat liar if I told you I came to the Christian belief on reason alone, but now that I’m more mature I do try to Peruse truth, as a general rule of thumb I am unconvinced until convinced, it’s allowed me to avoid a lot of false things. I’ll take a look at the thread though.
#142
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@n8nrgim
dr. jeffrey long wrong a book, 'evidence of of the afterlife'.  a smart and capable doctor writing a book like that should be sufficient to establish evidence, but i know some peeps are too stubborn to leave it at that. 
I disagree with this, I’m going to assume dr. Jeffrey is a doctor of medicine. Imagine we put a philosopher and a medical doctor in a room, then I asked the philosopher “how many gallons of blood does a human body mean?” Then asked the doctor “is a god real?”

It’d be quite odd since how munch blood someone needs is a question for a doctor, yet we asked the philosopher that, and if god exists is a philosophical question, yet we asked the doctor. Why would we expect the doctor to know this for certain? Surely we can critique the doctor’s work and see if he has valuable sources and reasoning. The question of if there is a afterlife isn’t a question a doctor would know, that’s more of a philosophical question

philosophically, it's just plain stupid to argue that it's common for people to hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories when they die. why would this even happen? drugs, dreams, and other hallucations dont cause people to hallucinate elaborate afterlife stories in any other aspect of life... why should we assume there's something special about dying that causes this?
I don’t necessarily disagree with this, someone is legally dead when they’re brain has no more function (amongst other things like no heart beat but that’s one of the criteria) so medically  I believe we could eliminate hallucinations.

out of body experiences are commonly verified as accurate, to the point of almost always being accurate. doctors and professionals are often some people verifying things that occurred when someone was dead, when what the dead person knew was impossible to know. if ya'll want a start in researching out of body experiences, 'evidence for the afterlife' by doctor jeffrey long does a short literature review of some highlights. there's lots of studies that look at the accuracy of those experiences and they're always shown to be accurate. there's whole scientific journals out there dedicated to this stuff, the evidence is basically too overwhelming to just ignore. even the AWARE study where they tried to measure out of body phenomenon, had two examples where someone who was dead knew what happened out of their body. and there was some measurement of auditory ability when they were dead. now, yes this isn't the level of evidence that leaves no room for doubt, and this isn't exactly being able to be measured in a lab on demand.... but this is all evidence that is being measured and can be repeated. it's basic science.  
I haven’t read the book you cited, so for sake of argument we’ll assume what you said about it is true (so this only stands if what you said was true ofc) I don’t think this necessarily proves an afterlife, I more interpret it as proof of a soul, now a soul could lead to a afterlife but it doesn’t follow by necessity.

dead family members. when people experience beings on the other side, the beings met are almost always dead and almost always family members. if this was just a random hallucination, there should be many more examples of living people and people other than family members. this consistency is a strong point.
I don’t think we would expect less family members if it was hallucination, we would actually most likely expect family members if it was hallucination since there is a sense of emotional appeal there.

I mostly agree with the rest of what you said.

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#143
n8nrgim
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@SethBrown
you are over scrutinizing it. if a medical doctor says there's evidence for an afterlife, then we need to assume there's something to what he says. doctors are distinguished with smarts and science. 

if we can establish that a soul exists, it follows that an afterlife probably exists too, given out of body experiences and afterlife experiences usually go together. i know you just said something like "it doesn't necessarily one thing prove the other" but you are being overly posturing yourself as if you dont think an afterlife would follow a soul being proven, when that's almost certainly not the case. you are engaging in truisms but your tone and the meaning of what you say is clear and flawed. 

we can't prove that dead family members proves an afterlife. but it's at least evidence to begin with, cause we should be seeing more living nonrelatives and living relatives and dead nonrelatives, but we dont. it's possible people hallucinate dead family members, given so many were close to dead family. but if this is just a hallucination, why aren't people hallucinating taylor swift? why not their best friend that died when they were in elementary school? why not their living mother as a hallucination? not everyone was super close to dead family members so the 'people are often close to dead family' argument is weak. 
#144
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@n8nrgim
Let’s specify, by doctor we are meaning a doctor of medicine correct? Not a doctor of theology or philosophy. If it’s the doctor of medicine then why would we expect a doctor of medicine to answer a philosophical question, we wouldn’t reasonably expect a philosopher to answer a complex medical question, even though the philosopher is likely an intelligent person

I agree, it’s very likely a afterlife would follow a soul

We know your more likely to hallucinate when there is emotions involved, given that we would expect more hallucinations of dead family members than alive since you would feel emotional if that died, seems as if that could answer it, if the evidence can work for both theories then it can simply be dismissed.

19 days later

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#145
n8nrgim
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that is a link describing the paranormal research going on at the university of virginia. it focuses on the credibility of the researchers, and the research methods involved. of course, this provides evidence for reincarnation... but skeptics dont like evidence. they prefer to ignore said evidence and adhere to a materialistic view of the world, simply because that's their existing world view. 

a credible doctor slash exorcist... just some more supernatural stuff that looks credible 
another interesting figure in the field of exorcisms 
#146
FLRW
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#147
Mr.BrotherD.Thomas
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@Stephen
@FLRW



FLRW,

How dare you propose in your ungodly post #146 that the link you have shown leans on there being no Christian afterlife!!!

Whereas, I am looking forward to our Christian 1400 square mile glorious heaven with its 65 foot high walls and that are 214 feet in depth (Revelation 21:16-17), that will hopefully keep the Jehovah Witnesses and Morons, I mean, "Mormons" out of heaven, praise!

Why wouldn't any TRUE Christian like myself not look forward to Heaven in spending the entire days of eternity walking and talking with our Christian God Jesus, walking and walking and walking with him, and continuous talking with Jesus for eternity?  Whereas, as I have biblically proffered before, THERE WILL BE NO WOMAN IN HEAVEN, where this is the main premise for me to be heaven bound upon my earthly demise, because the superior man had to put up with the biblical 2nd class woman while upon earth:" A quarrelsome wife is as annoying as constant dripping on a rainy day. Stopping her complaints is like trying to stop the wind or trying to hold something with greased hands." (Proverbs 27:15-16) 

Thank Jesus that heaven will not be inhabited by many, but only a few, which gives me more time to talk to Jesus: "Many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14)

.
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#148
n8nrgim
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@FLRW
yes i see a big wall of text in that link, and the author has a very hard time getting to the point. care to summarize his main arguments? 

12 days later

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#149
n8nrgim
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@Stephen
@zedvictor4
@FLRW

how is the out of body data not considered evidence? there's credible individual anecdotes, such as the pam rynolds case or lots of doctors verifying things that couldn't possibly be known. when studied under scientific conditions... there's a trend that out of body descriptions are almost always accurate, or at least consistent with reality while they were dead. when people guess wildly what happened when they are dead, it's usually inaccurate. 

plus the visual experiences in people who are blind. 

how is this stuff not evidence? you have to ignore it to claim it's not evidence. or, commit the invincible ignorance fallacy and argue that a consistent trend of anecdotes doesn't equal evidence. 

#150
FLRW
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@n8nrgim

The Pam Reynolds case has received very thorough scrutiny in the British magazine The Skeptic (vol 18, nos 1 and 2). The two-part in-depth article, called “An anaesthesiologist examines the Pam Reynolds story”, by Gerry Woerlee, finds no convincing evidence for an NDE, let alone verification of Reynolds’s observations whilst “dead”. Woerlee tells us “…it was an experience whose roots lay in the functioning of her body, complemented by imagery nestling in the deepest reaches of her psyche, as well as the fact that she was awake for several periods of time during her operation.”
Extraordinary claims such as NDE and out-of-body experiences need to be supported by evidence. So far this is lacking. While some may consider the notion of personal survival after death comforting, it has yet to be substantiated.