n8nrgim

if i changed my basic premise that charity should be the provider, maybe you could call it adequate. plus i dont even know in today's depraved world if charity would do it, and unlike you, maybe, i dont think it's right to let people die in the streets. but i dont accept your premise that it's chartiies role. it's the idea that if God let apple trees grow, and the government deprives me of accessing that tree, or farmland, they have an obligation to proportionally serivce its population. your idea of taxation as theft is completly ridiculous and a sheltered view. i think the only reason the government got involved in healthcare, again in every develoepd country, is because people couldn't afford it, so that point that it would be affordable is wrong again. i dont know how often other government ration care... but it's not necessary to ration it, just regulate the cost... and the countries that do ration it, are the small minority. the usa rations based on ability to pay, plus with our worse wait times.  just because the libertarian elements of other countries are what makes them sucessful, including ours, doesn't mean libertarianism is ideal. it means limited government but with a decent social safety net is ideal. i pointed out that no libertarian countires are sucessful and you technically didn't show me any... you waffled and conflated points instead. 

there's a lot of ignorance here and in general so i thought id set the record straight, again. 

every developed country but the usa delivers universal healthcare to everyone, at half our cost per capita. the difference is enough to get our deficit under control. their wait times aren't generally worse there... there're generally better. the usa does have better specialized doctor wait times, due to how much money we got floating around in that sector. but again generally wait time are worse here, and the reason is because we have a doctor shortage. doctor supply determines wait times. we artificially limit the supply of doctors, unfortunately. it's hard for us to get our system like everyone else, given we have a status quo of hundreds of millios of people and many states. it's hard to change a status quo, whereas otehr countries developed organically. also, on the insurance point, insurance is mostly a pointless middle man... tho to be fair, most countries have insurance, it's just considered non profit. the main way they keep costs under control is by regulating medical prices. again i understand that's hard to regulate when we have a status quo, but it is posisble. we need more doctors, and we need to allow doctor owned hosptials to compete with other hospitals.... unforteunatly doctor owned hosptials isn't allowed much. 

there are also free market based healthcare where government role is minimized but is indeed present and strong, but the healthcare lobby would never allow that. 

these are just some highlights off the top of my head, to educate most ya'll's ignorant asses. 

it's fair to minimize government. a basic social safety net is fair and the most moral solution. that's what we have in the usa. government needs to definitely be kept in check, though, even our current government. 

i get your general sentiment. if we put government in charge of pencils, prices would sky rocket and there'd be shortages etc. but if we do nothing on healthcare, people die, or get neglected. plus it isn't private charities responsibility to provide that.... it's rooted in our social contract that a person in a country such as ours should be able to afford healthcare. lastly, and most importantly.... every other developed country but ours delivers healthcare to everyone at half the cost of us with better wait times in general. that means universal healthcare is doable and can be effective. no developed country is a free market in healthcare, the very idea is ridiculous for civilized society. you can't provide any examples, just like there generally aren't successful libertarian countries. 

yeah but it's kinda pointless to debate a libertarian as set in his ways as you. defense and healthcare are morally and existentially necessary, but a libertarian such as yourself won't acnowledge that. and again, our welfare state is meager, especially compared to other countries... but again a libertarian such as yourself is too far gone to even entertain that idea. the programs just need to be run better, and the savings put towards the deficit, and whatever social benefits we should pursue. 

people shouldn't have to work forty hours a week just to survive. that point drives the why there is so much suffereing point. on the point that we mishandle money, that's only tied to how the working classes money goes to the well off, and not to help the labor that earns it... it's a misappropriation of funds, at least from a broader perspective. i understand it's not my place to say how money should be spent by people, but from a bigger perspective, it's why things are so shitty and broadly mismanaged compared to other countries. 

i would think if this is just a hallucination, it would have to be caused by natural selection. i dont know how else to explain it. you at first seemed to be suggesting it was driven by natural selection but now are waffling on that point. if it is just suggestive thinking as the cause, how can that happen so elaborately with those themes? just asserting that it's possible isn't explaining it. plus you and all skeptics always choose to ignore the out of body experiences and other evidences, just conventiently ignore it. plus, on your 'suggestion' point.. these same themes, tunnels life reviews etc, happen at the same rate regardless of culture or age even young childen and to people who have never heard of these things before. this has been measured with science. so that is also a blow to your argument. i think all ya'll just have darkened minds and hearts, mostly on the logic and reason 'mind' part. aliens visitations dont have the same qualitative and quantifitative measures to them as NDEs but i see your point.  only vaguely or loosely can tunnels and light beings and life reviews be tied to dying brain... they sitll seem more real than this life and they have no question about, and they still cause elaborate afterlife strories, which 'tunnel vision' or other theories barely explain. 

id need a source that astronauts have NDEs. pepole often say drugs dreams and other hallucinations cause NDEs, when it's nothing like those. plus there's the idea that maybe the astronaughts were dead or thereabouts. i know that thereabouts thing is wishy washy, but i do think we can visit the afterlife more than just at death. it is getting more tenuous, though, i agree with your point. 

so NDEs help survival which help reproduction? i mean it's a little plausible. i dont understand how evolution would create such elaborate afterlife stories, with all those common themes like tunnels and light beings life reviews etc, that are more real than this life and they have no doubt about and no longer fear death. that's mighty specific and elbaorate. not only that philosophical point, but no one has refuted out of body experiences, vision to the blind, or some of the other evidences that can't be called anything but evidence. i'm not sure id say your argument is grasping at straws, but it does appear to be grasping. 

i dont know why you'd say knowledge is not helpful in a perfect world. maybe you phrased that wrong. the bible does tell the story of adam and eve, where their sin was eating of the tree of knowledge. and, when you get down to defining sin.... it's doing intentionally what you know is wrong, which requires knowledge. a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. so maybe you aren't so far off. 

That was beautiful. It also drives my point that we can find Beauty in the worst things. This life is about contrast, not perfection

1. we are slaves to society. i know ive debated this before, and it's plausible to not think that way, but it's what drives our country, and thereby the world. almost everyone has to work forty hours a week just to survive, and then take whatever the economy gives them back in return, which often ain't much. the money mostly goes to the rich and powerful, landlords, corporations, professional class. i understand that this is what drives the economy, and yes the usa drives the world... but it's a grueling way to survive. i guess no one said life was easy. 

2. we spend twice as much as other countries on healthcare if you count the private sector, and ten times as much on defense as the next biggest militaries combined. if these were run better, we could at least not deficit spend, or choose other priorities like other countries. we have much less social nets than other countries, our welfare is actually pretty meager. we do spend less on taxes in general than others, but not if you count private sector healthcare, and these bloated things are what our default priorities are. 

You should just research the Mediterranean diet and focus on produce too. I like to put the focus, on vitamin a and vitamin c and fiber and antioxidants and something green. If u get all those categories every day, everything else falls into place.

It is only human to fear death. According to nde literature, there is probably an afterlife and its probably a great experience. But, there's sufficient reason to believe it can be not what we want to experience, so this life and how we live matters.

I use to want to die in my sleep as my method when my time comes, but now I've realized I'm afraid of going to sleep and never being conscious of anything again... so now my preference is to die of a heart attack in a quick and not too painful way. Then my consciousness can float out of my body and up to heaven

take everything in moderation. even moderation in moderation. 

this presidential election will be biden v trump. pick your favorite, list him. then list five reasons to vote against your favorite choice and five reasons to vote for the other guy. 

i normally dont waste time responding to stupid points, and most of your points were stupid. 

i'll vote for biden. but an objective person should be able to list five reasons to vote against anyone. i think you'd struggle with that assignment, because it's pretty obvious that you lack objectivity. if you want to show you're capable, list five reasons to vote against biden, and five reasons to vote for trump. 

if you hypothetically chose to vote against biden... what would be your five reasons to vote against him? 

biden...

1. doesn't follow the law on immigration and doesn't do enough to stop illegals

2. supports roe v wade and doesn't talk about how to reduce the number of abortions 

3. doesn't focus on reducing over regulation in the government like trump does

4. cares too much about LGBTQ and woke non sense, special interests 

5. doesnt do enough and does less than trump, on doing things to reduce the high cost of consumer's spending

6. doesn't care enough about balancing the budget, and won't compromise enough to reduce overall spending 

what say you? 

those five reasons it's stupid to vote for trump, are still true in this election season.

id also add that he wants to attack our meager welfare system. 

terminal lucidity 

yes i believe there can be false visions etc. even the bible says satan could masquerade as a being of light. but i dont see enough 'bad' from NDEs to throw the whole thing out. we should be cautious, i'll give you that.

near death experiences philosophically offer something unique... elaborate afterlife stories, that offer common themes like tunnels life reviews light beings meeting deceaseed loved ones etc, and that are more real to the person than this life that they have no doubt is real and they no longer fear death. and they offer objective evidence that indicates an afterlife... no just a random goings on in the brain, we're talking about good probability of an afterlife. drugs, dreams, and hallucinations dont cause that in other parts of existence. all naturalistic attempts to explain NDEs fall flat with closer look.  NDEs teach about loving people and God, just like christianity does. that's how we know these two schools of thought are compatiable with each other, even when other religions and skeptics on NDEs fail to offer anything worth following. buddism is just a philosphy and not a 'truth', islam talks about chopping off heads and hands and getting a bunch of virgins, obviously man made. hindu is just random. the joy and hope of the gospel of Jesus is amplified with NDEs. when it comes to theology and NDEs, it takes a careful analysis to determine if religion in the negative sense is giving us a false bag of goods, and if NDEs offer something better. jesus did say the spirit of truth will continue to reveal itself to people. i know the other side of the coin is that we shouldn't add or distort the gospel, but again it requires a careful analysis and prayer to determine the truth. 

there ain't much about NDEs that seem to originate from satan. the author i just posted about, looks like a solid christian. at worst, some of these teachings might challenge fundamentalist thinking, but there's usually higher ways of understanding out there, or there's just sheer doctrines and religions of man that have fundamentalists have gotten wrong. both you and tradesecret worry too much about religion, instead of truth and spirituality.

hawkings was most likely ignorant of this topic. einstein surely was... this field of research is still in its infancy and has only started taking off in the last couple decades. there's lots of themes and science and philopsphy still being developed. folks like dawkins have a superficial very primitive understanding of this topic. folks such as you, while smart, cant read this thread and claim ignorance... your fault is that you lack critical thinking. that's always the way it goes with complex topics, it's always an issue of ignorance, or stupidity. 

he also has a great looking book about how christianity might mesh with NDEs.

he also has a foundational book about critical thinking... that most all ya'll skeptics here need to read and implement. 

it's great to find a researcher who is versed in critical thinking, and science, able to expound on these cutting edge research topics. 

i thought dr. long's book 'evidence of the afterlife' was the best book on evidence of the afterlife... it looks like another book might be better. i have it ordered and will start reading it soon. 

knowledge... and wisdom

especially if we are branching out into space. just let the best and brightest reproduce, say on mars. then remove problematic humans and genes and put them back on earth. even if there is speciation, it's still a decendent of humans and part of our lineage, so it has value. we have the knowledge and technology to do this... so it should be done. 

even if this wasn't done on mars... we can still breed super humans on earth. 

it looks like u r simply saying that society's views on sexuality depends on the culture. if that's the case, a bigger question is... what should be our sexual standards, if any? 

sounds like another way of saying 'cognitive dissonance'. 

as a science, nuclear makes sense as an energy source. there are states who want to do it more, but they find it too costly and time consuming. i assume that's a regulatory problem, but i could be wrong, otherwise i dont now why it's so burdensome to do nuclear. it's been decades and we're barely making progress in getting more nuclear, cause of all the negative stererotypes and mostly the costs. we need an alternative to fossil fuels cause those are dirty and unsustainable. 

man u r really smart. it's so odd that u r also a libertarian. ha, JK. 

i could be wrong about this, but that's the way it looks to me.

wrong forum. ignore this thread. 

electric ones require too many minerals. it requires tons and tons of rare minerals, which which we have limited amounts of, and that damage the environment when they mine for them. hydrogen as far as i know just requires energy to separate the atoms before they're reunited in combustion. car manufactruers are already getting on the fuel cell band wagon, so it looks like i might be right on this. 

i could be wrong about all this, but that's the way it's lookin to me. 

the proof is in the pudding. the pudding is in the crust. plus, e = mc squared. whence, i think, therefore, i am. harvester of land, taken of the fallen lamb. 

islam is obviously a false religion where the quran talks about cutting of heads and hands, and their followers talk about getting virgins at death. it's obviously a man made religion. 

i think a thing that you struggle with, is having principles. it's okay to stand for things, but you need to make sure that you are speaking and acting, based on truth. it's okay to say islam is a trash religion, and that muslims are simple mistaken and deceived. 

it looks like you focused too much on the catholic style of 'being good enough'. you should focus more on the protestant idea of grace and simply having faith. having a loving relationship with God is a two way street... you have grace but you have responsibility too. that's the nature of love, and loving relationships. we were created by God to do his handiwork which were prepared in advance for us to do, as it's taught in the bible.

it's better to look at hell as a spiritual condition. hell is separation from God. we can be right by God or not right by God. i know there's lots in between, but there are bad people out there, who are not right with God. i mean them no judgment. that's what free will affords us... we can either choose a higher vibration or a lower one. we can acknowledge our sins and repent and do good... or we can choose not to. if one person chooses one path and someone else chooses another... you can't tell me t's all the same difference. what we do and think makes a difference. 

when measurement occurs, observation is only incidental to what's happening. the act of observing itself doesn't change the outcome of the quantum world, does it?

it looks like you are disagreeing or distinguishing with me, if i'm not mistaken, but i think we agree. if a tree lands in a forest and no one is around, it still we assume did what it did in reality. if we measure it falling with a video, our observation of it falling didn't change anything. 

what do you think of sidewalker's take? 

doesn't it require actual measurement to affect quantum phenomenon? im not seeing where just observation is sufficient. 

also, even if we can affect quantum measurement... it seems like adreamofliberty was saying, it's only incidental. like we can use materials to affect the quantum world, but even if it wasn't a consicious human doing the manipulation, the quantm world would still be affected. it's like if we assume a tree falls in the forest even if no one is there to observe it or cause it.

when conservatives try to pretend like democrats dont truly care about the poor. 

How would you guys briefly describe your religious or spiritual beliefs or lack thereof

some reasons we are here on earth if the other side is 'whole' and complete. why can't we just be whole and complete to begin with? 

the teaching is that each part of the trinity is God, and yet they are distinct. it's not a logical syllogism. the father is god, the son is god, but the father isn't the son. that sorta thing. 

i've been taught the trinity more so but i feel i've considered it critically and decided the mystery fits well into life and religious philosphy. before, i didnt think the evidence was that jesus was god, because the bible isn't always clear on that point, or points in another direction. i believe the lack of clarity to those who aren't knowledgeable is because jesus wants to reveal himself throughout a process to those who seek him. 

folks who have ndes weren't really dead, or weren't irreversibly dead?

the philsophy of thinking we choose or benefit from strife in life

some videos about the nature of the universe and consciousness 

why is there such dismissal of NDEs as authentic in the media?

it's just pulling teeth to get skeptics to provide any coherent 'whys' of why these things happen at all.

you just keep bare asserting that it seems likely to you that people would have these coherent elaborate afterlife stories, but you ignore that if it is that way, it should be tied to natural selection. yet, nothing coherently ties it to natural selection. the other poster posted about a study about 'playing dead' tied to near death experiences, but it's only vaguely connected and a leap of logic.  someone says it's tied to chemicals in some lose sense, even though drugs,dreams,and hallucinations in any other aspect of life dont cause elaborate afterlife stories that have those phenomenological common themes. i keep seeing these half thoughts for explaining why this happens that dont add up. if skeptics are so absent in the why's and logic department... why is it such a leap to think maybe they visited the afterlife? i realize you take as your premise that supernatural things dont occur, or things of that nature... but that's an assumption on your part, and if they are visiting the afterlife, it's staring you right in the face. even if you dont want to call it evidence, it indicates something, however you want to spin it, it points to something, and it's plain as day staring you right in the face.