TDB: Heaven is Real: A Doctor's Experience With the Afterlife

[Corcaigh]

Science has, for YEARS now, been using the scientific method to disprove the existence of a higher being.

As someone who worked as professional scientist for a number of years I wasn't aware of that area of research.

Can you let me know who the scientists were and what peer-reviewed journals their findings were published in?

[alexey]

Near-death experiences 'explained': Scientists believe it's the last gasp of a dying brain
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ing-brain.html

...
Dr Chawla, of the George Washington University medical centre in Washington DC, monitored the brain activity of seven terminally-ill people to ensure the painkillers they were being given were working.

In each case, the gradual tailing off of brain activity in the hour or so before death was interrupted by a brief spurt of action, lasting from 30 seconds to three minutes.

Levels were similar to those seen in fully-conscious people - even though blood pressure was so low as to be undetectable - and could generate vivid images and feelings, said the researcher.

Writing in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, he said: 'We speculate that in those patients who are successfully revived, they may recall the images and memories triggered by this cascade.
...
Southampton University researchers are trying to pin down whether the experiences have a medical explanation by asking 1,500 heart attack patients to recall any memories after their cardiac arrest.

In one test, pictures that can be seen only from above are being placed on high shelves in resuscitation rooms in 25 UK and U.S. hospitals.

If any patients can recall the images, it will suggest a genuine out-of-body experience. Lead researcher Dr Sam Parnia said: 'We see death as a moment but actually it is a process which modern medicine can often reverse.
...

Looks like that study about images is still in progress.

[No Excuses]

Let's just cut to the quick here. Science has, for YEARS now, been using the scientific method to disprove the existence of a higher being.

I can't believe I missed this gem.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've read on ES.

[Popeman38]

As someone who worked as professional scientist for a number of years I wasn't aware of that area of research.

Can you let me know who the scientists were and what peer-reviewed journals their findings were published in?

Seriously? Per normal, someone takes a comment out of context to make it fit their response. Why not quote the other portion of my post? Oh, because by quoting this portion and then asking the specific question you do, you can spin my post into stating that the accredited science institutes around the world have presented scientific studies proving there is no God. Dude, read the thread. There are at least 2 posters that have used science to "discredit" what this professor is saying. Those posters proved my point. Science can't explain it, therefore it doesn't exist.

Your too smart for this BS.

---------- Post added October-11th-2012 at 02:55 PM ----------

I can't believe I missed this gem.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've read on ES.

Context, my friend, context. If what you posted were meant to stand on its own as the only point of my post, it would have been posted alone.

[Corcaigh]

I don't think much will be decided in this thread for either believers or skeptics.

No doubt the guy had a profound and very vivid experience. He understands it according to his faith as his scientific knowledge doesn't offer an explanation that is better.

It's one experience. The appeal to authority doesn't mean much.

However, scientists trying to apply their methods to look at a non-scientific problem and parse the language of believers is really not going to offer anymore insight than a wildebeest.

[alexey]

I passed out once due to a syncope (sort of like a super duper head rush) I saw images of my life flashing changing in my head really quickly. They started slowing down as I came out of it. It actually felt pretty bad.

A note about the brain... People typically imagine connected cells sending signals to each other. This view greatly underestimates the role of inhibition. Neurons compete for the signal and try to inhibit neighboring neurons. Without inhibition, any neural activity would get more and more amplified. As neurons die, they lose their ability to inhibit other neurons. That could result in an orgy of activity and strong, vivid, profound experiences that are accompanied by feelings of meaningfulness and significance. Obviously this is a very simplistic account - I'm not a scientist but I play one on TV.

[Corcaigh]

Science can't explain it, therefore it doesn't exist.

And there you go again.

Not even close. Read my follow on.

[No Excuses]

[/COLOR]Context, my friend, context. If what you posted were meant to stand on its own as the only point of my post, it would have been posted alone.

It's not being taken out of context. Even in your entire post, your claim that science has had an intent to disprove the existence of a higher being is complete nonsense.

There are people who use science to discredit unproven, supernatural stories/beliefs. But science isn't performed to discredit "higher existence". You were quite clear in stating that the scientific method intends to discredit a "higher being".

[Popeman38]

It's not being taken out of context. Even in your entire post, your claim that science has had an intent to disprove the existence of a higher being is complete nonsense.

There are people who use science to discredit unproven, supernatural stories/beliefs. But science isn't performed to discredit "higher existence". You were quite clear in stating that the scientific method intends to discredit a "higher being".

Jeebus man, read. I didn't mean science as a whole. I meant science in general (rather than naming individuals). Google is your friend. Google will reveal a plethora of references to god + science.

---------- Post added October-11th-2012 at 03:01 PM ----------

And there you go again.

Not even close. Read my follow on.

Now your just being a pain in the ass.

You know that quote was directly in reference to posters in this thread.

[No Excuses]

Jeebus man, read. I didn't mean science as a whole. I meant science in general (rather than naming individuals). Google is your friend. Google will reveal a plethora of references to god + science.

Don't use google. Go to databases which give you access to journal articles (you know where actual scientific literature can be found). Go to information pages of research institutions and find people actively engaged in the "scientific" pursuit of disproving higher existence. Put that in context to millions of scientists around the world who are actively engaged in research.

Good luck.

[Popeman38]

As someone who worked as professional scientist for a number of years I wasn't aware of that area of research.

Can you let me know who the scientists were and what peer-reviewed journals their findings were published in?

Just to humor you:

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the department of psychology at Harvard University

Yes, if by...
"science" we mean the entire enterprise of secular reason and knowledge (including history and philosophy), not just people with test tubes and white lab coats.

Traditionally, a belief in God was attractive because it promised to explain the deepest puzzles about origins. Where did the world come from? What is the basis of life? How can the mind arise from the body? Why should anyone be moral?

Yet over the millennia, there has been an inexorable trend: the deeper we probe these questions, and the more we learn about the world in which we live, the less reason there is to believe in God.

Start with the origin of the world. Today no honest and informed person can maintain that the universe came into being a few thousand years ago and assumed its current form in six days (to say nothing of absurdities like day and night existing before the sun was created). Nor is there a more abstract role for God to play as the ultimate first cause. This trick simply replaces the puzzle of "Where did the universe come from?" with the equivalent puzzle "Where did God come from?"... For all these reasons, it's no coincidence that Western democracies have experienced three sweeping trends during the past few centuries: barbaric practices (such as slavery, sadistic criminal punishment, and the mistreatment of children) have decreased significantly; scientific and scholarly understanding has increased exponentially; and belief in God has waned. Science, in the broadest sense, is making belief in God obsolete, and we are the better for it.

Look, he insults anyone who would profess a belief in Christionaity and creationism.

Victor J. Stenger is emeritus professor of physics and astronomy, University of Hawaii, adjunct professor of philosophy, University of Colorado, and the author of seven books including God: The Failed Hypothesis-How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.

The universe visible to us contains a hundred billion galaxies, each with a hundred billion stars. But by far the greatest portion of the universe that expanded exponentially from the original chaos, at least fifty orders of magnitude more, lies far beyond our horizon. The universe we see with our most powerful telescopes is but a grain of sand in the Sahara. Yet we are supposed to think that a supreme being exists who follows the path of every particle, while listening to every human thought and guiding his favorite football teams to victory. Science has not only made belief in God obsolete. It has made it incoherent.

Again, belief in a God makes one an idiot.

That is all, but there are many, many, many, many, many more examples of this.

[Corcaigh]

Now your just being a pain in the ass.

It's what I do.

But more to the point ... my follow on comment attempted to talk about relevance of scientific to topics like this:

... scientists trying to apply their methods to look at a non-scientific problem and parse the language of believers is really not going to offer anymore insight than a wildebeest.

If a believer identifies a phenomena in scientific terms and wants to subject it to scientific inquiry then a conversation can be had. Otherwise everyone is wasting the other's time.

[Popeman38]

Don't use google. Go to databases which give you access to journal articles (you know where actual scientific literature can be found). Go to information pages of research institutions and find people actively engaged in the "scientific" pursuit of disproving higher existence. Put that in context to millions of scientists around the world who are actively engaged in research.

Good luck.

Dude, READ MY FREAKIN POSTS. Quit being obstinate and read what I wrote. Read what I wrote in response to other posters. And quit issuing challenges on false pretenses.

---------- Post added October-11th-2012 at 03:18 PM ----------

It's what I do.

But more to the point ... my follow on comment attempted to talk about relevance of scientific to topics like this:

... scientists trying to apply their methods to look at a non-scientific problem and parse the language of believers is really not going to offer anymore insight than a wildebeest.

If a believer identifies a phenomena in scientific terms and wants to subject it to scientific inquiry then a conversation can be had. Otherwise everyone is wasting the other's time.

And that was the point to my post you quoted. Applying the scientific method to faith misses the mark. Applying faith to science misses the mark. As long as you observe one either through the lens of the other, you see nothing. Speaking different languages. But neither is mutually exclusive.

[No Excuses]

Dude, READ MY FREAKIN POSTS. Quit being obstinate and read what I wrote. Read what I wrote in response to other posters. And quit issuing a challenge on false pretenses.

I'm asking you to back up your claim that science uses the scientific method to disprove the existence of a higher being.

The only thing you have cited so far is opinions of scientists who used scientific discoveries to disprove God. That does not equal your claim that "science" intends to disprove the existence of a higher being.

[PF Chang]

Popeman, I think the point that the scientist is trying to make is that as science evolves and explains more natural phenomena that humans used to rely on religion to explain, the role of religion becomes reduced.

Is it really insulting to say that it's unreasonable to believe that the world was created 6000 years ago? It's simply been proven to be untrue, so of course it is unreasonable to believe such a thing.

There are still plenty of things that science can't explain. Until it manages to do so, there's always going to be room for faith. But the human mind is very capable of extrapolation and we're seeing the pattern that just because something isn't readily explainable, doesn't mean it was put into place by some mystical being.