I was thinking today and a question popped in my head "Is God really real?" If he is what proof do we have? can someone please answer this.

There isn't any proof.

Unless you're looking at it a different way, that is. The existence of the unniverse could be proof to some people, and not proving a damn thing to others.

Dunno about you, but my god is real as shit. We talk all the time.

For more, google "gnosticism."

quote:Originally posted by lawnmower_midget_mocha:

I was thinking today and a question popped in my head "Is God really real?" If he is what proof do we have? can someone please answer this.

http://near-death.com/evidence.html

Would you call that proof?

What is "proof" when it comes down to it? If you don't see something or experience it for yourself, you can never be sure if people are making it up.

You can never really know.

Sometimes you can't be sure even when you do experience it for yourself.

quote:Originally posted by Fuck:

http://near-death.com/evidence.html

Would you call that proof?



Dammit, I've already refuted that 2 times. NDE's generally are culture and religious specific. The predispositions of the person in many instances manifest in the NDE.

Christians don't see Ganesha, Buddhists don't see Yahweh, Muslims don't acheve Nirvana, etc. They experience what is native to their religion and what they already have set in their mind, which just goes to show how biased they can be.

quote:

What is "proof" when it comes down to it? If you don't see something or experience it for yourself, you can never be sure if people are making it up.

You can never really know.

Well, you have reason as the baseline. The candle in a world of darkness. If it's beyond a reasonable doubt, it's most likely true and vice versa.

people often see different things in an inkblot test

[This message has been edited by jdoapc (edited 10-05-2003).]

But then again, God can be a survival trait man created to feel better and find meening. Maybe we want to believe it so hard we create the illusion and all this multidimensional platform thing is all desperate cry for help.

But thats just a possibility.

We can't make it without God. Do you want to go to hell? Then damnit, pay attention to what I'm saying, sinner! We need Gods like we need a hole in our head. We have holes in our heads, so we have Gods. (that statement was made for the people who have trouble with an explanation of principles controlling belief or practice......rationale, or as I call it "reality". You people don't care. You have enough trouble just paying the bills. You are just trying to get by in this crappy world, and I don't blame you. Just between you and me...............God won't or can't solve your problems because you do not believe God is real, and nor do I. You will not subject yourself to the moronic disciplines of religious orderly conduct, and what normal person would. So to those of you who would rather drink beer than holy water, your half way there to living a normal life, because to follow nothing, and God is nothing, is, well, kind of stupid.)

quote:Originally posted by Dark_Magneto:

Christians don't see Ganesha, Buddhists don't see Yahweh, Muslims don't acheve Nirvana, etc. They experience what is native to their religion and what they already have set in their mind, which just goes to show how biased they can be.

What of the NDEs of Athiests and Agnostics?

Sorry to burst your bubble but recent advances in neuroscience are bringing us closer to a brain-based understanding of the NDE as an altered state of consciousness. This discussion does not address the issue of whether there is life after death, but does argue that NDE's are not evidence for life after death. For more information on this go to http://leda.lycaeum.org/?ID=9260

Sorry to burst your bubble, buddy, but that site has no clue what an NDE is.

I find their research interesting, but I don't believe they've come close to explaining NDEs.

For example, there is one rediculously documented case where a woman, Pam Reynolds, who was having a brain aneurysm operated on(this happened here in Phoenix, my father did the blood work on the woman herself.) Now, to safely operate, they had to lower the woman's body temperature down to around 50 degrees and to stop her heart. Basically, they had to kill her.

So, they did so, using massive amounts of ice. All brain activity was monitored(of which there was NONE. ABSOLUTELY NONE.) So, they continued the operation. Now, while they operated, this woman was out of her body. She could hear the conversations of the doctors and nurses(and later recounted them), and later described the tools for the operation that were brought in after she was put under. After that, there was a whole lot of other shit that I don't feel like typing out. You can check out her story yourself, google it.

Anyway, that's only one case, but it can't be easily dismissed by a chemical. More research is warranted, of course, but that site you found is not even close to understanding even the basic concept of the NDE.

So your saying because this woman could hear things being said after she was clinically dead this is proof of God? Well there are all sorts of things happening in the world we do not understand, and one of them is the human brain. Now no one I know of knows how the brain functions completly, and I will be the first one to acknowledge I don't. But I'm willing to bet your dad does not either, and when we are able to understand the brain fully I'm positive we as a race will be amazed at what we are capable of doing. But NDE's In my openion have nothing to do with a divine force (god). They are memories, images, flashes in our memory, or thought process's that were put there by experience's we had, seen, or heard about in our life. And just before you die your life flashes before you as hollywood puts it. And I have no bubble to burst my friend, I live in the real world.

quote:Originally posted by GodisFake:

So your saying because this woman could hear things being said after she was clinically dead this is proof of God?

No. I am saying that she was more than clinically dead.

Try to process this.

No brain activty = no processing of the vibrations in the air.

quote: Well there are all sorts of things happening in the world we do not understand, and one of them is the human brain. Now no one I know of knows how the brain functions completly, and I will be the first one to acknowledge I don't.

No doubt, we have no clue about the inner workings of the brain.

However, we DO know when it is and isn't working.

quote: But I'm willing to bet your dad does not either, and when we are able to understand the brain fully I'm positive we as a race will be amazed at what we are capable of doing. But NDE's In my openion have nothing to do with a divine force (god). They are memories, images, flashes in our memory, or thought process's that were put there by experience's we had, seen, or heard about in our life. And just before you die your life flashes before you as hollywood puts it.

Ah, but there's the rub.

There are people who experience things they didn't believe in, and things they had never heard of.

BTW, it's not life 'flashing before your eyes.' Go read some actual first-person accounts of NDEs.

Are they thoughts? Yes. But what you don't understand is that thought is everything.

quote: And I have no bubble to burst my friend, I live in the real world.

You live in a fantasy world. A world where everything can be explained, if you stare at it long enough.

quote:Originally posted by GodisFake:

We can't make it without God. Do you want to go to hell? Then damnit, pay attention to what I'm saying, sinner!

Right.

quote:Originally posted by GodisFake:

We need Gods like we need a hole in our head. We have holes in our heads, so we have Gods.

...what?

quote:Originally posted by GodisFake:

(that statement was made for the people who have trouble with an explanation of principles controlling belief or practice......rationale, or as I call it "reality".

Ah. Well perhaps you need to make the statement again, only clearer.

quote:Originally posted by GodisFake:

You people don't care. You have enough trouble just paying the bills. You are just trying to get by in this crappy world, and I don't blame you. Just between you and me...............God won't or can't solve your problems because you do not believe God is real, and nor do I. You will not subject yourself to the moronic disciplines of religious orderly conduct, and what normal person would. So to those of you who would rather drink beer than holy water, your half way there to living a normal life, because to follow nothing, and God is nothing, is, well, kind of stupid.)

Save your preaching for another thread, GodisFake. You essentially sound like every other newbie, pouring their anti-Christianity sermons into threads that don't ask for them.

The thread asked for an evidential examination of God. Your post did nothing to regard the point.

Now, to lawnmower_midget_mocha:

From a Christian's point of view, there is no evidence of God because there can't be evidence of a being such as God. The idea is, God has laid down the blue-prints for a planet that can pretty much operate on its own, as far as physical functioning is concerned. God directly interacts with the world in spiritual ways - and unless you can find a way to examine spiritual matters, there's simply no way to prove anything regarding them.

Christianity, however, never pretends that solid, objective evidence for God exists. The whole religion revolves around the concept of free will - and if God reveals Himself to us beyond a questionable doubt, you can kiss free will goodbye. Thus we rely on "faith" - which is the notion of believing without evidence.

It's a long story. Feel free to ask any other questions if you're curious.

Ok Kikey_Kikeowitz, "No brain activty = no processing of the vibrations in the air."

I do indeed process it (more than you will ever know) however there is to date no instrument, machine or testing unit in this world that can test the brain function totally. We can test for, vibration, electrical pulse, movement through imagery (MRI), magnetics, and a whole list of things. But there is no test for mental image, creation of thought, the act of forming a mental picture in the mind..... imagination, nit-wit! Neurotrophic factor receptors,discovered 40 years ago-- are just now being figured out by science, and how they work in the brain. The human brain is like a railroad freight car -- guaranteed to have a certain capacity but often running empty, You would know more about that than me(thats a joke, process that!).

Maybe the psychics are right and we bring some of our essence from one life to the next, and that's why those people experience things they do not believe in, or things they have never heard of in their NDE's, because it was their last life where they experienced it in, or the one before that. I personally do not believe that but it's one answer for those who search for one.

And as far as your statement about the brain, "we do know when it is and isn't working" WRONG again my friend. We (science) does not know when the brain is on and off. Otherwise we would not keep pronouncing people dead that are not, time and time again, and we would not leave people on life support for months and years waiting for them to wake up (and some do wake up) after science and medical professionals state the person is brain dead and beyond help. And if you think I live in a fantasy world, you must be living in a mental institution. And Thought is NOT everything...Experience is. Your feeble mind harbors thought through ridiculous egotisms.

Now Direckshun.............if you don't understand what I'm saying, it's because your ignorant. Or your related to Kikey_Kikeowitz. If you see my statements as preaching, so be it, I apologize for that only. And as far as being a "newbie" here maybe that's true, but I was helping put together the internet before there was an internet when you were still sucking your thumb. I can come on strong when people use ignorance as a shield, and it's true, I do not believe in any God, and your right, the thread asked for evidential examination of god. My answer to that is you can't examin that which there is no evidence to support. There's nothing to work with.

And please people, don't bother to respond with your simple minded versions of justifiable self-respect. I'll be on my way, I thought this was an adult site, now I know better.





[This message has been edited by GodisFake (edited 10-07-2003).]

Nobody comes back from brain death, because once your brain cells die, there is necrosis of the living tissue, and it cannot be restored.

Parts of the brain may die, but if the essential parts required to function are gone then the brain can no longer support itself and the rest of the system collapses.

Dark_Magneto, now your being logical, HA!

I was not aware of logic being allowed in here, ha! Never the less, You are right in a logical sense. But death can never be understood merely as a biological event,it has become much more in this part of the world anyway. It's cultural, medical, legal, and political dimensions are inevitably implicated in the invention of brain death, not to mention the regilious understandings. Death is not self-evident in our high tech world any more. The space between life and death is historically and culturally constructed, and open to dispute.

Brain death was legally recognized only in 1997 in the United States, and then under limited and contested circumstances.

Mythology and folk stories, and documents from medieval times have been our guide until 1997, and to some are still the true source of understanding the human spirit (and body) Re: God.

Brain death is defined as the irreversible loss of all functions of the brain. It can be determined in several ways. First - no electrical activity in the brain; this is determined by an EEG. Second - no blood flow to the brain; this is determined by blood flow studies. Third - absence of function of all parts of the brain - as determined by clinical assessment (no movement, no response to stimulation, no breathing, no brain reflexes.)

The problem is when brain death is NOT the case and the person is only in a coma or vegetative state, which happens to many times by medical people not knowing what they are doing. Coma is a profound or deep state of unconsciousness. The affected individual is alive but is not able to react or respond to life around him/her. Coma may occur as an expected progression or complication of an underlying illness, or as a result of an event such as head trauma.

A vegetative state, which sometimes follows a coma, refers to a condition in which individuals have lost cognitive neurological function and awareness of the environment but retain noncognitive function and a perserved sleep-wake cycle.

These conditions are sometimes described as when a person is technically alive, but his/her brain is dead. However, that description IS NOT ACCURATE!

And this is the point where religion steps into the picture and opens it's theological can of worms. Then every logical effort is thrown out the window.

Perhaps someday it will be easier for our death-denying and death-defying culture to understand mortality and to appreciate why the laws requiring religious accommodations should be abandoned. Just as we separate church and state, we must separate religious beliefs from medical facts.