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Just Chat! / Re: There is no god and Richard Dawkins is his prophet?

« on: 15/07/2016 13:51:55 »

Just because they did things you don't like doesn't make them non-Christian.

They no longer prayed to or worshipped the Holy Trinity in Nazism. Hitler wished for sake of persuasion to his cause, that Germany was Islamic. From Mein Kampf. He hated the conscience of Jews and Christians. I saw the translation of one of his speeches. Nazism rejected Christianity, and the periphery, JWs...

If Christians don't like something, it could be that it rejects Christ's qualities, love, compassion, conscience, truth. Then it is not Christian.

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Just Chat! / Re: There is no god and Richard Dawkins is his prophet?

« on: 15/07/2016 04:16:21 »

Einstein was a great scientist and called upon to be a strategist, thankfully he rejected Nazism and worked for the USA, but he invented with his team, the first atomic bomb and advocated it's use.

Great at reason, it is said he did not believe in a god behind the universe. But he worked for WW2's biggest war machine, on the Christian nation's side.

Are you saying that Einstein worked for Germany? They were likely the most Christian nation at the time, since they actively persecuted non-Christian faiths.

The Christian nations would be the USA, Ireland, Poland, all of Europe, but for Germany, who burned their Bibles, renounced the Christian faith in favour of bringing in their own third reign. They only kept some Gospels to criticize the Jews and to persuade Christians to turn.

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Just Chat! / Re: There is no god and Richard Dawkins is his prophet?

« on: 13/07/2016 16:04:08 »

Thank the flying spaghetti monster for people like Dawkins, who are not afraid to speak out about the evils of religion and who actively try and help eradicate it from this earth; being that religion itself is probably human kind's greatest ignorance, shortcoming, and destructive force.

Human nature is behind the evils of history. Look at the 20th century, a secular century, and industrial scale WW1, WW2 and almost WW3. Vietnam, the middle east...

For some of us Genesis is not looked to as the explanation for everything, with science as the alternate, we just don't have faith as a means to justify where all things came from. We instead have the revelation of Christ, and all other Biblical matters through Him. And hundreds of millions of us have experienced Christ as a presence and received Him. And then comes glossolalia... I have experienced that and other things and seen events at the pulpit live.

When we have spiritual encounters with the benevolent, we have a knowing that fits in with faith rather than the empirical. It is a revelation of God. Following this those people try to sustain a higher standard and go for more. Then that latter is religion. Then further their children not having a spiritual high have like a secondary religion...

In the 1980s I heard there were hundreds of millions of people who said they received Christ and some glossolalia... This generation of westerners are materialistic, pleasure loving and love irreverent humour. Also there is mocking of open mindedness and irrationality and supernatural experience. People think all we have, we got by war, or we could have gained all this material, and knowledge and good will, just with philosophy... I don't agree with it.

Not all religion is true and benevolent like that which comes from Christ. And the children can take it to extremes. They get it wrong, folly or extremism.

Jesus Christ is the answer to human nature, not the problem. And there are unclean spirits.

The west was once very Christian. People like Wilberforce abolishing slavery, cruelty to animals, and providing free education, before socialism were Christian heroes. It injected benevolence into human nature and culture.

Now it is that the missionaries from the west, made converts in other countries through evangelism, which was thankfully revived after Martin Luther. It was all too suppressed before. Now the majority of Christians are in Brazil, India, China, Korea and Africa. And Eastern Europe is taking up the faith again.

The experiencing of God's presence and power, the being spiritual is more important than religion, and I think it will always re-appear.

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Just Chat! / Re: A Poem I wrote for those who might fear death!

« on: 11/07/2016 00:32:29 »

YOU CERTAINLY DO HAVE A CREATIVE SIDE AND HAVE DONE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL JOB HONINGVYOUR CREATIVE WRITING SKILLS..NOT TO MENTION YOU ARE CONTINUING TO WRITE WHICH FOR SOME GOES BY THE WAYSIDE AS THEY GROW OLDER EACH YEAR! it is terriffic to see  poet such as yourself continuing on with such beautiful examples of your work... Thank you for "sharing your Writing", with those of us in here...and I am plugging the other thread here in "Just chat", where you may read some other prose and poetry written by other members  of the forum and displayed in the above quoted thread! Its very refreshing to read it here in the forum... Thank you and feel free too add many more to the threads..I will most hardily love to read them and enjoy the subject matter of each piece!  ENJOY YOUR DAY!

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Just Chat! / Re: Please comment on my near death episode, due to total AV heart block in 2011?

« on: 10/07/2016 15:31:47 »

THANK YOU ALAN FOR SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCE, AND LIKE YOU AND JIM BOB, I TOO HAVE HAD a NDE...as a child and adult.

I still will be sitting or doing something when I am suddenly taken aback as if it were happening again, and besides  the few similarities, I felt myself move up from my body, and felt as if I was hovering over myself, and several others in the rogom ! I am still aware of what Is happening with everyone in room, their ongoing  conversations continue,  but when this happens now,  and it still does... thats when I relive the NDE.

 I felt ascention and an incredibly bright light that seemed blinding, but it wasnt, it was a pure, warm bright light. As I moved upward I could see hands, outstrtched an welcoming. The voices of loved ones the feelings of their presence, without the visualization of their faces. It was just the knowledge in my own heart and mind of who they were. Then I heard  a very masculine, but gentle voice saying, that I had things left unfinished, things to do, and I needed to go back. The light on my face and body felt like a gentle hand on my cheek...Then  a slow steady descending feeling came over me, and again the I was seeing the most brilliant light, and hearing the gentle voice which seemed farther away now,  but still clear! ....It is my very first memory of my life... Its the earliest memory I have, and it left me with an undoubting knowledge of the presence of Jesus, or if you will, others might prefer a higher being...A knowledge that no matter what kind of scientific types of explanations I tried to assign to the events, it always comes down to undeniable knowledge that I have of a higher power..for me Jesus. There are even at times when I am in  depression and sickness, that life has made me doubt that presence.... but,  that is is when something happens and I reexperience the ascending sensation and can again find myself looking down from above myself! Its definitely OOB experience and my spirit if you will leaves the shell below, and I can feel my own being or spirit above myself, as if shedding my body below, but taking all else above....Then I hear that same voice and sink quietly back into the place I left. I cannot explain why, and I won't argue it with anybody,  but I will tell you that it is a very sacred, private memory, and experience for me. I only share it on occasion like this, because you are not alone..and while we share similarities, I think each persons experience is different...and that its not a debaitable event! Even though 1 person experiences it one way, we need to remember that we are each very individual in our personalities, as well as how we experience physical and spiritual events that we have! ...Its like  having a heart attack.  There are similarities about symptoms, but also differences in how each of us experience the heart attack... I have had 3 as a infant, and another 3 as an adult....each one different as for the physical pain for me...

I have an incredible love for life, and love of people. A knowledge of where I will be after this life, and no fear of death itself... My worries come from thinking about going without my children... being without them even though I know I will see them again, it bothers me... I assume time here  will go slowly, but it will be the blink of an eye for me... so I worry for them and for me not being ready to let go of them long enough to move on.

I must sound like a nut to you but I believe what you experienced was very real, and most importantly you know it was, and it does not matter what anyone else thinks, or believes...  You know in your heart and You know its undeniable, no doubts for you..  I believe you were blessed by the knowledge, and not many people get that blessing,  and they go through their life looking for the knowlede of weather there is or isnt truth in a higher spirit or Jesus, but you found a truth in your experience...We are lucky...but mostly blessed!

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Is there a case for positive euthanasia for end stage Alzheimer sufferers?

« on: 09/07/2016 09:20:30 »

My step Grandmother died due to not drinking water for the last week of her life.

Whilst she was a horrid person, not a wet eye at the funeral, I would not wish such a death on anybody at all.

Surely in circumstances where we put to sleep a dog in missery without all this ethical fuss it is similarly clear in 99% of the times that it would have been a lot better to have doen the same to the old lady rather than allow her demented and lost mind to neglect her own body to death.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Is there a case for positive euthanasia for end stage Alzheimer sufferers?

« on: 08/07/2016 15:45:24 »

“In Numbers 31:15-18, after his soldiers had killed all of the men among the Midianites, Moses ordered his army officers to kill all of the male children, kill all of the nonvirgin females but to save alive all of the virgin girls for his troops. Prior to this, the Israelites had taken all of the animals and goods of the Midianites and then burned all of their towns.

 If genocide or "ethnic cleansing" is a war crime, then this act of Moses was clearly a war crime…What possible reason could Moses have given in order to justify this horrendous act of genocide? After all, wasn't he the great "law giver"?

Moses claimed that Yahweh, the God of Israel, ordered him to do this, because the Midianites worshiped a deity named Baal Peor. The Midianites felt that Baal Peor was nature's god, the creator of the universe, whereas the Israelites believed that their god Yahweh was the creator. .. So, in effect, what we have here is a demonization of those people who refer to the creator by a different name. These people are accused of worshiping a false god.

I didn't realize that entire part was plagiarized from another site (http://christianthinktank.com/midian.html).  You probably would want to give credit when you do that to the originating site, lest the words be taken as your own.  But regardless, it was ironic that the very site you got it from devotes the whole page to actually dissecting that quote and tearing it to shreds in a very detailed way, and go on to give their assessment of what the real reasons were for.  It was interesting reading actually. 

"Then stand up and defend your religion" and at least, tell all of us why it is OK for "God" to murder little innocent boys and commit genocide against he Midianite people by proxy

First, it's the same religion and same god as yours, and the same moses.  I would ask you to stand up and defend the same. 

Because it is not ok for 'god' to murder innocent anyone.  The sad part is god is fictional and can't murder to begin with.  The problem is man committing these disgusting acts of murder in the name of this false creature.  Time and time and time again, murdering in the creature's name.  It's disgusting.  It's why it's laughable that atheists are the ones looked at as immoral, or needing moral guidance from the ignorantly religious.  So much death and destruction throughout history in the name of the false creature.  The last thing atheists need is moral guidance from a group of people who have throughout history been responsible for so many disgusting crimes against humanity. 

But again, this example of above is from the same bible and supposed orders from the same creature and same moses that you worship.  How do you defend it?

But those are just more rhetorical questions, since I guess technically a bible study class isn't what I'm on this site for.  Just couldn't help but see the irony in your questions.

through kind gentle Moses as depicted in Numbers 31

Apparently, he was neither kind nor gentle lol

Getting back to the subject of the thread I think euthanasia should only be used of those who have made it very clear while still in control of all their mental faculties that it is their expressed wish that this final act of love and mercy be done for them when they no longer have the means to do it for themselves.

I very much agree with that.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: German Scientist says he has proven life after DEATH

« on: 05/07/2016 14:11:49 »

During profound near death experiences it could be said that they were from a medical point view clinically dead , no heart beat or brain activity ...

Clinical death is a moveable feast, the criteria for which vary between countries (e.g. it's different in US and UK), and over time. Colloquially, it is the cessation of heartbeat & breathing.

The lack of detectable brain activity doesn't mean there is no brain activity, and neurons may be alive even if they're not 'firing'. If an individual recovers any level of function, they were not dead, regardless of medical diagnosis []

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Just Chat! / Re: Please comment on my near death episode, due to total AV heart block in 2011?

« on: 05/07/2016 04:51:04 »

It is not a figment of imagination nor is Alan "crazy" or damaged (brain death.) Hundreds of thousands of people alive today, millions in history, have had similar experiences. These can also be produced through meditation.

SEE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Consciousness

The book is over 125 years old and i still in print. Why would this be if not for an astounding interest  for the subject? Or a whole lot of people experiencing i, including myself.

I'm not by any means crazy and put my faith in Shakespeare:  "There is more under heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our Philosophy, Horatio."  - aprox quote.

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Just Chat! / Re: There is no god and Richard Dawkins is his prophet?

« on: 29/06/2016 15:03:38 »

There is no god and Richard Dawkins is his prophet?

A modern day Evangelist doing to others what he despises in them, forcing his beliefs down their throats a prime example of a hypocrite, what is he trying to achieve? He should go home and spend valuable time with his family and grandchildren, instead of going all over the world, convincing the already converted, who already are atheists like him.

this is incorrect, Darwkins is not an Athiest, he is an Anti-Thiest, he has in the past actively called for Militant Athieisms. He actively seeks the destruction of Religion, in his own words he Despises God.

To Quote Orwell

"He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him."

"In a billion years he will never get a fundamentalist to convert to his belief, what a huge waste of time and effort"

He does make fools of the religious fundamentalists, "but how easy is that"?,

Very easy, most regular religious people joke about them also. Like many scientist Darkins is more interested in Fame And with the Selfish Gene as an Idea, it has caused nothing but trouble in the Free Market but it made Dawkins Famous and thats whats important.

to make fools of those ignorant in basic science, but being ignorant does not mean they are stupid, they just do not know things he knows.

As a scientist he should know he simply cannot prove that god does not exist, so until he can he should go home and shut up and stop irritating people .

I do not see a scientist when I see Dawkins, just and Anrgy man that wants to be Rich and Famous.

He is in his 70,s and has just had a stroke, so maybe he should reconsider his position as far as the existence of god goes and the possibility that there just might be an afterlife?

Alan

He´s too Proud for that, even if God appeared to him he´d probably die denying it ever happened.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does consciousness exist after death?

« on: 28/06/2016 23:51:33 »

First of all, Every bit of evidence there is suggests that consciousness could not exist without the brain.  On the other hand, there is ZERO evidence that it could.

There's absolutely no evidence that conscience couldn't exist without a brain, unless perhaps theoretically, which here is a very weak evidence at most. Empirically, to demonstrate it, you had to know what's consciousness in the first instance and then know how to detect and record it's existence. Thus, you could prove that there's no consciousness  remaining after removing or destroying a brain or that part or all of consciousness remained after that. There's no such experiment in the whole history of humanity (at least recorded).

There's only evidence that by losing parts of the brain by disease or accident you lose mental functions, and this is might be as strong a proof that consciousness is a physical substance as observing that by cutting a nerve you lose muscular action or sensitivity.

As I told before, I'm preparing a mental experiment, something like the Chinese box by Searle, to demonstrate it.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does consciousness exist after death?

« on: 28/06/2016 17:54:36 »

First of all, Every bit of evidence there is suggests that consciousness could not exist without the brain.  On the other hand, there is ZERO evidence that it could.

NDE is an evidence that consciousness may survives death.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2783030/Research-near-death-experiences-reveals-awareness-continue-brain-shut-down.html

Second of all, that paper was based on philosophy not science.  It uses an extremely loose definition of sentience, defining every living cell as sentient.  Based on that paper, every living cell that exists would have sentience that survives death.  Are we to assume you believe every cell of every plant, bacteria, animal and otherwise, every cell goes to heaven in your view?

I believe consciousness is beyond the material realm of existence. Life and consciousness are deeply interconnected. No consciousness, no life...

No, instead the paper is all about reincarnation.  That upon death, the soul enters a new body.  Is that what you believe?
And would that really be consciousness surviving?  I've always said that if reincarnation existed, but our new mind had no memory whatsoever of our old, then isn't it really a distinction without a difference?  Would it matter that it was the 'same' soul, if as far as it was concerned it was 'new'? Would that really be consciousness surviving at all??

Assuming consciousness originates from quantum interactions in living organisms, I believe consciousness could happens in creating reality through entanglement of space and time. The universe could therefore be a product of our consciousness and death an illusion humans have adopted through religions and culture. What must be researched is how life occurs in immortal organisms.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2503370/Quantum-physics-proves-IS-afterlife-claims-scientist.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality#Organisms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biocentric_universe

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: What is the diameter of all of the universe?

« on: 27/06/2016 00:42:48 »

I disagree the "Box is here simply to disrupt meaningful dialogue between lucid members, who have insightful substance between their ears, with his constant stubborn meaningless, nonsensical, ambiguous insistence that he can see light before it reaches his eyes.

You may be right Alan, I have also wondered about his motives for some time now. Thinking that he surely couldn't be as ignorant as his posts seem to suggest. However, the possibility still remains that he may just be that ignorant and naïve and just can't help showing that ignorance from time to time.

"He is hijacking this thread with his rubbish"

Alan

About that, fact I totally agree..........................

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does consciousness exist after death?

« on: 25/06/2016 19:27:22 »

The brain could be equated to the hard drive of a computer memories and consciousness as non-materiel like the software programing?

I think that can be a good analogy. If you have all the hardware and no software and turn the computer on, you'll get nothing from it, even though it works and is functioning.

Software is that something it is lacking and must be delivered to it in some way, not necessarily physically, so that it will work.

I anticipate perfectionist people that I don't think this is the perfect analogy, or the problem of consciousness would be solved now.

Modern embryology considers that an exaggeration; some features of an embryo reflect the embryonic features of its evolutionary antecedents.

I told about an aphorism, and thus it's not supposed to be a precision or scientists wouldn't need to study phylogeny any longer. As an aphorism, it only need to be true enough.

It may be widely believed, but there's no evidence for it. There's some evidence that brain development is affected by experiences in the womb; so, for example, exposure to music or rhythm may enhance development of those areas of the brain. Calling potentiated development of that kind memories is a bit of a stretch. But areas used in memory, such as the hippocampus, are underdeveloped at that point, and it takes some while after birth for perceptions to become organised enough to allow coherent memory storage & retrieval. This doesn't stop people reporting having such memories, but as we now know, autobiographical memories can readily be constructed from second hand information, or imagined events.

This is a "belief", as you say, shared by most, if not all, neuroscientists. That doesn't mean that the brain is functionless until that time. I'm not telling about coherent memories, but about memories in an absolute sense. The brain can indeed work well enough without memories, especially for a baby. Perhaps you should read Antonio Damasio, for instance, who describes children with hydranencephalia, who lack gray matter, and a person who had no [explicit] memory at all and had the greatest amnesia ever remembered, after an herpetic encephalitis.

Children with hydranenchepalia are diagnosed late exactly because in early ages gray matter doesn't make a difference. This doesn't mean that newborns have raw cotton inside their heads, as they can recognize their mother's voice from a lot of voices, something they learned in utero, and have many many more capabilities.

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General Science / Re: Is science a mechanism for explaining reality?

« on: 25/06/2016 13:38:39 »

To Puppypower:

Even though ancient people had limited tools, scientist don't have much to laugh at them.

Democritus, by observing lyophilized wine mixing slowly in water postulated that matter consisted of small particles surrounded by enormous empty spaces he called atoms.

Also, he said that nothing can be created from nothing and that nothing can result from something however destroyed it is.

Aristarchus of Samos concluded that the Earth rotated every 24 hours around its axis and described a circular orbit around the Sun lasting one year.

Observation doesn't explain all scientific knowledge and Logical Positivism is now abandoned. No one ever saw an electron to the best of my knowledge or the Big Bang for sure.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Gravitational Waves: What does their discovery mean for science and humanity?

« on: 11/06/2016 09:38:44 »

We made a programme featuring Martin Rees and Andrew Pontzen that explored in detail gravitational waves and how gravitational waves were discovered earlier in 2016.

We also recently published this article that looks at the future research steps in the gravitational wave story

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Why do electrons orbit an atom instead of combining with the nucleus?

« on: 08/06/2016 14:32:36 »

This is a topic that has been discussed at length in other threads on this forum. Long story short:

It is possible for electrons to be "captured" by a nucleus, effectively combining with a proton to make a neutron. However, this is typically a very unlikely transformation, and is only favorable for isotopes that have "too many" protons for the number of neutrons. (And the reverse process is a common mode of radioactive decay, wherein nuclei with too many neutrons will release an electron, forming a new nucleus with one more proton and one less neutron.)

As you pointed out, "orbiting" is not an accurate description of the behavior in an atom. Instead, one can think of a hydrogen atom as an electron that is "stuck to" a proton. The center of mass of the electron is in the same place as the center of mass of the proton, but the proton is localized to a radius about several hundred times smaller than the radius of the electron density. This disparity in radius of localization is because electrons have so little mass, they naturally spread out over a larger volume than heavier particles such as protons and neutrons (a proton is 1836 times as massive as an electron). The same approach applies to heavier atoms with multiple electrons, and can even be applied to molecules with multiple nuclei, but the theory gets more complicated as the system is more complex.