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Life after death? Yes, says one doctor

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“Human beings die – that’s certain. But death is not the end of life.”

Roll your eyes, skeptics. We’ve heard it before. Spiritualism is as old as humanity, as old as human gullibility. Furthermore, life after death is so desirable that the temptation to succumb to wishful thinking is apt to fog the most objective mind.

The one striking fact about the above assertion is the identity of the man who utters it. Naoki Yasaku, 57, is neither mystic nor quack. He is a doctor on what may well be described as the front lines. For the past 11 years he has been director of the emergency ward at Tokyo University Hospital.

He lives, in a sense, on the border between life and death, treating some 3,000 intensive care patients a year. “I am constantly seeing things that defy scientific explanation,” he tells Shukan Gendai (March 16).

For example: A woman in her 50s was brought in with emphysema. Her symptoms were light and there was no reason to fear for her life. A day and a half later she was dead, however. Why? “Unfortunately, modern medicine gives us no idea.”

As mysterious are patients who defy a seemingly inevitable death and shrug off desperate illness. One such case was a patient whose heart had stopped. At the very least he should have suffered irreparable brain damage. Nothing of the sort – he staged a full and rapid recovery. For that too, Yasaku says, there is no known explanation.

His conclusion: “The body rots, the soul lives.” A believing Christian will say, “Of course.” A non-believer will say it’s the usual religious claptrap. But Yasaku is speaking as a scientist. He may or may not convince, but his views cannot be written off lightly.

He tells of a man in his 50s who, 28 years ago, caused a fatal car crash. In the passenger seat was his sister. The man recalls an ascent from which he looked down upon what was happening on the ground. At a certain point his sister said to him, “It’s time for you to go back.” At that instant he woke up in the wrecked car. His sister lay beside him, dead. Later he told police what he had seen them doing from above. Police confirmed his observations.

“The Japanese,” Yasaku tells Shukan Gendai, “have since ancient time had an acute sense of the spirit world.” Much of that was lost in the postwar rush to material prosperity. Then came Japan’s greatest postwar tragedy – the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, with its attendant tsunami and nuclear meltdowns. “That changed the Japanese view of life and death,” he says. It brought death near, but it also sharpened the sense of life. In the emotional turmoil, people saw that “sure, we all die – but is death the end?”

The uncertainty is healthy, he feels. With the second anniversary of the disaster now upon us, he hopes it will “help us to grasp how rich an emotional source the human heart can be.”

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156 Comments
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How dull life would be, if we had all the answers.

15 ( +20 / -5 )

We come to this world with nothing and we leave with nothing and all of us are in line. Some in the front others in the back thus all human beings know that they must die. However some people do not want to know the simple, naked and whole truth about the themes of eternity. So what is the object of coming into existence, then dying and falling away, to be here no more. Thus it is important that we understand all the reasons, causes of the hardships and adversities of life and of death. Hence it is but reasonable to suppose that God or a Supreme Being would reveal something in reference to this matter. It's a subject that we ought to study more than any other for the world is ignorant in reference to their true condition and relation. If we have any claim on our God or Supreme Being for anything, it is for knowledge on this important subject.

6 ( +11 / -5 )

The purpose of death is clear: Without periodically eliminating current living stock (i.e., those alive now), there would be no room for further generations; thus, evolution would be impossible.

That life itself would be different from any other force is a dubious proposition. As such, life must be subject to the law of conservation of energy, which holds that total energy is conserved over time. For an isolated system, this law means that energy can change its location within the system, and that it can change form within the system, but that it can be neither created nor destroyed.

Buddhism wraps up much of these ideas in a pretty religion, but you don't have to be religious to suspect much of it is true. I agree with the good doctor.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

But Yasaku is speaking as a scientist. He may or may not convince, but his views cannot be written off lightly.

Yeah, they can. He is not speaking as a scientist, but as a supernaturalist.

11 ( +21 / -11 )

I am constantly seeing things that defy scientific explanation

Yet!

Why? “Unfortunately, modern medicine gives us no idea.”

Yet!

For that too, Yasaku says, there is no known explanation.

Yet!

5 ( +11 / -6 )

Why do people get so defensive and so heated on this subject? Life may or may not exist, no one knows for sure. But people who DO believe get regularly scoffed at and laughed at, and treated like they are some lower-evolved species without access to "true scientific knowledge".

If it is comforting to people to believe in an afterlife, let them be. If they are wrong - they have lost nothing and had a life filled with joy and hope. Who would begrudge anyone that? This guy is not trying to force his opinions on anyone else, the way that religions do - and that I DO disagree with. He is just stating his observations. And as director of one of the busiest and highest level ERs in the country, he is in a better position than most to observe with the eyes of a scientist.

The timing of this article suggests to me he is trying to bring an element of comfort to the thousands of people who have lost loved ones. Whatever anyones opinions on whether or not life exists after death (and I highly recommend Jeffrey Longs book The Science of Near Death Experience, or Chris Carters Science and the Near Death Experience if you are on the fence about it all) you cannot write off a man trying to bring a little comfort at this sad time.

5 ( +14 / -9 )

After the Kobe earthquake a psychic friend was overwhelmed by the sudden increase in the number of spirits that were asking her for help as to what had happened to them....

0 ( +5 / -5 )

If it is comforting to people to believe in an afterlife, let them be.

I'd agree, if we weren't talking about a doctor. I prefer doctors who base their medicine on science. There's a reason shamanism has gone out of style in the medical profession. Well, mostly out of style, anyway.

4 ( +11 / -7 )

The why not just let them... There are many reasons, most importantly it matters what is true as best as we can tell is objectively true, basing decisions, policy and major life choices based on an incorrect understanding of the world.

It may be comforting, but doesn't it matter what is true?

In any case a medical doctor isn't probably best suited to tell us much about it anyway, I would imagine it would be in the realm of physics once a body is considered to no longer to be alive.

In someways we could say that we in someway do go on thats entirely true, energy simply changes and we become a much less organsied, less collected mass of energy.

There is absolutely no reason or evidence to believe that there is, has or will ever be anything consciously experienced after this short life that we know, so get out there and enjoy it.. beautiful day today too :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9vYdTZT79w

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

can't edit... First line was meant to end,

There are many reasons, most importantly it matters what is true as best as we can tell is objectively true, basing decisions, policy and major life choices based on an incorrect understanding of the world is dangerous.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

You can't prove or disprove life after death, true. What annoys me are spiritualists claiming to be able to contact the departed ( usually for a fee ), rip-off exorcists in Tohoku preying on the vulnerable and the religious telling people they don't like they are departing into hellfire after death. I'm pretty sure they have as much idea or ability to know what's on 'the other side' as someone who thinks he's going to be reincarnated as a rainbow trout.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

I plan to live forever. So far so good.

6 ( +9 / -3 )

Chiba chick:

I think you're referring to Pascal's Wager. You ask how can these beliefs be bad or scoffed at. Firstly, a belief in the afterlife can affect how you live in this life. If you think you'll be reunited with your family for eternity, you might spend less time with them now or you won't tell them you love them as much. Our ideas, whether rooted in fact or not, greatly affect our actions. Look at the parents who don't give their kids medical treatment and simply pray. Their ideas change the course of their lives negatively.

Secondly, people who believe things without evidence should be regarded with some suspicion. If they are willing to believe that god is pulling the strings behind the stage with absolutely no evidence, then what else will they believe with no evidence?

5 ( +8 / -3 )

How dull life would be, if we had all the answers.

I disagree. It seems like you're arguing that the less we know the more interesting the world is. I would counter it's the exact opposite. A 16th century library would be infinitely less interesting than a 21st century one.

5 ( +11 / -6 )

The soul lives. Where it will reside depends upon what you do before the body dies. I am extremely worried.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

No need to put 'believing' before Christian as there is no such thing as an unbelieving Christian. Also, there are many other religious and non-religious groups which believe in the afterlife.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

the soul lives

Well, as far as we know, "we" exist solely in the brain. We cannot exist without it and its chemicals. As Sam Harris argues, when we have a stroke a part of our brain stops working like, say, the language center of the brain. Why would it stop due to injury, but when we suffer the ultimate injury (death) we die corporeally but our soul somehow reassembles?

Personally I'm interested in Nick Bostrom's idea that we could all be a simulation. It's interesting to think about, but why is it so hard for humans to say "Listen, we have no evidence for any of this stuff, so let's live like we only get one shot at this and maybe, just maybe, we might be pleasantly surprised in the end"?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Secondly, people who believe things without evidence should be regarded with some suspicion. If they are willing to believe that god is pulling the strings behind the stage with absolutely no evidence, then what else will they believe with no evidence?

Read one or both of the books I recommended and draw your own conclusions, as I have drawn mine. If you want to view people with suspicion, go right ahead. It is your prerogative to view them any way you want, whilst it is theirs to believe whatever they want.

I'd agree, if we weren't talking about a doctor. I prefer doctors who base their medicine on science. There's a reason shamanism has gone out of style in the medical profession. Well, mostly out of style, anyway.

This isnt shamanism. This is just a guy who happens to be a medical doctor giving his opinion that the jury is still out on the life after death question. Dr Eben Alexander is another excellent example of a medical professional (neurosurgeon in his case) who lived and breathed science but has seen and experienced things that have no scientific explanation. Doctors are entitled to their opinions, as much as anyone.

I think you're referring to Pascal's Wager. You ask how can these beliefs be bad or scoffed at. Firstly, a belief in the afterlife can affect how you live in this life. If you think you'll be reunited with your family for eternity, you might spend less time with them now or you won't tell them you love them as much. Our ideas, whether rooted in fact or not, greatly affect our actions. Look at the parents who don't give their kids medical treatment and simply pray. Their ideas change the course of their lives negatively.

But how do you know they are not wrong? Equally as we have no proof in an afterlife, we dont have proof that there isnt one either.

Im not saying there is or isnt an afterlife either way. All I am saying is that none of us really know, and based on what we do know as individuals we form an opinion either way. They thought they pretty much knew all there was to know about physics until the late 19th / early 20th centuries, when quantum physics was discovered. And now they are aware of a whole bunch of stuff they never knew existed. My personal view of it is that I just think it is bad science to close off the mind to possibilities just because they havent yet been proven either way. I like to take the view that the possible existence of a higher power IS science.

0 ( +7 / -7 )

''I am constantly seeing things that defy scientific explanation,'' he tells Shukan Gendai..

Maybe you're just bad at being a doctor?

4 ( +10 / -6 )

And that's why I'm an agnostic. It's the only rational position on the subject of god(s) and the afterlife anyway...

0 ( +5 / -5 )

ChibaChick:

Equally as we have no proof in an afterlife, we dont have proof that there isnt one either.

If I told you that I had a mute invisible dog who controls the worldwide price of gasoline with his mind, how could you prove that untrue?

It is always the burden of those who make the assertion to prove it. See "Russell's Teapot" or Sagan's "Dragon in My Garage" for a more thorough explanation. You simply cannot prove a negative.

Besides, we have inductive proof of no life after death: if we harm a part of the brain, it ceases to work. If deprived of oxygen or the substrate is sufficiently damaged, it ceases to function. If we artificially alter the chemistry of the brain, the person feels and experiences things differently. None of this is contestable. The study of NDE is interesting and I would love to think that I will be able to spend eternity with my son and wife whom I love so dearly, but it is highly highly unlikely and is far less scientifically plausible than the opposite: when the brain dies, life ends.

I would like to offer you a challenge: what is the mechanism upon which a soul exists before, during, and after its host lives/dies. What constitutes a soul, and where do they come from? This is the NDE proponents' burden of proof (if we choose to be scientific about the matter). Without this information, we can simply say, without a reasonable doubt, that such a thing most likely doesn't exist.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Our bodies are subject to decay, but our souls which is our identities will always there. The soul is the product of one's life- the by-product of the upbringing, cultural, environment, and discernment acts of the free will. Simply, it is the identity of a person that evolves over the years. Often talk about black soul, believers souls... are examples of their identities. Once asked of "Heaven", Buddha said " Heaven is what you are creating every day". Wonder about after life? You should know where you are going .... Cheers.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

there is no such thing as an unbelieving Christian

You don't know anything about Christianity. The Vatican can declare you Christian, even a Saint without even informing you. I mean informing your body as most often they take babies and tell them nothing, a splash of water and you're a Christian. I was given a medal. Other times they declare Christians dead people no longer able to protest. But maybe they ask permission to the souls.

Later he told police what he had seen them doing from above. Police confirmed his observations.

That happens a lot in Japan. Those cops are shorties. We see them doing from above.

It is always the burden of those who make the assertion to prove it.

I can't kill you to prove it. It's illegal. Plus I don't operate at distance (ethic rule, not impossibility). Then the others in the thread will still be in doubt because you won't come back posting here after you're dead and your soul is alive... What we can do is kill a piece of your body only and let you the finger to type here. So we'll cut your leg, and you'll tell what the soul of the your leg becomes. What usually happens (to all my amputated acquaintances it did) is the soul keeps functioning, they still feel their leg, they receive sensations from it, information about space...

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

Skeptics need to ask themselves the ultimate question "Why?"! They are so overly convinced about knowing everything and have a scientific, physical explanation for everything but they fail to understand that this is nothing compared to the things they don't know, never will understand and never will know.

-1 ( +6 / -7 )

What usually happens (to all my amputated acquaintances it did) is the soul keeps functioning, they still feel their leg, they receive sensations from it, information about space

This is not a fruitful analogy as it has been studied and explained in great detail by the medical community. It is a function of the nerves and brain that still exist. Your example is the same as giving weight to the notion of demons because a schizophrenic has seen them.

I would love to live forever. There is simply no compelling evidence.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

This doctor might be dealing with out-of-body experiences (OBE).According to some studies, OBEs can be induced by brain traumas, sensory deprivation, near-death experiences, dissociative and psychedelic drugs, dehydration, sleep, electrical stimulation of the brain, etc. Also, it can be intentionaly induced, according to some scientists. Some people treat OBEs as evidence that a soul, spirit or subtle body can detach itself from the body and visit distant locations.

I have a Japanese friend who attended a seminar at the University of Virginia last year ... and one subject covered was OBE. He said some of those who were in attendance managed to achieve an OBE, but he couldn't. I don't know if I'd want to, considering the conditions under which OBE might occur.

At a major hospital here in Tokyo, I saw a Japanese patient who came in dead following a stroke. The Japanese doctor removed a section of the skull, cleaned out the damaged area of the brain ... and several months later I saw the man walk out of the hospital with all his senses intact. A remarkable thing, I think.

So, Dr. Naoki Yasaku is probably dealing with truisms in his line of work with patients who went through what he describes above.

Anybody out there experience an OBE? Curious ...

4 ( +7 / -3 )

His conclusion: “The body rots, the soul lives.” A believing Christian will say, “Of course.” A non-believer will say it’s the usual religious claptrap. But Yasaku is speaking as a scientist. He may or may not convince, but his views cannot be written off lightly.

Not everything a scientist is based on science. This clearly isn't, so he isn't really speaking as a scientist. The fact that he's a doctor adds unjustified weight to his claims, when really he has no more reason to be believed than the gardener, or dog-groomer, for example.

6 ( +10 / -4 )

No. No continuance. No afterlife. THIS is it. Dead end. Full stop.

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

I'm going to live on after my death. My middle-aged pot-bellied friend who still tries to pull 20-year old stunners in Roppongi doesn't have thinking as remotely wishful as that.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

And that's why I'm an agnostic.

Discussion of the nature of life and that of the existence of one or more deities are completely different topics. Please do not confuse them.

Another important point is to distinguish between the ongoing existence of an individual "soul" and that of simply the force of life itself. Buddhism teaches that individuals are so as they have been alienated from the whole and will continue to be so in a series of rebirths until they achieve knowledge, at which their "soul" will no longer be distinct from the general force of life itself - this is called Nirvana, which is often translated as "extinction," but might better be compared to tossing a glass of water into an infinite sea.

Now, the idea that an individual soul can transcend the death of its body - and that acts a living being do can affect the destiny of its soul if that is indeed the case - is quite a different proposition than that life itself is, like all other forces, subject to the law of conservation of energy. I find it difficult to argue with the latter, but as for the former, well - call me an agnostic.

Anybody out there experience an OBE?

Once. I'm reluctant to state the cause, but I felt an acceleration of my existence to a speed at which the acceleration stopped but not the velocity. I felt indistinguishable from all, merged with the cosmos, as if I were one with a very vast body; then, the reverse happened - I decelerated until I finally came to, lying on the floor. This seemed to have taken a very, very long time, but less than a minute had passed . I still have a vivid memory of recovering from it, lying in the back of my friend's convertible staring up at the spring blue California sky framed by eucalyptus. It was extremely intense, but I do not pretend that it was due to anything more than a body over-stressed.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

"To die or not to die": That is a play on words. The doctor is at Tokyo University hospital. You know, Tokyo University (Tokyo Daigaku) is "Todai" in Japanese (Todai - to die) It's the best I've got.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Besides, we have inductive proof of no life after death: if we harm a part of the brain, it ceases to work. If deprived of oxygen or the substrate is sufficiently damaged, it ceases to function. If we artificially alter the chemistry of the brain, the person feels and experiences things differently. None of this is contestable. The study of NDE is interesting and I would love to think that I will be able to spend eternity with my son and wife whom I love so dearly, but it is highly highly unlikely and is far less scientifically plausible than the opposite: when the brain dies, life ends.

It was highly highly unlikely that the earth went around the sun 400 years ago too.

I am not saying an afterlife does or does not exist. Just that it is bad science to rule something impossible, just because it hasnt yet been proven. What you listed above is proof that the brain controls certain functions of the body. It is not proof that life after death does not exist. Just that when the brain dies, the body does too.

What if our bodies, or more specfically brains are simply receivers for a soul that exists elsewhere independently of the body? This is one hypothesis that has been put forward recently (I believe it was Michael Tymm but I may be mistaken). We already know from physics that energy cannot be destroyed, it simply changes form. Does brain create mind, or does the mind co-exist with the brain in a two way relationship? These are questions that scientists are actively researching now. If you read the NDERF website you can see many many examples of NDEs across all spectrums of culture and cause of "death". Yet all the experiences are fantastically similar. This in itself is a phenomenon that warrants further study.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

I think the idea of eternal life has lot's of problems.

Wouldn't we get tired of it after a while?

What's to stop people getting really fat and unhealthy? It wouldn't matter because they have eternity to get slim again.

Crime will be going through the roof in paradise, as idle people turn to bad ways to pass the time.

In some ways, hell might be better than heaven, especially if you're into a bit of SM already.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

The soul lives. Where it will reside depends upon what you do before the body dies. I am extremely worried.

As are a lot of people.

The confusion starts, I think, when people think that a "soul" is something separate from themselves.

When I was a kid, I was told, "When you die, your soul goes to heaven!"

I wanted to reply, but never quite had the courage, "Yeah? Then what happens to ME when my soul is beetling off to join the choir invisible?"

The bit we think of as "ME" and the "soul" are one and the same.

A "soul" isn't what you HAVE it's what you ARE.

You are YOU and you always were YOU.

Think back five years. That was you, right?

Think back ten years, fifteen, twenty, if you can.

You've been YOU all that time, with a different body maybe and a different mind maybe.

So, what happens when you die?

You go through an extremely painful and extremely confusing time and "wake up" as a baby.

Sure, what you do in this life affects what you will become in the next incarnation.

Because, at the point of death, you will have to face, not Saint Peter or God, but a far more fearful person.

You will have to face YOURSELF.

So, what you do in this life affects what happens to you the next time around.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

In any case a medical doctor isn't probably best suited to tell us much about it anyway, I would imagine it would be in the realm of physics once a body is considered to no longer to be alive.

And physics agree with medicine that there is no evidence that consciousness can exist independently of matter. You have a stroke and it can affect your coordination and consciousness (perception, intelligence, personality). We see that changes in consciousness are manifestations of physical changes. Why would an ultimate physical breakdown (death) result in the continuity of consciousness. It's nothing but wishful thinking.

This isnt shamanism. This is just a guy who happens to be a medical doctor giving his opinion that the jury is still out on the life after death question. Dr Eben Alexander is another excellent example of a medical professional (neurosurgeon in his case) who lived and breathed science but has seen and experienced things that have no scientific explanation. Doctors are entitled to their opinions, as much as anyone.

They're entitled to their opinions, and when those opinions contradict science we're entitled to call them crackpots. Shamanism is exactly what it is: a belief that supernatural spirits are inhabiting the natural world, in contradiction to all material evidence.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

ChibaChick:

It was highly highly unlikely that the earth went around the sun 400 years ago too.

It's not without a little irony that you bring this up. Christendom, believing in something they had no proof of (wink, wink), was in direct conflict with the Copernican model of heliocentrism. Such dogmatism admits of no error, unlike science which is fluid and can change. Yes, many thought the solar system revolved around the earth. Yes, it was an error. Yes, it was 400 years ago when Christians ruled the west and all were inculcated with their teachings.

it is bad science to rule something impossible

I think you've mistaken the tone of my posts with the words within them. I have been very careful to never say "impossible". If you look again, I think you'll find it's so.

But we have to make a rule in the sand somewhere. Things that have been proven are vastly outweighed by things that haven't been proven and we can't grant weight to all of the things that haven't been proven (yet). "Is my son a werewolf? Well, he doesn't look like one, but that doesn't mean that he might not be the first." We have inductive reasoning, an epistemological way of "knowing", that we can use to draw inferences from things around us. I really hope you wouldn't feel the need to give credence to my son being a werewolf simply because we haven't had him tested for lycanthropy. That would be silly.

As far as the 1st law of thermodynamics, the body doesn't lose energy when it dies. Your synaptic relays and neurons fire electrical charges because your body creates them using energy and chemical reactions that use kilocalories/nutrition/etc. When you die, these processes stop, but there is no loss of energy. The body is still comprised of the same mass and energy, your brain simply stops making "you" be you. Your energy value is exactly the same before and after death. The energy contained in your cells is given off as heat when you decompose, when you're cremated, or as food when you're eaten by worms.

What if our bodies, or more specfically brains are simply receivers for a soul that exists elsewhere independently of the body?

Yes, what if? It's absolutely an awesome part of being a human to thing about these kinds of things. It's mental practice for making hypotheses, figuring out your own ideas, and mulling over how amazing the universe and everything is. But as I said before, until we have evidence presented by those who make assertions, we are needlessly complicating things if we have to keep every possibility in mind no matter how unlikely it is.

The afterlife is highly unlikely in accordance with current science. And my son is probably not a werewolf.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

His conclusion: “The body rots, the soul lives.” A believing Christian will say, “Of course.” A non-believer will say it’s the usual religious claptrap. But Yasaku is speaking as a scientist. He may or may not convince, but his views cannot be written off lightly.

Mmm...well, not here he isn't, speaking as a scientist I mean. If he's read a book or written a paper, sure, I'll give it a read and see what his argument is, but let's not abuse argumentum ad verecundiam. He is a doctor, he has an opinion regarding the afterlife. No problem. His being a doctor, however, does not confer any particular expertise in regards to the existence of an afterlife, nor give the subject any more credibility than anyone else without relevant credentials.

In all cases, I find that this article got it wrong from the get-go:

Roll your eyes, skeptics. We’ve heard it before. Spiritualism is as old as humanity, as old as human gullibility.

Right from the very first line we have the unfounded assumption that skeptics cannot be spiritual, and that skeptics equate spirituality with gullibility. Nonsense, of course.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

I'll worry about all this after I die. Now: TO LIFE!!!!

3 ( +6 / -3 )

@Nessie the problem with you skeptics is that you are ONLY thinking "material evidence"!

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

"I'll worry about all this after I die"

Ha ha, no you won't, you'll be dead!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

CGB Spender:

What is the reason to be concerned about anything but the material? In what other realm of your life do you not value evidence?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

I totally agree that it's bad science to close off certain possibilities. It is equally bad science to start turning to pseudo-science. I don't know how many times I've heard people use 'energy cannot be destroyed. It simply changes form' to somehow further the idea that consciousness survives death. Can someone please clarify this bizarre logical pathway? Yes, let's use the scientific method to investigate claims of OBEs and the like, but don't approach it with an incoherent mess of science, pseudo-science and pre-science religion/superstition/philosophy. It isn't too dissimilar to the very irritating use of the word 'energy' as in the claptrap of 'there is a negative energy in this room'.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

I don't know how many times I've heard people use 'energy cannot be destroyed. It simply changes form' to somehow further the idea that consciousness survives death. Can someone please clarify this bizarre logical pathway?

Well, you know, the "energy" in the body, it's like the gasoline in the car, when the car stops moving, the "energy" can't be destroyed, so logically...ghost car.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"Is my son a werewolf? Well, he doesn't look like one, but that doesn't mean that he might not be the first."

An excellent post, sleepy dog - one that reveals the intellectual cowardice behind "agnosticism." I am not sure why this article was translated and reproduced, although I know a lot of Japanese are superstitious while at the same time treating doctors with the utmost respect, so I suppose putting the two together is the sort of pseudo science they lap up.

The actual doctor's opinions are so weak it is laughable:

“I am constantly seeing things that defy scientific explanation...a woman in her 50s was brought in with emphysema...a day and a half later she was dead"

OK, a woman has been made an in-patient with emphysema and she dies. Not really defying scientific explanation is it? The doctor may not have thought she was terribly sick, but guess what, she was. In fact, I wonder whether the coroner's report agrees with the doctor that this death defies scientific explanation - somehow I doubt it!

1 ( +4 / -3 )

A few questions..............if " spirit " goes on after death, does it age ? the " spirit " age is the time of death ? Man, do we really like to be stuck with a whole bunch of know it all old geezers for eternity ?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

we are living in the matrix and nobody knows it, we are nothing more than running programs, which is good enough for me! now ask me who programmed the matrix, and the answer is it was self-organized, just like our theory of how life on earth started

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Nessie the problem with you skeptics is that you are ONLY thinking "material evidence"!

Yes, and it's a "problem" that has resulted in the greatest increase in human knowledge and well-being in human history. So you'll excuse me if I make no apologies for it.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

CGB Spender Skeptics need to ask themselves the ultimate question "Why?"! They are so overly convinced about knowing everything and have a scientific, physical explanation for everything but they fail to understand that this is nothing compared to the things they don't know, never will understand and never will know.

I believe your argument is flawed. I think you'll find that the act of wanting to know everything and having a scientific answer for things is the same as asking 'why?'. I also wonder if people "never will understand and never will know", as you state, then what is the point in asking "Why?" in the first place? Your comment moves in circles.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Humans are not born spiritually to have a spiritual life, we are spiritually born to have a human life

1 ( +2 / -1 )

“The Japanese,” Yasaku tells Shukan Gendai, “have since ancient time had an acute sense of the spirit world.” Much of that was lost in the postwar rush to material prosperity. Then came Japan’s greatest postwar tragedy – the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, with its attendant tsunami and nuclear meltdowns. “That changed the Japanese view of life and death,” he says. It brought death near, but it also sharpened the sense of life. In the emotional turmoil, people saw that “sure, we all die – but is death the end?”

Wow... this guy really sounds delusional.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Is there life after death? That question is too big for us to ever know the answer. There are some systems in nature (such as water) which are able to regenerate themselves endlessly. Are we able to do the same? Who knows. Whether we have a soul or whether we are just made of chemicals, blood, bone, skins and organs is a metaphysical question. I guess some people believe we have a soul because we have a MIND and because we have access to emotions. But does that mean we have a soul? I personally don't know. I know there is a ME, which is different to everybody else, so in that sense I have a soul. I suspect we do have a soul, but really humans know very little about this planet and the cosmos although we are learning more and more new things (and unfortunately forgetting the old things/ways).

Consider the size of an ant's brain. Does the size of the ant's brain allow it to understand what a human is? We don't know. Now take the size of a human's brain, infinitely larger than an ant's brain - is it able to understand life, space, the cosmos and everything as we know it? Hardly.....the only way to know if there is life after death....is to die.

So if we don't know if there is life after death or not, perhaps it's not worth worrying about. Just lead the life you want to lead and be the person you want to be. The meaning of life comes in the SEARCH for the meaning of life. We are all Gilgameshes trying to figure out what it's all about and this question (is there life after death? is one of the big ones and one of the mysteries of our living world).

And don't be afraid about the stuff about some ill-conceived thunderer and his punishment. That was just the Church's way to keep people under their control.

If there is a God (and I am not referring to some white-bearded man up in the clouds, no, but 'something' which we can hold accountable for why life is here and why it is the way it is), then we are part of it, so we get to choose what life is like and should be like. Even if we do not continue to live after we die, we pass on something to our children (for example wisdom) or something more material (books, diaries, journals, albums you name it). That's the only eternity we can ever really be sure of.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

We get reborn after we die.

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Maitake, which part in particular sounds delusional to you? Yasaku's comments sound perfectly reasonable to me.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

" Please, enjoy your one and only life, there is no second act." Kuniko Mukoda

4 ( +4 / -0 )

@JonathanJo

How dull life would be, if we had all the answers.

But life would be MORE boring if you don't know what its purpose.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

It's not that hard to conceive if even according to science no matter is ever destroyed, only transformed that there's a possibility, IF, there's more to a human body than a set of chemical reactions, that something like energy might be preserved in a transformed state. On the other hand since no one ever came back with proof its not really a certainty and the only certainty one ever has in life is the certainty that death will come one day and it's inevitable so maybe it's best not to bet on an afterlife and treat this one as one chance ... just in case ?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

If Sartre was right, and Hell is other people, then Heaven must be hell...

2 ( +2 / -0 )

@mig4035 considering 99% of all people i know consist of 99% pure evil in the classic sense of the word i dont think the classic interpretation of heaven would be full of ... euh, humans anyway. I thought hell is all about repetition so i think this very place here must be it.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

'Is there life after death? That question is too big for us to ever know the answer' 'Ever'? There is no way you can make that kind of prediction. The idea of afterlife is a scientific claim. It certainly won't be answered by reference to pre-scientific platitudes.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Some spirits are trying to communicate with humans and they may show them self as a strange to humans energy field or visible effects of such energy. Dying or sick people may more likely be visited by this spirits.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"Anybody out there experience an OBE?"

Yes. Many times as a child, and several times as an adult. As a child, sometimes when I was falling asleep lying on my back with my eyes closed, I would feel my body begin to spin around and around, faster and faster. Often it would stop and I would just fall asleep and have dreams or recurring nightmares, but if I got spinning fast enough my consciousness would pop out through my lower chest, and I would open my eyes to find myself high in night sky above my house. I had a mental body that the winds blew right through and that nobody could see. I could fly in any direction and pass through physical objects. I would go to unfamiliar cities and fly down the streets, and nobody could see me. But if I tried to go into a private place, the scene would suddenly shift and I would be in a dark void of space in which floated a stone city. And when I entered that huge building it was full of demonic beings who could see me and who howled with rage and poked at me with sticks as I flew along the ceiling, unable to go through the walls. Then I would abruptly return to my bed.

Once I tried flying as fast as I could go, and in an instant the Earth had vanished and I was lost in deep space. I didn't know which of the twinkling stars was our Sun! As I waited, one star got brighter and I realized it was the Sun, and I was being pulled towards it. As I zoomed by the planets I tried to go to them, but the pull from the Sun was too great. So I decided to accelerate at full speed and fly through the Sun and come out the other side. But it didn't work. The Sun is huge. I got past the centre but it pulled me back and held me there. Some Beings that I could not see but could hear telepathically made some adjustments to me, and then almost instantly I was back in my bed.

Another time I asked to go to the most interesting time in the history of the Earth. I found myself flying above a smooth gray planet, that I didn't want to land on because the surface seemed like semi-molten plastic. As I watched an asteroid the size of a mountain hurtled towards me and hit the surface like a bowling ball, ploughing across and splashing the surface to either side. Then more and more asteroids came and as I dodged them I suddenly became aware of a huge one coming that filled the sky in an arc from the horizon to about 11 o'clock! I couldn't dodge that one and bailed out back to awaken in my bed. That was 30 years before the moon landings that verified the moon was created by such a collision with another planet!

I studied science at university, and had a long career working with mentally ill people as a social worker. I had 3 premonitions of major plane crashes that actually happened, the Air India crash near Ireland, the Gander crash in Canada, and the Airbus crash into the mountains in France. I have had many spirit contacts with those who have died and are no longer in their bodies, but are trapped by the circumstances of their death into not understanding what has happened. Atheists for example, may think they are just dreaming, or in a coma having visions. Others are trapped in the trauma of a sudden death, and can't see the loved ones in the Spirit plane who are trying to reach them. Those of us who are spiritually aware need to center ourselves in loving compassion so we can communicate with them and assist them to permit the Lights to approach. When they recognize who they are, they will joyfully go with them to the higher dimensional reality of our souls.

I have learned these things from my own experience, and they are how I make sense of what I see happening in this life, and in past lives that I have become aware of. I think each of us makes sense of life in our own way, because each of us has unique experiences. What works for me obviously doesn't work for someone who believes science or their religion is the only truth. But we can all respect each others right to think for ourselves, because we are all in this Great Mystery sharing life together with each other, and with all the other life forms too!

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

We should stop worrying about it. If there is nothing after death, there is nothing to worry about. If there is something after death, everyone I know there will no doubt have big "surprise party" for me, and I'll have to day, "Wow, was I wrong!" Then we'll all have a big laugh and be together forever.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What we should worry about is this doctor which sounds like having not other explanation than metaphysic to explain his patient death ...

2 ( +3 / -1 )

@Namaman you're thinking in too small scales! Skeptics rely on science and physical laws like religious zealots rely on the bible. The problem with types like you is that you want prove for anything. You fail to take into account that there might be completely different dimensions that escape any of your deeply ingrained sciences and physics. Because you can't prove them you completely lock them out of possibility. but that doesnt change the fact that they might be there. You lack the tolerance and spirituality to give them a chance. It's not so much about whether such dimensions exist or not. You can't prove wether such exists or not anyway, you might be just too small to phatom such things. Many beliefs in science are just theories as well, like the Big Bang theory. As long as its a theory it can't prove anything at all.

Now ask yourself the question Why is everything? Where does everything come from? Of course you will now come up with some highly theoretical, far-fetched scientific explanations but yet again, they prove nothing. This is the point where science stops to make any sense. Time for you to use your right half of the brain a little more.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Novenachama, your comment was very nicely written. There are many fanatic comments on this article. I enjoyed nearly all of them very much.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

As a Buddhist, this is nothing new to me. In Buddhism and in many other religions, life and death are not "separate" but more like "one", kind of like one coin, but life and deaths are just the opposite sides of the same coin. So please enjoy "THIS LIFE TIME" to the fullest because this one will never ever come around again!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Ah_so

...the intellectual cowardice behind "agnosticism."

And what exactly is this "cowardice" and why are the alternatives to agnosticism more rational if rational at all?

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

The problem we have as humans, is the fact that the prison we are in (our bodies) is so tight around us, that we consider it "ourselves". Only people who have had "near death experiences" or have experienced "out of body travels",can really KNOW that the body and the spirit within it are two separate identities. It is the difference between experiencing, versus hearing, or believing something. There is a large difference between knowing the pleasure of a wonderful experience, compared to hearing about it and trying to feel the pleasure. This is the reason for out lives....the feelings of our lives. To me it is not difficult to believe that if we can pop out of a vagina and be born to this experience, why can we not die our way into another experience? As far as science is concerned; most of the Universe is composed of "Dark Matter", which is what science knows the LEAST ABOUT. Read about Robert Monroe.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

What unutterable claptrap. People are often stupid enough to believe anything but the low-brow, rot spouted by this "doctor" is just annoying. Throwing together a bunch of little anecdotes from an emergency ward and wrapping them up in mystical ramblings and then hiding behind a medical degree as if that even qualified him as an "authority" is contemptible.

This scientist should offer proof or just go away.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Nothing of what this doctor has observed has anything to do with "life after death". All this is simply more nonsensical speculation.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

And what exactly is this "cowardice" and why are the alternatives to agnosticism more rational if rational at all?

USNjapan2: I would have thought it was very obvious from the context. Much as in the some way that it is never certain that sleepy dog's son is not a werewolf, I would not claim to be "agnostic" about the fact I am pretty sure he is not. Actually near as damn 100% certain, but I cannot logically claim to be 100%, because there is a small chance that he is actually a werewolf. The odds are probably similar to the chances of me being able to walk through a wall - there is a quantum possiblity, but very unlikely to ever happen. But even the most famous athiests allow the technical probability of His existence.

I use the term "cowardice" about agnostics because of fear of using the term "athiest" to describe themselves or fear the implications of making a decision. It also means different thing to different people.- it is such a vague term that allows the user to hide between 2 extremes. Does this mean a technical possilbiliy of existence or a quite possible chance?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Peacewarrior says:

I am constantly seeing things that defy scientific explanation

Yet!

Why? “Unfortunately, modern medicine gives us no idea.”

Yet!

For that too, Yasaku says, there is no known explanation.

Yet!

Spoken with the faith of a true Materialist. The answers are all there. Just give us a little more time and we'll figure it all out.

Well, he hopes. Of course no one can prove him wrong. It's kind of like atheists not being able to prove that there is no God.

Both are positions of faith.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Jaymann says condescendingly:

What unutterable claptrap. People are often stupid enough to believe anything but the low-brow, rot spouted by this "doctor" is just annoying. Throwing together a bunch of little anecdotes from an emergency ward and wrapping them up in mystical ramblings and then hiding behind a medical degree as if that even qualified him as an "authority" is contemptible.

Just because it doesn't fit your worldview, doesn't mean he is wrong. You were not there to see what he saw. Especially the illustration of the man coming back to his body and waking up in the car is impressive. I've heard other stories like this. He is simply telling us what he has experienced and observed. Maybe if you were there to see and experience everything he did, people would give your opinion more weight. As it is, you just dismiss it outright because you don't believe it. Fine. But he is just as welcome to his opinion as you are to yours. He seems to have evidence on which to base his opinion as well.

This scientist should offer proof or just go away.

You don't know much about science do you. There is no such thing as proof. All we can do is provide evidence and then we must each interpret that evidence. a Materialist/atheist doesn't believe in God, so he will either ridicule the idea, ignore it, or try and explain it away somehow.

Sir, can offer proof that there is no such thing as life after death?

If not, then perhaps it is you who should just go away.

We both have to make up our own minds, but in the end it takes faith because there is no such thing as proof when it comes to matters such as these.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

I use the term "cowardice" about agnostics because of fear of using the term "athiest" to describe themselves or fear the implications of making a decision.

Agnostic atheists don't believe there is a God, but don't believe it can be proven either way with certainty. There's nothing "cowardly" about that stance, and they live their lives as if there were no afterlife. What's cowardly is the Pascal's wager Christians who pretend to believe just in case there is a God.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

I stayed up all night last night wondering if there really was a dog then realized I must be an agnostic, dyslexic insomniac!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"The man recalls an ascent from which he looked down upon what was happening on the ground. At a certain point his sister said to him, “It’s time for you to go back.” At that instant he woke up in the wrecked car. His sister lay beside him, dead. Later he told police what he had seen them doing from above. Police confirmed his observations."

I really would like to know how the police were able to confirm his observations. I don't see how they could other than "wrote down what he said happened".

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Mmmm.

Life after death, and the existance of our 'soul', in a conventional sense, is a fear of the finality of death and an inability to accept man's mortality.

But, the energy and physical elements that constitute us, and our living body whilst it is alive, do not disappear. They return to the closed system from which the came and constantly renewed whilst we lived. In this sense, what once made us continues to 'live' after we are gone - recycles into the environment and system we are inherently a part of. The life cycle continues.

That is the life after death. That is our true connection to our world.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

What utter nonsense on all levels, worse article I have seen on JT. In my experience there are very large numbers of doctors with very little real understanding of current scientific knowledge or the scientific method, so I am not surprised by this poor doctors bewildered views. The fact as the human body is a very complicated system, currently beyond our understanding with large numbers of backup systems and redundancy which while we don`t understand the minutiae of every individual case (yet), we do know adequately explains all of these kinds of surprise recoveries or declines.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Thats not to say there isnt a soul, but this "evidence" ain`t helping one jot.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

@Ossan This is hardly hard evidence. I've heard hundreds of similar anecdotes. I heard a cracker once about a deceased Irish Setter calling his former owner on his iphone and barking down the line. I swear I'm not joking here. Apparently the phone didn't log any calls and his wife backed up his story. Any stories of OBEs, crying statues or canine calls from the other side need to be treated with suitable skepticism.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

CGB Spender:

Skeptics rely on science and physical laws like religious zealots rely on the bible.

I mean no offense by this, but you've destroyed your credibility after your second sentence. The bible and immutable physical laws of nature are incomparable and they work in opposite fashion. Theists have their theory in front of them and are faced with the unenviable task of fitting the laws of nature into that paradigm. Science tries to explain the natural laws through testing and observation. Science is essentially free of agenda, values, and is always open to new data. Religion is not.

It's hard for me to understand how anybody could poo-poo science. I mean, if you had cancer, you wouldn't say "get me some crystals to align my chakra! Heck, anything might work." You wouldn't live in a highrise built by people who weren't engineers, and you wouldn't ignore what we know about motor skills and let your toddler drive your car because "there is a possibility that the kid might be a reincarnated Andretti". I would wager that in no other aspect of your life would you shun science for some unproven wacky hypothesis. Why is this any different?

You may see us as unromantic or jaded or what have you. But I think that we recognize that once we lower the evidentiary bar enough, we have to contend with things like "God used floods in New Orleans to punish us for homosexuality" or "The Gods punished us on 3/11 because of our errant ways" or "Raping a virgin is the only way to cure HIV".

Honestly, if you have something better than science, please let us know what it is.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

I have to say that I'm shocked that so many in this thread are not aware of the inability to prove a negative. Besides, it's not our job. Prove your assertion or kindly stop asserting it.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Every living species on earth lives in its own world with no concept of what exists outside of it (sometimes, no notion of what exists within it: for example, apparently, dogs have no concept of color). How pathetically arrogant then for humans to think we know (or will eventually know) everything there is to know outside (and maybe, inside) our own little world. For example, we may have some vague idea of infinity or eternity, but the fact is, for humans, we can only perceive and understand a finite world. We only have the capabilities to comprehend a universe with a beginning and end...what lies outside our universe, and then what lies outside that? What existed before the "big bang"? That will always be impossible for humans to understand; like the amoeba in a puddle that has no inkling of the rain that caused its environment. But maybe we need that mystery...the first poster said how "dull" life would be if we had all the answers; but I think if we had all the answers, life would be not so much dull, but ultimately meaningless. The "unknown" factor might let us live with the hope that there just might be "something" after death.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Is this doctor a neurologist? Is his professional focus neurochemistry and, or psychobiology? If not, he's a false authority; just because he's a doctor doesn't mean his opinions carry any more weight in areas outside his expertise than you or me spouting off on topics we're largely ignorant about.

In the past thirty years our understanding of the death process has made huge strides, and nearly all experiences of NDE have plausible, evidence supported, even laboratory induced explanation based in neurochemistry and biological processes.

From Oxygen deprivation, to Serotonin and Endorphin flooding, to production of Dimethyltriptamine in massive doses - producing euphoria, memory triggering, hallucination, and dreams in the dying brain - we now know a lot about what's going on in there as things fail.

And given that a brain continues to function, if poorly, for from 5 minutes to as much as 8 hours (recently suggested) as the body shuts down; it's no wonder our brain-mind starts freaking out, and there seems to be plenty of time for it to indulge in that. These experiences in no way verify life after death; merely that just before it all goes black, we dream like crazy.

For rationalists, a plausible explanation with solid evidence is so far better than an implausible one with no evidence that it's only worth discussing in a philosophical sense - and even then, not so much.

There's been a lot of chatter in this thread about why anything exists - as if that's some kind of correlate to life after death; it isn't - completely unrelated, other than through mysticism and superstition.

For a an excellent and approachable overview on the why-things-exist question, I recommend Jim Holt's "Why does the world exist? An existential detective story". This book is well balanced, including scientific and philosophical perspectives (secular and religious), even thoughts from artists. As for layman readability, it's like a travel book hitting the main roadside attractions of existential philosophy and cosmology, past and present.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

I took ChibaChick's suggestion and looked at the NDERF website. It's obviously from the same people who brought us Intelligent Design. It is often claimed that people from many different cultures who aren't even Christians all see this same undeniably Christian vision. But, all of the "witnesses" are from traditionally Christian countries or countries like South Korea that have a very prominent Christian population. You can hardly claim that they independently had the same vision of Heaven without extensive prior exposure to such a vision. Even more damning is that this "organization" asks them 40 yes/no questions that are all phrased very specifically to match the Christian vision of Heaven. Here is a sample, from the responses of a three-year old girl: Did you encounter or become aware of any beings who previously lived on earth who are described by name in religions (for example: Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.)? Yes (Eliana talks about Mister God and Jesus)

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Her symptoms were light and there was no reason to fear for her life. A day and a half later she was dead, however. Why? "Unfortunately, modern medicine gives us no idea."

This is the most ridiculous apology / excuse for crappy doctoring in quite a while. This medical doctor is basically saying, "Ooooh, when we don't know how to treat someone, or mishandle a treatment, it's because of magic!"

Quack.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

@sleepy dog You're taking my first sentence too much by the word and then you only refer to that one sentence! Did I mention religion anywhere? Or god? No because you can take them with a grain of salt. Spirituality is not religion.

I'm not against science. I enjoy science just as much as you do but I don't lock out other possibilities. That's something you don't seem to grasp yet. You have your small realm of physical laws and that's it because you can't prove that there is anything else. You haven't considered the possibility that that is not all we know, or possibility will ever be able to know as humans. Einstein would actually agree with me on this. The interesting thing is that people like you always want to prove anyone with a different belief to be wrong.

I have to say that I'm shocked that so many in this thread are not aware of the inability to prove a negative. Besides, it's not our job. Prove your assertion or kindly stop asserting it.

I could say the same about you. What is not your job? To deal with opposite opinions after throwing atheist views into the comments? If you think it's not your job then why do get all riled up about it?

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Agnostic atheists don't believe there is a God, but don't believe it can be proven either way with certainty. There's nothing "cowardly" about that stance, and they live their lives as if there were no afterlife. What's cowardly is the Pascal's wager Christians who pretend to believe just in case there is a God.

Nessie, what you describe there is an athiest as far as I am concerned. An athiest is well aware that something that only exists as a concept cannot be proven to exist. That does not make him an agnostic, it makes him an athiest.

The agnostic you describe is an athiest without the courage to describe themselves as such. Perhaps if I lived in America I might hypocritically and sheepishly describe myself as an "agnostic" so as not to alienate myself too much.

-5 ( +0 / -5 )

Nessie, what you describe there is an athiest as far as I am concerned. An athiest is well aware that something that only exists as a concept cannot be proven to exist. That does not make him an agnostic, it makes him an athiest.

This is a misconception of the word "agnostic." You can be a gnostic atheist (I know for sure God does not exist) or an agnostic atheist (I see no evidence for God and thus conclude that God does not exist, but this can never be known for sure).

Interestingly, there are also gnostic theists (God's exists, and I can prove it) and agnostic theists (I can't prove that God exists, but I believe it anyway.

So imagine a grid with two dimensions: theism vs. atheism (existence of God), and gnosticism vs. agnosticism (ability to know for sure).

The large majority of atheists are agnostic atheists. Richard Dawkins, the great anti-theist himself, is an agnostic atheist. What you're calling an atheist is usually an agnostic atheist.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

CGB Spender: I took you at your words because I know I choose my words carefully and I assume you do too. I disagree with you comparing theists with secularists.

I get everything you said. I've read all of these arguments before. My charge to you and others is this: if you have proof of something, please show it. But without proof, it is ignorant to assert that others are missing something because they are materialists. Science is THE BEST method we have of procuring information from the world around us. If we have not found it to exist yet, there is no point in giving it credence. No evidence, no credence. It's very simple.

Now, let's be clear: I don't want to prove you wrong. I would love to live forever or go to heaven or what have you. But there is no evidence of those things. If you consider my statement that there is no evidence as an assertion, well I can't help you. There is no book/article saying "Here is the proof of no life after death." Because it's a negative, which you cannot prove.

So my last words to you are: if you have an assertion, make it and back it up.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Are you really interested in answers? Really?

http://www.amazon.co.jp/The-Spirits-Book-Allan-Kardec/dp/1612038980/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363094289&sr=8-1

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

A better link with a look inside feature:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/The-Spirits-Book-Spiritualist-Classics/dp/1907355987/ref=pd_cp_fb_0#reader_1907355987

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

It is appointed unto men once to die, after that the judgement

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Well, everybody will know the truth when they die...

2 ( +3 / -1 )

If we as a species focused more on what consciousness is, or isn't, we'd probably be much further along. Try thinking outside the box we've sealed ourselves into as corporeal beings. All this time wasted on things that are known to be unprovable...

4 ( +4 / -0 )

HonestDictator,

Well, everybody will know the truth when they die...

Yes, but will we remember it thereafter?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

This about near-death experience and it is old hat. There is nothing that proves that these experiences and nothing more than mental phenomena.

Regarding the following,

A woman in her 50s was brought in with emphysema. Her symptoms were light and there was no reason to fear for her life. A day and a half later she was dead, however. Why? “Unfortunately, modern medicine gives us no idea.”

it is probably no spiritual mystery but sloppy doctoring. I have had a couple of "near death" experiences because of the incompetence of Japanese doctors. Fortunately, there were other Japanese doctors who could bring me back to life. My experiences with near death were not spiritual. I was horridly aware of my body not working properly and had a strong desire to live. My brain was not interested in the next world but the present one.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

If there is no life after death, where did the life come from?

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

If there is no life after death, where did the life come from?

Nice one, Serrano!

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Kabukilover, your Near Death experiences are an example of why so many spirits become trapped in the physical world. Their struggle to deal with the trauma they are experiencing in their death scene is so overwhelming they continue in it without realizing they have died. They are caught in a time loop of their own making. These are the "ghosts" that sensitive people perceive in dreams, or feel at times in certain places. Modern society has largely lost the knowledge to recognize and help such trapped spirits free themselves of their physical attachments and move into awareness of the higher dimensional reality that we all come from, and that this 3 dimensional world is only an aspect of. This is the role that religion used to play in society, before it became corrupted by materialism and worship of money. Science is a tool for helping us find our way in the physical world, but it tells us nothing about consciousness and where it comes from and goes to after our brief time on this earthly stage. Just being aware of the possibility that life continues after physical death gives those who have died the choice to actually look beyond the circumstances of their demise, and perhaps realize that the Light they see is something more than the headlight of the car that is running them down. Go to the Light people, that's the Exit! You will find as you get closer that it's a beloved friend, welcoming you home.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Define living and dying in terms other than white and black, but grey.

For example, if someone wiped your mind clean of memories, but you would continue to function as a regular person then has the previous person died? Same goes for the scenario of making an exact clone of yourself without the original memories. Technically cells of the original being are still alive.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I don't find the profession of this particular person in the least striking. In fact there have always been numerous members of science professions who profess to religious beliefs of one kind or another. For example, there is a long tradition of Christian doctors going to places like Africa to combine preaching of their faith with medical practice. This is not news.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

He lost me as soon as he said

The Japanese have since ancient time had an acute sense of the spirit world.

Up until that point, he was fine, if not a little hokey (don't get me wrong, I'm definitely a believer in the afterlife). But he just HAD to bring some uber-nationalistic notion to separate all other people from the Japanese. And did Japan's pre-war imperialism bring them closer to the spirit world, too???

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Yes, says one doctor

So that leaves what.....10,000,000 who don't?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Mocheake:

" No need to put 'believing' before Christian as there is no such thing as an unbelieving Christian. "

Yes, there is. Google for "atheist Christian". It might surprise you, but there are plenty of us.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

But, all of the "witnesses" are from traditionally Christian countries or countries like South Korea that have a very prominent Christian population

Not true. There are witnesses from Japan, India and many other non-Christian countries.

Second - read the book by Jeffrey Long. Native Americans, Hindus, Buddhists and various others talk about their NDEs in very similar terms. "Did you see Jesus?" is a leading christian question. "Did you see individuals who previously lived on earth and are named in religious teachings?" is not. Did you read every single response, or jiust one you picked out from a western child as saying "Mr Jesus? In a childs eyes - yes, whoever she saw probably was "Mr Jesus".

I cant help but laugh at Atheists. They hate that religious people spout out their beliefs as if they are correct and everyone else is wrong and that they try to force their beliefs on other people - while doing exactly the same thing themselves. Atheism is as much a position of faith as any other religion. In fact an even bigger leap in some ways.

But you know - whatever makes you happy. I believe what I believe. Dont feel the need to share it with the rest of the world. Dont feel stupid, deluded or the need to grasp desperately to beliefs. We all make our choices and we all have to live with those choices. Im comfortable with mine. If anyone else - atheist, agnostic or otherwise is comfortable with theirs, then thats good enough for me. I am continuously searching for truth and happy to share info I have discovered with people as per the book recommendations and links above. It is entirely down to the individual how they interpret it. I hate religious claptrap as much as the next person, but I hate closedmindedness just as much.

-6 ( +0 / -6 )

I just had a near death experience after seeing all my typos above.

My experience as I was slowly choking to death, unable to swallow water, etc. was ugly and dirty. Thank goodness for the doctor who decided to look down my nose. Unlike the idiot who looked down my throat and said nothing was wrong, this doctor immediately put me into Emergency and in a few minutes I had a bed and was being fed antibiotics. If they didn't work, they would have to operate. They worked. A few hours later I was eating dinner. George Washington died of what I had. I can only imagine what that poor man's last hours were like.

I don't believe in the spirit world or God or life after death. I put my faith in antibiotics and in intelligent doctors who have the insight to look down your nose as well as your throat.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

"But death is not the end of life.”

I don't understand this doctor's logic. Except for the car crash example ("Police confirmed his observations", Huh?) he states nothing that suppports his belief that there's life after death. End of story.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

For all of you : Lifes after deaths are phenomena well explained by the spiritist doctrine which is dictated by The Spirits Ministers of God in all Allan Kardek´s Books since 1886 inFrance ,Brazil and now England and The USA Spiritist Temples . Have all to do with Jesus Christ´s teachings about life after death,love is eternal,and Spirits are eternals too . Seek for the books: The Gospel according Spiritism,By Allan Kardek The Heaven and Hell; Allan Kardek The Mediums Book ;Allan Kardek The Spirits Book ; Allan Kardek

And The Movie : The Astral City-Official Trailer and the full movie free on YOUTUBE

God bless you all

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

ChibaChick:

Atheism is as much a position of faith as any other religion. In fact an even bigger leap in some ways.

Oh my, this old chestnut?

Faith is belief in something without evidence. Atheism is the default position on the matter of a god. God existing is a truth claim that requires evidence. Atheism is the absence of a belief in a god. We can get more epistemological on the matters of how/what we know, but the basics are thus: we can inductively know something that is substantiated by evidence. Unsubstantiated claims carry no weight.

We don't know for sure how life came to be, and we don't claim to. But god is simply a stopgap solution which, if all of us believed in it, would halt scientific inquiry entirely, just like when we learned about virii and bacteria we stopped investigating Miasmatic theory. Now it is no more. If we all believed "God did it" then we would stop trying to find the real answers.

But really, it's not foolish to be an atheist. If we think that life sprung up out of chemical soup and electrical storms, it is no more silly than the idea that a deity popped up from nowhere. The theist always falls victim to the problem of infinite regress.

I can't help but laugh at atheists. They hate that religious people spout out their beliefs as if they are correct and everyone else is wrong and that they try to force their beliefs on other people - while doing exactly the same thing themselves.

I think you misunderstand what most of us are vocal about. It's not simply about annoying truth claims that can't be verified. It's about the real-life repercussions of that belief system and how it impinges on our lives. America and the Middle East are perfect examples. Their ideas about a man in the sky translate directly into legislation which hurts people. It is the basis for stonings, for cutting off hands, for forcing women to wear veils, for taking a woman's right to drive a car or divorce or choose her husband, for not allowing women to choose how and when they have children, and it is the basis for not teaching Africans that condoms are a sin so they contract HIV at a horrible rate. These practices and more are based on religion and faith. Faith is not harmless.

We simply demand that your beliefs be kept private and that they not interfere with our lives. You can laugh behind your hand at us, by all means, but please keep your beliefs out of our laws.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Life after death? We will never know. But, remember, Satan also has his miracles too.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Sleepydog - chill! Did I not say several times here that I hate people religious or otherwise forcing their opinions on others. I totally agree with everything you say - just that while you have a right to your private opinions so do people who believe - IF as you rightly say, they are kept private.

I will leave it at that. Clearly my opinions are threatening to you and that is not how I wish to be.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Second - read the book by Jeffrey Long. Native Americans, Hindus, Buddhists and various others talk about their NDEs in very similar terms.

Which is still consistent with NDEs being a phenomenon of the mind, i.e., an explainable material phenomenon. Native Americans, Hindus, Buddhists and various others talk about flavors in similar terms. Does that mean flavor is a supernatural phenomenon?

I cant help but laugh at Atheists. They hate that religious people spout out their beliefs as if they are correct and everyone else is wrong and that they try to force their beliefs on other people

Who's being forced?

Are atheists forcing you to go to atheist church? No. And yet, the children of Christians are forced to go to church.

Are atheists making it illegal to be religious? No. And yet, in dozens of countries it is illegal to declare yourself atheist, sometimes on pain of death.

Are atheists promulgating state atheist government? No. Atheists make no test of non-religiousity for positions of government. And yet, countries like England have an official state religion.

Believe what you like. Go ahead and mock atheists, if you like. But please don't act aggrieved and persecuted. The persecutors are religionists, not atheists.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

@Ah-so "The agnostic you describe is an athiest without the courage to describe themselves as such."

Is it not funny that the 'founder' of agnosticism, TH Huxley, was often described as Darwin's Bulldog? He doesn't come over as a cowardly person, quite the opposite. He used the term originally, not in the context of god, but about the cause of existence itself. Those who were quite certain, he described as gnostics. As he was quite certain he didn't know, he coined the term agnostic. There was some humor in his use of the term. It's unfortunate that the word is commonly used these days to describe a kind of indecisive ninny, those sitting on the fence and who haven't yet made there mind up. Huxley's outlook was very clear - be open minded and wiling to believe anything, so long as it is supported by sound evidence and reason. Which is why most agnostics don't believe in many things - gods, tooth fairies, and miracles included. But as each person's standard of evidence may differ, there is no dogma to support.

Interestingly, Huxley despised atheism. I guess in his day, atheism was a dogmatic belief in the same way as religion and ideology. Certainty of belief is not an attractive characteristic.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

avigator:

As for Lazarus, I'll paraphrase Hume: which is more likely, that a man rose from the dead or that this testimony is mistaken in some way?

In regards to your knowledge of abiogenesis and evolution, I'll quote Hitchens: "You give me the awful impression, I hate to have to say it, of someone who hasn't read any of the arguments against your position ever."

I'll try to give you a simple rundown:

Nobody believes the Big Bang created life. We do know that amino acids can be created with electricity and gases. The hypothesis is that life came from amino acids assembling. It's not a complete theory, but it's a little more realistic than "A magic man in the sky did it!"

That's not at all how evolution works and nobody of any intelligence thinks we came from monkeys. We share a common ancestor with modern apes.

You should know that evolution is as accepted as a theory can be and is on par with the theory of gravity, or the theory of relativity. We can see evolution in bacteria that become resistant to antibiotics, and many other forms of life that have short lifespans. Another example you might look up is the peppered moth:

The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light colouration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-coloured trees and lichens which they rested upon. However, because of widespread pollution during the Industrial Revolution in England, many of the lichens died out, and the trees that peppered moths rested on became blackened by soot, causing most of the light-coloured moths, or typica, to die off from predation. At the same time, the dark-coloured, or melanic, moths, carbonaria, flourished because of their ability to hide on the darkened trees.

If your faith is strong, nobody can sell you cheap philosophies or beliefs.

Apparently, if it's strong enough, it can even allow you to ignore facts as well.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Sadly, it is hardly evidence for life after death. While the doctor may be head of an emergency ward and it may seem that he has credentials that would make him an expert in the area, he is hardly a neurologist or neuro-scientist. Nor has he prepared a hypothesis and conducted double-blind studies or even submitted his philosophical opinion for peer review. Unfortunately, casually observed case studies are not the same a rigorous quantifiable research.

It would be great if Shukan Gendai builds his hypothesis and then tests it properly. He would have been taught how to do this in undergraduate school. Hey, if he can get repeatable results, that would be awesome. In the mean time this is just poorly substantiated opinion.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

@sleepy dog. You should write for Japan Today. It would be nice to read some articles on Japan from a rational POV. Perhaps you could be the Hitchen's of Japan. It would certainly give me cause to read more JT.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

it is such a vague term that allows the user to hide between 2 extremes.

Nobody is hiding. There is nothing cowardly about admitting you don't know, which is what agnostics are all about. Atheists who try to 'bully' agnostics are almost as bad as bible bashers on a mission to recruit new converts if you ask me.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Scott Donald:

Rare praise. Thanks!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

can't wait for my death. why is everyone so scared? i'm just scared of the pain but i really do think there is something on the other side. better than living in this already rotten society lol

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

you cannot have life without death.. a simple example from a micro-biologists point of view.. is all the bacteria in your body.. anyone remember what happened to the tripods from the war of the worlds ? .. they call died, from the tiniest organisms..

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Maybe OBE is real, but if you think you had one, could it not simply be a dream?

And the story makes no sense. When the driver woke up after his sister said to go back, the police supposedly confirmed his story? What did they confirm? That he had been hovering above the car? As written, it makes no sense.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Why is ths evidence of anything?

"He tells of a man in his 50s who, 28 years ago, caused a fatal car crash. In the passenger seat was his sister. The man recalls an ascent from which he looked down upon what was happening on the ground. At a certain point his sister said to him, “It’s time for you to go back.” At that instant he woke up in the wrecked car. His sister lay beside him, dead. Later he told police what he had seen them doing from above. Police confirmed his observations.

In other words, WhatDid he tell police he saw and what did, they confirm? If nothing else, poorly written.

Jim Poushinsky....maybe you DID have an OBE experience. While falling asleep you find yourself waking up high in the sky. Ok. But why could this not also be a dream?

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Total fluff.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Paul Arenson, if you believe dreams are nothing more than mental images that are a product of your sleeping imagination, then OBEs are more than dreams, because OBEs can involve experiences that can be verified at a later date. For example, the dream OBE in which I saw a DC8 airliner suddenly catch fire between the starboard wing and tail while flying at a low altitude above a snowy field was so powerful that I woke up crying for the 200 people who were being incinerated inside as it dove towards the ground. I wrote to Air Canada's aircraft maintainance department describing what I had seen, as I believed the plane crash was going to happen somewhere in Canada. A few weeks later a US DC-8 crashed shortly after take-off from Gander airport in Canada, with 200 US servicemen aboard returning from the Middle East. Everyone died. The Aviation Safety Board was split on the cause, half ruled it was an explosion and fire on board, and half believed the plane crashed due to icing and exploded into flames on impact. This despite two truckers on the news describing the plane on fire as it passed overhead; one said the fire was on the tail, and the other said it was on the starboard wing. The Chairman who was not a scientist cast a deciding vote for icing as the cause, and the scientists who said the plane caught fire in the air resigned in protest. The issue was never resolved, and the entire Aviation Safety Board was disbanded and replaced by a new investigative body with no access to the Gander crash record. Why do you think I saw that crash weeks before it happened? I also saw the Air India explosion near Ireland before it happened. And in another dream OBE I helped return a baby's spirit to her body as it was being found by her mother, following an Airbus plane crash in France which had only 12 survivors. In the news later the mother reported none of the other survivors would go with her to search for her missing baby, as they were all afraid of the fires on the mountainside from the crash. She said finally a man showed up and helped her. I believe that man was me, as I still vividly remember our conversation, and saw no other man there. I do hope my describing such intensely personal experience will help people keep an open mind on the possibility of life beyond the physical body. As for death, look for the Light and let it approach you or go to it, and you will find it is a beloved friend come to take you to our eternal Home.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I do hope my describing such intensely personal experience will help people keep an open mind on the possibility of life beyond the physical body

Jim, your tales of traveling into the future and into the sky to witness plane crashes, and of having first-hand knowledge that also happens to fit the "facts" held by online conspiracy theorists about the Gander crash are anything but compelling evidence of an afterlife.

What "Airbus crash in France" are you referring to?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Sioux Chef, unlike you and many others posting on this thread, I do not hide my identity. What I say about OBEs is based on a 67 year life-time of personal experiences. Such first-hand eyewitness accounts are the highest form of truth in the criminal court system. I would not hesitate to swear on a bible or take a lie detector test, because I know what I say is what I have actually experienced. If what I say fits other facts that others have brought forward, that is reason to believe my interpretation of what I experienced is correct, not a theory. The cause of the Gander crash remains unresolved to this day due to a political cover-up, causing great distress for the loved ones of those who died. As for the Airbus crash, it was Air Inter Airbus Flt. A320 on January 20,1992 into St. Odile mountain near Strasbourg, in France. 87 people died, and there were 9 survivors. There would have been 88 deaths and only 8 survivors had I not been called upon in an OBE to rescue the baby's spirit, which was with the spirits of those who had died on the mountain, and return it to her body. That is not an experience anyone would forget, and is too far outside the box of conventional views of reality to make up . Truth is truly stranger than fiction!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The issue was never resolved, and the entire Aviation Safety Board was disbanded and replaced by a new investigative body with no access to the Gander crash record.

Hi, Jim, I'm calling shenanigans on this. Do you have evidence? I just saw this case on the Mayday/Air Craft Investigation TV show and this was not mentioned. It's not on the wiki page either.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Hi Nessie, just checked this out, and most of what I have said is in fact on Wikipedia. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Air_Flight_1285 In part it says " Willard Estey, a former Supreme Court of Canada judge, submitted a review of the CASB report in 1989, ruling that the available evidence did not support either conclusion.[8] As a result the Canadian public's confidence in the CASB was undermined. The federal government responded by creating the Transportation Safety Board of Canada". The TSB laboratory is actually located at Ottawa International Airport, a short drive from my house in rural Ottawa, Canada. Last year I attended an Open House there, and questioned the staff about the Gander crash. They said they had no records of it, since it was from the time before the TSB was created. They believed the old records were in storage at a federal building, but nobody has tried to access them. Thanks for questioning this, as in reading Wikipedia I just discovered one of the dissenting experts at the Gander Inquiry wrote a book about it which I will try to find. It is by Filotas, Les (1991). Improbable cause: dissent and deceit in the investigation of Canada's worst air disaster. Toronto: Seal Books. Also, when I saw the aircraft it was flying level at about 1000 feet over a clear snow covered field, heading towards wooded hills. So they must have been experiencing some difficulty because the plane was not climbing. Then dense black smoke suddenly poured out of a vertical crack covering the entire side of the aircraft between the tail and starboard wing. The smoke was streaming back and off the tail like black boiling bubbles. Then in a second it suddenly changed into near invisible faint white wisps, and white flames like shark's teeth outlined the crack. I thought "it's like a blow torch inside" and felt some 200 people were dying at that moment. I was approaching the plane and almost inside it, and as it suddenly pitched downwards at close to a 45 degree angle towards the ground I couldn't stand to be there and woke myself up. My wife came in and saw the tears streaming down my face. This was after the earlier Air India explosion I had also witnessed, so she insisted I write to Air Canada about it to try to prevent such a crash. After it happened I drew detailed pictures that I sent to the CASB investigation. I don't know why I was shown those crashes, other than to prove to me that life is more than what we are taught to think. In part it may have been to tell the story here, because it has meaning for some people reading this. Anyway, I feel better for having shared it with you all. Thank you for your interest.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Jim - There was no such thing as Air Inter Flight A320. There was an Air Inter flight 148 (which was an Airbus 320) that crashed there though. It looks like in your research to "remember" the details of your astral travels, you didn't read closely enough.

You also initially said there were 12 survivors (and corrected yourself later--my guess is after visiting the same website you pulled the flight "number" from). One would think you would know this information quite well (since you were supposedly there).

As for the infant (a 20-month-old girl), it seems more than a bit odd that you had to 'return her spirit to her body' since she wasn't even hurt:

http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/21/world/airliner-crashes-in-france-rescuers-find-9-of-96-alive.html

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Also, you don't bolster your case in any way here:

What I say about OBEs is based on a 67 year life-time of personal experiences. Such first-hand eyewitness accounts are the highest form of truth in the criminal court system

Eyewitness testimony is famously unreliable--and here you're invoking its use in court to support claims of magically traveling into the future and flying around? Forgive me if "I object".

http://people.howstuffworks.com/eyewitnesses-unreliable.htm

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Sioux Chef, the technical information I gave you came from the Reuters news article at http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Publications/Legal_Issues/Strasbourg-crash.html. The important thing is that you were able to authenticate the details of the crash, it doesn't matter what the flight was listed as, nor the exact numbers of survivors (I believe I remembered the 12 number from the first radio/news reports). I didn't count the crowd of spirits milling about in confusion on the mountainside. I was busy convincing them they were Out-of-Body by calling out to them to look as I turned somersaults in the air above their heads! And I didn't see the survivors. My greatest concern on hearing about the baby's survival on the radio when I woke up was whether her mother was also an Out-of-Body spirit who had died too. I was so happy to hear she was still physically alive! The baby's soot blackened naked body was motionless and appeared dead when I first saw it, then it lightened and began moving after her spirit returned! I was confused because I had thought it was a little boy's spirit. I set the energy bundle down, turned to the mother as she lifted the seat cover off the body, and said in surprise, "He's just a baby!" The mother looked at me and replied " It's not a boy, it's a girl! And she's not yet two!" I should add that after seeing the two earlier plane crashes, I meditated and asked that I not see any more such crashes. So I was unaware this was a plane crash throughout the entire OBE experience, and only realized it after hearing the morning news broadcast. Also, I was working with sexually abused children in psychiatry, so had I known this was a strange little girl's spirit, would have been reluctant to pick her up. But I had 4 younger brothers who I looked after when they were babies, so didn't hesitate to pick up and hug the little energy bundle I thought was a boy (due to what looked like black hair on the head). It seems that I was called upon to help because the child was out-of-body and afraid to go back because of the trauma of the crash. It was necessary for someone with the feelings that come from having a living physical body to connect with the child's spirit and hold her in loving compassion, so she would willingly go back to her body. That's my understanding, anyway. It's a miracle that she wasn't physically harmed in the crash. I also survived a terrible crash when very young. I too was unharmed, while 3 people in the car with me drowned after plunging over a cliff to the bottom of a lake.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The important thing is that you were able to authenticate the details of the crash, it doesn't matter what the flight was listed as, nor the exact numbers of survivors

No, the important thing to take away from this is that--even if you truly believe what you're saying--these are tales based on real world events you saw in the news. The most damning evidence that you're telling tales is your account of helping to bring a girl back to life who wasn't even hurt to begin with; additional embellishment doesn't change this.

I too was unharmed, while 3 people in the car with me drowned after plunging over a cliff to the bottom of a lake.

Right.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Jim, you seem to be specialized in plane crashes, have you happened to see anything else ?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Hi Eppee, Yes, I have seen other things that are beyond the fringe of conventional awareness. I have re-experienced my death in several past lives, the last one in 1941 when I was a young sailor asleep in a hammock on the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbour, and awoke in time to drown as it was being bombed. Before that I was a US cavalry soldier in the Indian wars, and allowed myself to be killed rather than obey orders to shoot women and children, after I had inadvertently shot a young boy. I died 10,000 years ago as an older native man in North America, after accidently going over a high waterfall in a canoe and breaking my legs in the fall. My relations performed a ceremony with copper disk mirrors that reflected a pathway that my Out of Body spirit followed to solace in the Sun. I have seen UFOs and met ETs. Some frightened me, but the ones with the big black eyes are like meeting all the people you have ever loved in one person. And going for a ride in their ship and watching the stars melt into coloured liquid streaks is awesome. Then there are the animals - the wolves who came into my dream and showed me by their panting and their eyes turning to glowing coals that the stove in the survey tent I was sleeping in had filled the tent with smoke. I awoke to find the carbon monoxide had paralyzed me, but finally managed to flip the cot over and crawl to the door - those dream wolves saved my life. And then there were the humpback whales who showed me in a dream that the Alaskan cruise ship I was in was passing over a sunken ship with souls still trapped in the wreckage. I got up and meditated and helped them go to the Lights. That ship was the CP steamship Princess Sophia, that sank with the loss of all on board in 1918. The whales were very happy, as those souls had haunted their summer lunchroom ever since, and they needed a human to connect with them and help them move on. The whales are both individuals, and share a telepathic group mind. If humans are to survive we must evolve and wake up to a similar awareness. We have the potential in the two brains of our right and left hemispheres. Now aren't you sorry you asked? As my children used to say, "stop dad, you're hurting our brains!" :-)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Do you have past life experiences outside North America ? It seems to be concentrated there.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArrowAirFlight_1285

Dead link, Jim.

Prompting the question: Is there life after death for links?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Nessie, the link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Air_Flight_1285

I got it using the original copy I posted, but there was a weird script in in that doesn't translate and work in the link you searched. It comes up with underlines between Arrow and Air and Flight that are missing in your link. i don't believe in random glitches, I think this is Cy, the consciousness of the internet saying "notice me"!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Eppee, yes, I have glimpsed past lives outside of North America. One somewhere in Asia, where I was walking along a dirt road with a large group of people. I had a paper bandage on my hand. I came to an open air aid station at the side of the road, where they took off the paper bandage. I was shocked to see white maggots fall out onto the ground. The maggots had eaten away the flesh on the ends of my fingers. I awoke with the realization that my fingers must have been injured, and the maggots had cleaned away the diseased or damaged parts. I have also had visions of sitting outside a Buddhist temple, and of meeting with a meditating monk who knew me, high in the mountains, probably the Himalayas. And when I visited Moscow and the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin (the first cathedral in Russia) I had a vision in which a white light rose up from the floor and contacted me. I knew someone was buried there whose spirit was still present, and asked our guide about this. it turned out to be the first Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church! He is still in the Earth frame, helping where he can, and waiting for the Russian people to shake off 50 years of atheism, and reconnect with their spiritual roots. I did feel a strong connection to the Czar's palace, and to a bedroom there - when I returned to Canada I awakened a number of times thinking I was waking up in that bedroom. The Dalai Lama says we have all had so many lives we are all related to each other and to all the animals too! I think in this life we are only aware of those other lives that have relevance for what we are doing in this one. The way I visualize it, our soul is like a crystal existing in 4 dimensions, and each surface of the crystal is a 3 dimensional life we are experiencing. Thus each life is part of the whole, and can draw on knowledge and experience and skills developed in other lives. I also think that this is happening on a larger and larger scale, so that all humanity is One, all life is One, and the entire Universe is One living conscious entity. As I am getting old and approaching the exit gate, I look forward to testing this theory! :-)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It is useless to try to convince people of experiences they have never had.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Life after death? Yes, says one doctor

Hmmm, pretty small sample size.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

It is useless to try to convince people of experiences they have never had.

Or more accurately, it's useless to try to convince people whose critical thinking skills are not impaired.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Dr Fenwick had a recent interview on the Spirit Today website where he talked about the Pam Reynolds case. http://www.spiritoday.com/dr-peter-fenwick-interview/

Question: Notwithstanding the criticism of the Pam Reynolds case, how evidential do you think the Pam Reynolds case is?

Peter: There are certain clear difficulties about the onset of the experience as it seems to have occurred before major cooling had happened. Having said that, there are also very good pointers to her veridical perception under anaesthesia being accurate. And the deeper part of Pamela Reynolds experience after she had gone down the tunnel etc certainly seems to have occurred after cessation of brain function during the period of cooling and blood withdrawal from the brain.

Dr Sam ParniaA much better case, which comes from the AWARE study in the Southampton Hospital, is described in Dr. Sam Parnia’s book The Lazarus Effect. Here a patient with diabetes felt unwell, had cardiac pain and was rushed to a cardiac catheter lab. Under medical supervision he spontaneously developed ventricular fibrillation and required two sets of shocks from a defibrillator, interspersed by a round of cardio-respiratory resuscitation before the heart restarted. There is thus a very clear time-line of his level of consciousness, which was zero and lasted 3-5 minutes before his heart was restarted. He reports being called to the ceiling by an angelic being, hearing the commands from the defibrillator and watching the resuscitation process, all at a time when he was clinically dead. It is very difficult to argue in this case that the events the patient reported did not occur when he was brain dead, and I think we should accept this as a prima facie case of an NDE occurring during brain death.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

It is actually very possible everybody gets what one believes in. So, those who do not believe in life after death might get what they are looking for.

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It's always wonderful how all the atheist are here to kick sand.... Makes you wonder though why they are searching for these type of articles

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I have yet to meet a person who knew the Japan Tsunami disaster was going to happen, but myself.My daughter rang me and asked if I was at home? She said " put the BBC news on, there's been a tsunami". Before she finished I said "Oh has it hit Japan then"?To which she replied "yes". I called my husband to put the TV on, saying as if he also knew, it was going to happen . " that Tsunami has hit Japan". I don't know where I got this from and I have tried to find scientific warning evidence., that I could have read before hand. This hasn't happened to me before or since.Know its going off the fact of life after death, I know it exists because I have had proof of that too.

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No one really knows for sure the how and why of the universe and life's existence. We seem to be searching very hard for the answers as humans but the answer remains elusive.

I personally believe one has two choices as to why and how the universe and live exists.

1) It all came from nothing; 2) It was created and formed by an unseen power that we have no idea what it is.

I believe the latter presents the more plausible cause and if we can find this source in this life we might just have our answer to all of it.

I do believe we do go back to the source when we leave this life and with trillions of planets and countless galaxies in existence, there will be room for everyone and more.

Why the mystery? Who knows?

I do look forward to existing forever in eternity.

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The irrational nature of some people defies belief. If the scientific man speaks of such matters of life after death then he is a "supernaturalist". In that case, anybody who has the view that there is an afterlife is a "supernaturalist" whoever and whatever they are !

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Life will never trully end, when a living organism dies it is reborn into another different living organism, this is the cycle of life. People will say that "God" created all life and when you die your "soul" goes to heaven and that's the "end of your life", but that's not true, when you die, it will not be the end, you will be reborn as another person and repeat the cycle of life.

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Physicists and mathematicians have theorized the existence of another dimensions, beyond the 4 dimensions we as humans are capable of identify in the material world.

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I find it interesting that those who believe in life after death are often dismissed as indulging in wishful thinking. What is 'wishful thinking'? Well, it's imagining something you desperately want to be true, but which does not fit reality. So is belief in life after death wishful thinking? Not really, no. Firstly, this belief does not contradict reality, because every day we experience the reality of 'soul', which cannot be reduced to mere matter. The very nature of our consciousness defies a reductionist materialistic explanation (as does free will and reason, of course). How could it be explained materially? Firstly, why does it need to be explained in this way (how do we justify belief in the philosophy of naturalism?), and secondly, if it must be explained in this way, then we have to assume that consciousness is an emergent property of information processing in the brain, in other words, a property of the interaction of memory and anticipation. This cannot be true, because the implications are absurd. Do we seriously believe that any machine with such information processing abilities is conscious? Are computers conscious?? Furthermore, there is a relationship between consciousness and the 'now': our consciousness exists within a durationless, and therefore infinitesimally small, 'period' called "the present moment". How can this phenomenon be reconciled to materialism, in which complex events require duration to occur? The complexity of consciousness exists within a durationless instant, which suggests that it operates within a higher dimension and 'rides' on the material world. The biblical saying that "He has put eternity in our hearts" suggests this truth. The materialists and skeptics have a lot of explaining to do, because their casual assumption that "death is the end of all life" sounds to me more like wishful thinking than belief in an afterlife.

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"Later he told police what he had seen them doing from above. Police confirmed his observations."

I'm calling BS, or at least ignorance. The person could have been half conscious and aware of what was going on, and/or some of the police's actions could have been guessed (ie: pulling them out the car).

And what is it with the whole 'viewing oneself from above' stories that people seem to come out with when it comes to 'out of body' claims?? It's because people have this fictional idea about us 'rising up' in the air after death, so the camera view becomes 'bird's eye' view, but if one is someone 'dead' or 'out their body', and somehow viewing themselves from the 'afterlife', why would it have to be from a bird's eye view? Why not from a view beside themselves, for example? Does the afterlife/out of body cameras default to bird's eye views a few metres high?

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Jim Poushinsky: Nessie, the link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArrowAirFlight_1285

I got it using the original copy I posted, but there was a weird script in in that doesn't translate and work in the link you searched. It comes up with underlines between Arrow and Air and Flight that are missing in your link. i don't believe in random glitches, I think this is Cy, the consciousness of the internet saying "notice me"!

Not Cy, but the JapanToday web developer saying s/he really wants you to put angle brackets around links you've embedded in your posts, since the JT edit box code uses underscores to indicate italics-on italics-off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Air_Flight_1285 (no brackets)

vs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Air_Flight_1285 (with brackets)

Note the "Link" button above the edit box.

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Suspended Stasification Aeffectation

Time traveling is similar to FTL (Faster Than Light) travel. The faster that you travel the more space that occupy. The question is once the body crosses the threshold of FTL and Time Travel does the body die due to gravity not being able to regulate the heartbeat properly?

A fascinating aspect of death at FTL and TT is that if the body dies the body would not begin to decompose because the chemical processes involved with bacteria would not be present because the bacteria would have also have died. So does death really occur or is the body placed into a state of suspended stasification where not even exposure to radiation would aeffect, pronounced eye-ffect or the body being influenced by something and the effect that created suspended stasification that is only possible when traveling at FTL and faster as well as Time Traveling, would not influence the process of decomposition. If true and the body is in fact placed into a state of suspended stasification aeffectation because of gravity not being able to regulate the heart beat of the human and bacteria, would the body return to a normal state of being alive once the human body returned to a dimension of space-time that was governed by the heart of gravity within the area that human body was occupying? Would the human brain retain the memories that had been stored in electrical patterns? Would the human remember who they were or would the human have to start again from the beginning and relearn everything that they had previously known?

More importantly though is the thought that if humans do go into a state of suspended stasification aeffectation at FTL speeds then life would exist at the velocity of FTL and faster velocities that when the life residing above FTL velocities slows to a velocity that a heart would be affected by gravity to creating a pumping of circulation then life would be created. Life that would be created across the Universe and even outside of the Universe as well.

What ever is above the There is the reason why we explore.

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Read 'Biocentrism', then you can put thousands and thousands of pages behind you, read them if you have the time, I don't but have read about a tenth of them. It makes sense, 4th dimensions don't matter, nor parallel universes. Remember which came first, the chicken or the egg? We live in a puzzle, we shouldn't' be here, we are. Our life should be enjoyable, to many of us it has been, often. For others it has been hell.

The above paragraph states the problems. Why can't there be another life beyond our imagined Earth one? The logic that this is the only life, can be disproved. You said this in your previous life, "hey this is it, in 1450 Rome, I am living my only life & yet here you are in June 2018.

That's all I'm saying..

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