120 Responses to “Losing CNN to Jesus”

1. evilatheistconquerer says:

   April 13, 2007 at 1:14 am

   phreedm,
   First off, your link to the lancet article doesn’t even work. You have to have a membership. Second, I’m shocked that you are actually using a medical journal this time and not a church pamphlet. Third, I can’t help but wonder if you even understood what was written in that article and how many times you had to use a dictionary. Fourth, since I can’t access the article myself, I also wonder if you took it out of context.
2. schnivelbiv says:

   April 13, 2007 at 2:11 am

   Phreedm,

   Do you even believe in the most basic of science? Any of it? Because you talk like you would not believe in the moons of Jupiter if you saw them through the telescope. How close to your deity does a theory or a postulate have to get before you start to wave your hands and tell people to just keep an open mind? Just how crazy does an idea have to be before we really can just call it just too unreasonable? You seem so enamored with the idea of only “knowing” through faith that you forgot there even is a thing called reason.

   I present the standard model of modern physics as evidence that convinces me in the non-existence of souls and all you shoot back with is anecdotal accounts of near death experiences? Dude, that is pathetically weak. Do you even see that? Do you have anything even resembling facts for even suggesting the existence of any souls?

   For goodness sake it sounds like you seriously trying to argue with the good old “I know you are but what am I?”

   I really do appreciate that you continue to hang around our nice little blog here but I’m just starting to feel sorry for you.
3. what says:

   April 13, 2007 at 2:35 am

   evilatheistconquerer

   The brain is an amazing and odd structure. Cut the corpus collosum (contains the axons connecting the two halves of the brain) and I could but a pen in one hand of a subject (eyes closed) and they would describe the pen perfectly yet not be able to name it. Switch hands and immediately they name the pen.

   This is easily explainable in terms of brain anatomy only. This is a powerful observation about humans (animals in general) and how we interact with the universe.

   Another observation wasted on the likes of Phreedy. His development was arrested at age 8. What a shame. What a waste of protoplasm!

   We have no recognition of the universe in the absense of the matter that is our brains.
4. what says:

   April 13, 2007 at 2:37 am

   schnivelbiv

   Phreedy’s problem is that he believes. Period. Belief is not necessary. Ever.
5. hominid says:

   April 13, 2007 at 8:36 am

   Did anyone see on the tube the face of Jesus aside the face of Zeus? They looked almost like dead ringers.
6. mxracer652 says:

   April 13, 2007 at 10:31 am

   phred:
   

   Is your mind closed to the possibility that God exists…? Have you personally exhausted EVERY possibility as to how or where He might exist? And if you have what were the possibilities that you’ve explored…100? 1000? 1,000,000?

   Or do you simply CHOOSE to not believe…

   Before I answer that, I think you have very wrong ideas about proof. We can?t prove there isn?t a tiny teapot orbiting the Sun, or that the speed of a photon always is 3×10⁸ meters per second in a vacuum, but that?s the basic way that we understand the world, our knowledge has nothing to do with rigorous proof.

   The thing is that there are an infinite number of possibilities out there, some are more absurd than others, but the reality of it is, the overwhelming majority of those possibilities don?t matter. They might be true, but if they have no bearing on what happens in the universe, they are dead ends. They do not add anything to our understanding. If there is an invisible pink unicorn standing next to me, who cares? If it does not affect us, it doesn?t help us make sense of the world.

   Now, do I accept that there may be some deity? Sure, but much like a soul, it makes no sense to believe it is present, because it contributes nothing to our knowledge.
7. remy says:

   April 13, 2007 at 11:19 am

   What,

   Belief is not necessary. Ever.

   Well, I learned this morning from my local Superstition radio station that you do not need to know what jebus means, you only have to believe.

   In John there is a conversation was someone named Niki Deamus. It’s all there. After a half an hour of very circular and repetitive verbiage the conclusion is: if you can’t accept what jebus says here on earth, then how can you ever accept the spiritual life.

   You are born into sin and you have to believe even if you don’t understand. You will never comprehend the mysteries of god so, believe. Get it? I’m convinced, and I can’t wait for Sunday so I can go get baptized. Haven’t decided yet if I want to be a cannibal or just sit around and sing Take Me To the River.
8. what says:

   April 13, 2007 at 12:54 pm

   mxracer652

   “Now, do I accept that there may be some deity?”

   But it would be equally “acceptable” to think exactly the opposite. You can’t accept both
   (by modern logic) because they are mutually exclusive. Enter observation. No evidence for either would logically lead one to accept neither. All else is just semantics.
9. what says:

   April 13, 2007 at 1:00 pm

   Bong hits for Jehova

   Bong hits for Allah

   Bong hits for the Flying Spaghetti Monster
10. phreedm says:

    April 13, 2007 at 4:18 pm

    Comment from: evilatheistconquerer

    First off, your link to the lancet article doesn’t even work. You have to have a membership. Second, I’m shocked that you are actually using a medical journal this time and not a church pamphlet. Third, I can’t help but wonder if you even understood what was written in that article and how many times you had to use a dictionary. Fourth, since I can’t access the article myself, I also wonder if you took it out of context.

    Wow…are you kidding me? You can’t even figure out how to reach the article? And yet you choose to tell me how I don’t understand things…now that’s a riot.

    The Lancet…one of the most prestigious medical journals in publication…

    The Lancet is published weekly from editorial offices in London and New York. It aims to publish the best original primary research papers, and review articles of the highest standard. The Lancet is stringently edited and peer-reviewed to ensure the scientific merit and clinical relevance of its diverse content.

    http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/31066/description#description

    EA…now what’s your degree in? And from where? No offense, but I’ll take the articles opinions over yours…

    Here’s the article in full…with all 31 footnotes…

    Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands

    Summary
    Background
    Some people report a near-death experience (NDE) after a life-threatening crisis. We aimed to establish the cause of this experience and assess factors that affected its frequency, depth, and content.

    Methods
    In a prospective study, we included 344 consecutive cardiac patients who were successfully resuscitated after cardiac arrest in ten Dutch hospitals. We compared demographic, medical, pharmacological, and psychological data between patients who reported NDE and patients who did not (controls) after resuscitation. In a longitudinal study of life changes after NDE, we compared the groups 2 and 8 years later.

    Findings
    62 patients (18%) reported NDE, of whom 41 (12%) described a core experience. Occurrence of the experience was not associated with duration of cardiac arrest or unconsciousness, medication, or fear of death before cardiac arrest. Frequency of NDE was affected by how we defined NDE, the prospective nature of the research in older cardiac patients, age, surviving cardiac arrest in first myocardial infarction, more than one cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) during stay in hospital, previous NDE, and memory problems after prolonged CPR. Depth of the experience was affected by sex, surviving CPR outside hospital, and fear before cardiac arrest. Significantly more patients who had an NDE, especially a deep experience, died within 30 days of CPR (p
11. phreedm says:

    April 13, 2007 at 4:20 pm

    Hmmm…apparently there’s a limit on how much one can post…

    EA…I’ll tell you what. Send me an email and I’ll gladly copy and past the entire article to you. I do understand that some sites are not very user friendly and can be a challenge to enter…
12. phreedm says:

    April 13, 2007 at 4:31 pm

    Comment from: mxracer652

    Now, do I accept that there may be some deity? Sure…

    So then…you are not an atheist. Whether or not you choose to find the answer is up to you. However I would submit that you’ll never know if a “deity” can add knowledge unless you find Him…

    MX…you my friend are one of the few honest posters on this site…regardless of how we may disagree…you have shown intellectual honesty…
13. what says:

    April 13, 2007 at 6:23 pm

    Phreedy is an atheist too. He just happens to disbelieve in one less god than we do.
14. evilatheistconquerer says:

    April 13, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    phreedm,
    You’re right! You’re so right about everything! Henceforth I am no longer an atheist! Phreedm, you’ve shown me the err of my ways. From now on, I devote myself to God!
15. evilatheistconquerer says:

    April 13, 2007 at 7:36 pm

    Sorry phreedm,
    but you’ll never win any of us over. We aren’t as fickle in our beliefs as are you christians.
16. evilatheistconquerer says:

    April 13, 2007 at 7:43 pm

    phreedm,
    Actually I copy and pasted your link to the article in a new page and when that didn’t work I even pasted it in google. Nothing turned up but error messages. I finally got it working though. As for your condescending statements, I must have really pissed you off. Also, my field of study is sociology, not computers, so if I lack in knowledge of computers, I more than make up for it in knowledge of sociology. This is from the same article that you quoted by the way.

    “And yet, neurophysiological processes must play some part in NDE. Similar experiences can be induced through electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe (and hence of the hippocampus) during neurosurgery for epilepsy,23 with high carbon dioxide levels (hypercarbia),24 and in decreased cerebral perfusion resulting in local cerebral hypoxia as in rapid acceleration during training of fighter pilots,25 or as in hyperventilation followed by valsalva manoeuvre.4 Ketamine-induced experiences resulting from blockage of the NMDA receptor,26 and the role of endorphin, serotonin, and enkephalin have also been mentioned,27 as have near-death-like experiences after the use of LSD,28 psilocarpine, and mescaline.21 These induced experiences can consist of unconsciousness, out-of-body experiences, and perception of light or flashes of recollection from the past.”

    I guess the site just wasn’t very user friendly and you happened to miss it.
    The researchers did say that they couldn’t determine an absolute cause for NDEs, but considering plenty of other studies have shown the above listed causes to create an NDE, it could also be a bias on the part of the researchers. Yes, phreedm, researchers can have biases.
17. karen says:

    April 13, 2007 at 7:51 pm

    evilac

    What is phreedm’s point about NDEs anyway?
    I’ll admit, I’m lost.
18. reluctantatheist says:

    April 13, 2007 at 7:57 pm

    Well, I read the article. Interesting stuff:

    “With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localized in the brain should be discussed. How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG? Also, in cardiac arrest the EEG usually becomes flat in most cases within about 10 s from onset of syncope.29,30 Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience.31 NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation.

    “Another theory holds that NDE might be a changing state of consciousness (transcendence), in which identity, cognition, and emotion function independently from the unconscious body, but retain the possibility of non-sensory perception.7,8,22,28,31

    “Research should be concentrated on the effort to explain scientifically the occurrence and content of NDE. Research should be focused on certain specific elements of NDE, such as out-of-body experiences and other verifiable aspects. Finally, the theory and background of transcendence should be included as a part of an explanatory framework for these experiences.”

    1 researcher even tells a story about an NDE patient (who was DOA) resuscitated, who told him where his (the patient’s) dentures were.
    That article was a helluva lot better than some of the prior mentions of NDE’s that’ve been posted here.

    I think phreddy’s point is ‘There’s more in heaven and earth…’ as per Hamlet.
19. evilatheistconquerer says:

    April 13, 2007 at 8:20 pm

    karen,
    He’s basically trying to debunk schnivelbiv’s proof of the inexistence of souls by showing that NDE’s exist, so in phreedm’s mind that means souls exist too. It’s not working though.
20. what says:

    April 14, 2007 at 3:42 am

    Hey folks

    Put a coil near a humans skull and pulse a strong current through it. If the coil is located over the frontal lobe the subject reports feelings of deja vu.

    The article that you are discussing is trash. Lots of it finds it way it journals. Even prestigious ones.