Life after death?

Faith & Science Conversation
61

Dear Robin, I am a little confused about your comments. I have studied many religions. I am an engineer and scientist. I have studied philosophy. I have studies NDE, OBE, reincarnation and many different mediums. And you are saying that because I have done this, I have been corrupted? Please clarify.

How else can we test the spirits as 1 John 4 teaches other than to be able talk with them, like happened at Pentecost? Yes, there are many evil spirits who have prostituted mediums and you can discover this by testing them. The holy spirits who taught through Beatrice Brunner were tested for 35 years. Thousands of people have gone over their words with a fine tooth comb looking for contradiction. These 35 years are recorded and transcribed for anyone to test.

I am not here to convince you of anything. I am just asking the question - If Jesus promised to send the spirit of truth to explain His teachings, where in history has this happened? It certainly is not happening with all those who claim to filled with a Holy Spirit, standing on a pulpit. How can anyone test the Holy Spirit they claim to possess?

I make no such claim about myself. The three books that wrote prove this statement. I share the life-works of those who I have discovered to contain wisdom and ask the reader to study these works themselves, and draw their own conclusions. The personal conclusions I have drawn is what I post here and have published on academia.edu.

62

In some Jewish beliefs (I am a Noachide), reincarnation is possible if a, Jew fails to perform all 613 mitsvot in his lifetime or has something left to do. I myself am agnostic on the issue, but do consider Psalm 139:15:

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Humans were apparently formed in the heart of the earth, i.e. the underworld. The idea of life starting in the place of death possibly hints at an idea of reincarnation or rebirth.

1 Like
63

Hello Shawn. I did finally find “something” online about the late Beatrice Brunner (1910-1983) and read the introductory material for her book – or one of them. The intro, at least, is available online…

As for your own query of me — “And you are saying that because I have done this I have been corrupted?” That is – your study of NDZE, OBE, reincarnation “and many different mediums.”

Your original query was along the lines of “How do you explain the Holy Spirit fullfilling Jesus promise to explain everything to us?” Aside from the issue of what Jesus actually said, I did note that you were not going to get any truth by delving into things the Bible specifically forbids “” Those who practice magic arts…their place will be in the lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death" (Revelation 21:7) — and I did cite other passages. See earlier comments.

You say you want truth from God, and then you refuse the bit of truth you are given. If God says No to mediums, spiritists, etc. then it really does mean that He is not the one speaking to people by this method. Same with all these acronyms – NDEs and etc — that get tossed about these days.

As for Beatrice Brunner, I did appreciate reading her intro and a bit of a testimonial by “Theresia”…In her intro, the late Ms Brunner cites biblical examples, but shows enormous misunderstandings of those specific examples. There is one Holy Spirit mentioned in the Acts 2 Pentecost account…not multiple with a lower-case “h”, as you and she assert. My sources on this are the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV) and commentaries on the Book of Acts by Brazos and Zondervan.

Whether or not her 35 years of experience as a “deep trance medium,” as her book asserts, led to 100% accuracy is not something I can verify, one way or another. A woman in one of my social groups recently told us excitedly about a “Christian psychic” who is “100 per cent accurate” and helps police solve crimes, etc. But when I researched this person online, I found several news articles cataloguing things the woman got wrong and noting that police organizations deny having ever been aided by her. We told this woman that “Christian psychic” is an oxymoron.

So, just to rephrase my answer to your query as to whether or not I think “you have been corrupted” — I would certainly use some other term such as misled or lied to. God has specifically said that He does not speak through psychics or mediums or seances or any related phenomena. When you “test the spirits,” one test is the means by which they spoke to you. Repeat: if God says not to consult them, then He is not the one speaking through them. Read the Witch of Endor account in 1 Samuel 28 …

64

If you wanna see Sean Carroll completely dodge the questions of life after death from the near death experience science point of view watch his interview on skeptiko .

When asked if he was familiar with the evidence from NDE studies he point blank said that life is too short and he doesn’t allocate anytime to studying ndes

Yet he comments in them a lot of times lol

65

Thanks Bob. My favorite is Neil deGrasse Tyson’s claims about the afterlife. In my fist book, I wrote this about Neil:

In my investigation of religious history, I found that the most poignant question to be: “what is at stake?” The multitude of answers to this inquiry is what I will share in the following chapters.

But religions are not the only ones guilty of overzealous behavior. Science, for many, has turned into a religion of its own with the same such characteristics. We have highly vocal scientists today who are stretching the boundaries of what they know and projecting theories/beliefs to the public as if they were scientific fact. Here is an example from Neil deGrasse Tyson on Larry King Now.

“There is no evidence that I am conscious of anything [after death] and by the way is that so weird? Did you have consciousness before you were born? Were you saying, how come I’m not on earth, my god, I need to be on earth, where am I? No, there is just the state of non-existence.”

This statement comes across to viewers as being scientific fact, since it is being spoken from a scientist who often uses the phrase “this is science!” to make his point. But someone who proclaims to be a scientist, should not be making statements that violate logic and the recommendation of Socrates, its founder. One should use the triple filter test before speaking: 1) have you made absolutely sure that what you are saying is true, 2) is what you are saying good or 3) is what you are saying useful? In my estimation, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s statement fails all three tests.

Is what Mr. Tyson is saying true? He does not present any evidence for his statement, but there is a scientist, who used accepted forensic methods to investigate claims of reincarnation who would directly dispute his claim. Ian Stevenson dedicated his life to the scientific study of children’s past lives. From a scientific perspective, his body of research and his methods of investigation are solid enough to meet Socrates’ first test of truth. Upon reviewing Stevenson’s work, fellow scientist Robert Almeder said:

“I have heard some people say: Reincarnation couldn’t occur, because we do not know how it could occur. We don’t know how, as scientist we don’t know what the mechanism is. It couldn’t have a mechanism that we could examine, so we can’t know that it occurs. As objections go, that leaves a lot to be desired because you may not know how something occurred, but you have plenty of evidence that it occurs.”

When I write about “science” in this book I am referring to a modern scientific stance that is not in harmony with the founders of science. It is a selective belief in the scientific method, an attitude that distrusts religion and is void of spirituality. This is the science that is taught in universities and is the basis for modern medicine and physics.

66

My own emphasis added into your quote above.

The existence of Biologos and so many Christians here are living testimony that your wedge driven between modern science and religion/spirituality is a false one. They are not preclusive of each other, and our mere existence here is proof of your error. This may provide some insight, though, into why you insist on singling out Socrates as the founder of “science”. You probably need to hearken back to just such ancient figures before you can escape the scrutiny that would cast a critical eye on your methods of interviewing people about “past lives”. Modern science rightly pays little attention to these sorts of research programs. But this may shed light on your preference for ancient “science.”

2 Likes
67

For the love of God please don’t use what I seriously doubt you understand (the double slit experiment and QM) for anything theological or philosophical. (I renew my chauvinistic windmill-tilting that only physicists should be allowed to invoke QM, and only physicists and mathematicians should be allowed to apply Bayes’ Theorem.)

1 Like
68

Dear David,
You took a comment out of context in my discussion with @Reggie_O_Donoghue as it was part of my question to him. I know I am only an engineer, but physics was my favorite subject…

69

This topic was automatically closed 3 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.