I have never been an atheist, and have told you that. No matter, we have not spoken in ages, so you either forgot, as you have been very ill, or you just feel more secure believing people with questions are all atheists. Nor do I wish materialism is true, just the opposite. But still, I have questions that don’t seem to be easily ignored. Where does consciousness go when we sleep through a third of our lives, when we are unconscious for whatever reason? Where did my grandmother go when she suffered Alzheimer’s sitting in a chair almost totally unresponsive her final year? What was my 91 year old dad seeing and experiencing the day he claimed his sister had visited him, but she was in South America, been there for decades. He swore up and down she was on the couch earlier that afternoon, they had talked. He didn’t even believe me when I FaceTimed her down in Argentina and she repeated to him that she had not been in New Jersey at all. She repeated she was in Argentina, even after the call dad did not believe what his sister told him. And even though he admitted he didn’t recall a lot about what they talked about, or what the car looked like she was driving, etc., he swore she had visited him. He also met me at the door one day telling me that a helicopter had crashed next door, and it took me a while to calm him down. He had been watching a war movie on TV. He was certain a real helicopter had crashed next door and we were being invaded. He woke at night and called the police several times, one time claiming someone was coming over his house to kill him, another time telling the police his house was sliding down a hill into the river. He doesn’t live near a river, the house is secure. Dad grew increasingly less responsive just as his mom had done so. Right now I am caring for mom and her memory issues, not as bad as dad’s, thank goodness.
Thanks for sharing what you have shared concerning flaws in young earth arguments, and concerning whatever you have discovered about soul survival. I have a mystical friend who meditates and was an Evangelical Christian, then studied Christian mystics, and finally, Eastern mystics. He has some stories to tell concerning fascinating experiences.
But, concerning the doctrine of biblical inspiration, my questions remain.
Along with many questions concerning how one can justify that this cosmos is the obvious result of an omniscient, omnipotent and all loving and good Being. I don’t think that conclusion is obvious when I look at the pains, ignorance, fears, traumas, death, extinctions, mass extinctions, loss of consciousness, loss of memory, inherent in the cosmos, along with the fact that one can easily imagine stars burning on for 100 trillion years after our species is gone or superseded. (Or devolved should civilization collapse. Ancient civilizations have collapsed. And a solar flare could blow all the transformers on earth, look up Carrington event from the 1800s that blew the telegraph lines).
Glen, You helped me leave YECism for good by firming up reasons for never returning to such a view. Thank you also for sharing your cancer story. I have thought about you over the years and wondered how you were doing. Wow, you are a survivor. Any idea what your secret is? Healthy eating? Staying away from sugar? Rest, exercise, positive thoughts, loving family, prayers? Not worrying so much about debating the age of the earth ever again?
There was an article I read about spontaneous remissions from cancer years ago. They still don’t know how or why in some cases the body’s immune system kicks in and vanquishes the cancer, but it happens to a certain small number of folks. Alex Tribec , the game show host, is currently beating the normal odds of survival with pancreatic cancer.
The Body Can Beat Terminal Cancer — Sometimes
They should be dead. But a tiny number of people conquer lethal diseases.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
63
My position’s very simple gbob, too simple for you: Your complexity is blurred. There is no category overlap between our shared experiences and our unsharable ones. Apart from human. Mental. God is not met with in a similar manner to our smelling roses. Even our unsharable experiences are sharable if we get the deconstructed language right. The science. We find that we have the same interior mechanisms in all cases. [Including] Ones that feel like meeting God. How does that fact make me an atheist? [A 99.9…9% a-theist in that the creator does not intervene in the cosmos apart from (i) grounding it (ii) (in and around) incarnation (iii) ineffably but orthodoxly by the Spirit, the Comforter. As He comforts you.]
First off, I owe you an apology. As I thought about when we last spoke, I think it was 20 years ago or more, so Yeah, I forgot. it is hard to recall what a guy believes over that period of time.
I made that assumption because we were on the NSCE list together and it was largely populated by atheists and agnostics. Therefore I am so sorry to misrepresent and misremembered your position.
Where does consciousness go when we are asleep? Let’s first think about the fact that almost every being with a nervous system requires a period of dormancy. The brain needs to do some house keeping.
Now, I can’t have hard and fast opinions about what I believe the soul/brain system to be. But what I believe is that the brain is a kind of interface device. Let’s think in terms of an organ. The organist can play the organ well only if the organ itself is not damaged and only if the air pump is on. Cut the air pump’s electricity and the organ goes silent. In this analogy, unconsciousness has the nerves of certain places stop working–like the air pump of the organ.
I do know that the soul exists from my studies of Quantum and Penfields work, and other things. The soul is not subject to the laws of quantum as seen in the work of Frauchiger and Renner and the experimental confirmation of Fand R’s work by Proietti et al. QM can not model the conscious mind!. That puts it outside of science and science is saying so.
Because of this we know the soul is not of this world. We also know that from Searles Chinese room thought experiment and that our qualia (subjective experiences) have a quality that goes way beyond simple detection–i.e. why does 790 nm wavelength light look like red? (there might be typos I don’t catch as my chemo is killing my eyesight)
Data suggests, somewhat weakly that consciousness still exists and indeed is capturing things while we sleep but it doesn’t store them in easily accessible memory banks. Clearly while we sleep and are unconscious, a loud noise in the house will wake us up. Consciousness is monitoring things. Secondly why we sleep we dream continuously, our consciousness is enjoying some playtime–at least I find my dreams entertaining.
Even during surgery our consciousness is there but as I said parts of the brain (the interface device) is not working.
Priming can occur when patients are unconscious. Salient intra-operative stimuli may cause more priming than neutral experimental stimuli. Operating theatre personnel should assume that patients could be affected by their conversations. Derogatory or potentially anxiety-provoking comments may have adverse effects; reassuring comments may be beneficial.
Careful control of anaesthetic depth prevents most, but not all, memory priming.
Priming is unlikely to occur with bispectral index < 50.Source
Where did my grandmother go when she suffered Alzheimer’s sitting in a chair almost totally unresponsive her final year? What was my 91 year old dad seeing and experiencing the day he claimed his sister had visited him, but she was in South America, been there for decades. He swore up and down she was on the couch earlier that afternoon, they had talked. He didn’t even believe me when I FaceTimed her down in Argentina and she repeated to him that she had not been in New Jersey at all. She repeated she was in Argentina, even after the call dad did not believe what his sister told him. And even though he admitted he didn’t recall a lot about what they talked about, or what the car looked like she was driving, etc., he swore she had visited him. He also met me at the door one day telling me that a helicopter had crashed next door, and it took me a while to calm him down. He had been watching a war movie on TV. He was certain a real helicopter had crashed next door and we were being invaded. He woke at night and called the police several times, one time claiming someone was coming over his house to kill him, another time telling the police his house was sliding down a hill into the river. He doesn’t live near a river, the house is secure. Dad grew increasingly less responsive just as his mom had done so. Right now I am caring for mom and her memory issues, not as bad as dad’s, thank goodness.
These are indeed tough questions, but when the brain is damaged, as in alzheimer’s the soul can’t break through to this world.
I have read the founding documents of almost all major religions, Dhammapada, Kiti I i’qan, Koran, Avesta, I Ching, etc. The bible is unique among them in having a creation account–how the world was created. All say their god created the world but don’t say what happened. I can read Genesis in a way that makes it match science–NOT YEC–and it is fully evolutionary. I think that is an important clue to Biblical inspiration. I also think the behavior of the disciples, all of whom lived the rest of their lives as if they believed they had seen the risen Lord. What is interesting if you look at the accounts when the risen Jesus first appears to them, the bible talks about how much they doubted it. that is a normal human reaction to seeing what they were seeing. Indeed, Jesus asked for fish and honeycomb to eat it and offered them to feel his hands to show he was real. Then after their initial doubts, they lived lives of commitment, even dying for the concept–If I was faking such a thing, I would try to save my life when it got real serious–like they are really going to kill me for this myth I am spouting.
A Christian answer to this question is this. Jesus said when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday that if the people had not cheered, God could have made the stones cheer. God knows who your father and grandmother were and can regenerate them in the next world–with all their memories.
Along with many questions concerning how one can justify that this cosmos is the obvious result of an omniscient, omnipotent and all loving and good Being. I don’t think that conclusion is obvious when I look at the pains, ignorance, fears, traumas, death, extinctions, mass extinctions, loss of consciousness, loss of memory, inherent in the cosmos, along with the fact that one can easily imagine stars burning on for 100 trillion years after our species is gone or superseded. (Or devolved should civilization collapse. Ancient civilizations have collapsed. And a solar flare could blow all the transformers on earth, look up Carrington event from the 1800s that blew the telegraph lines).
First, I think the biggest lie foisted on the world is this concept that a loving God means that he will play santagod for us and give us good looks, good health and a Mercedes Benz along with riches. I have often pointed out that the loving God is trying to save us from a fate worse than the pain and agony we go through here. Yeah, I know, no one believes in the miracles and thus no one actually believes in a Hell either. I do think people sent to hell are extinguished, not tormented forever.
If such a view is correct, then think about what God’s love requires. His goal is different for us than material comfort. I have recently gone through absolute agony with my back, both before the surgery and after. Thankfully it got better. But I will tell you, God was good and loving even while I was suffering. His love doesn’t depend on me getting what I want or not having cancer That is a childish view. God owes me NOTHING!!! To believe that we are entitled to a perfect life, where grandparents don’t get sick is unrealistic.
When we tell people not to smoke and they ignore it, then what often happens is what happened to my wife’s cousin. When she was fifty she came down with lung cancer and died by 53 or so. We were loving in gently telling her not to keep smoking. She hated us telling her that. We were trying to save her from a bad fate. Is it right for her to blame us for her cancer? I think not. Similarly it might not be right to blame God for the evil in this world.
Finally, I do believe, from quantum, that we do impact this world for the worse. It is clear from quantum that we can influence the past (see the Wheeler part of quantum soul) It is in the primer section. Wheeler said that we bring the past into existence by our observation. Christianity has the concept of original sin. I think that is the fact that when we sin, we affect the past and participate in Adam’s sin, and by doing so, WE bring the evil into this world. God told Adam not to sin. He did it anyway, but he did it with our participation. God was trying to keep evil out of the world, like we were trying to tell he cousin not to smoke, but the consequences of smoking or sinning are that we ruined the world and brought things like Alzheimer’s, cancer, mass murder etc upon our selves.
No, I eat sugar. I gained a bunch of weight when I was told in 2008 that I had five years. By golly I wanted that piece of pie. lol Then I had to lose that weight cause I didn’t look very good. lol That was hard. I have had lots of people praying for me from all over the world, and while no one can be sure that it is the prayers, I do know loads are praying for me. I believe I won’t die until God wants me dead.
I have never been in remission. My cancer has always been there growing, but when it was small, it was just a nuisance. Now that it is in my bones, it is a problem. I broke my collar bone while I was sleeping. A tumor weakened the bone and I woke up with my shoulder aching(and God was still good and loving. God’s concern is with my character, not my wealth, health, or success. Again, God doesn’t owe me a strong collar bone.
There was an article I read about spontaneous remissions from cancer years ago. They still don’t know how or why in some cases the body’s immune system kicks in and vanquishes the cancer, but it happens to a certain small number of folks. Alex Tribec , the game show host, is currently beating the normal odds of survival with pancreatic cancer.
Tribec hasn’t conquered it, but he has bought time. I often talk about delay of game with cancer. That is what one wants. Cancer will eventually take me out, but I already can see that the doc’s are wrong about me dying this summer. Maybe by the fall? Maybe by next year.
Ed, I am quite content with what will happen to me. I am enjoying my life, even as it is much more limited than it used to be (all my travel around the world). I am not desperate to believe what I do, I believe what I do because I became convinced that God exists, that the soul exists, and that Jesus did rise from the grave.
As I said in my previous post I have read most of the major religious documents. Most are like proverbs–good advice on how to live. The Bible claims to be a record of God’s interaction with a people over time. What is interesting is that unlike so many of the other books, the events described can be verified as having happened.
We can verify that a meteor airblast hit the northern dead sea in 3700 bc or so. It struck at dinner time. The archaeologists say that the two towns destroyed were Sodom and Gomorrahh. The area experienced 12000 deg C for a few seconds. That would have superheated the waters of the Dead sea so if those waters, via the tsunami that would have been generated, splashed on Lot’s wife, it would have killed her AND deposited salt on her. This would have the appearance of turning her into a pillar of salt! The salt water that washed over the northern part of the Dead sea shore, made habitatioin of that area impossible for a couple of centuries due to the soil having a high salt content.
We can now verify that the Exodus occurred. And there is evidence which is consistent with the Passover deaths. Tell el Dab’a, has uncovered the town of Averis, which is probably a variation of the Hebrew Eber Ish, meaning Hebrew man. The town is in Goshen, described by the Bible as the place Joseph and his brothers settled. The earliest levels of the town have huts just like the semitic huts from Harran, where Abraham came from. The size of the ‘town’ suggests about 100 people settled there. The bible says 70 went into Egypt. But above one of the huts, a palace was built which had two rows of 12 pillars, and 12 tombs outback. One of the tombs was a pyramid–an honor given only to those of great influence in the kingdom of Egypt. The tomb had a statue of a semitic man in a multicolored coat! (see the thread the “Choices we make” for more details). here is a reconstruction of the statue–I have seen pictures of the original statue, and it does show something close to this color scheme.
Although the palace has an Egyptian style, it is understood by all that its chief occupant was a high-ranking Semitic official, on account of the graves in the cemetery of its palace garden. The honor given this Asiatic (another term for Semite) by the Egyptian crown was so great, he was given a pyramid tomb with a massive statue to commemorate his memory. It has been determined that the statue bore a striped, multi-colored coat, yellow-painted skin and flame-red hair, and held in its hand a throw-stick – all quintessential marks of Semite ethnicity. That a Semitic official would be honored with a pyramid tomb is an anomaly with no equivalent in ancient Egyptian history. Most significant to our premise, it was found in Stratum G/4, dated to the 12th Dynasty, believed by some to be the ‘early Israelite period’ at Avaris (see further details on these points below).2 A reconstruction of the palace (right).3
Significantly, this edifice was constructed right on top of the ruins of a previous structure in Stratum H, which it seems to replace: a stately residence of a characteristic, non-native, Syrian design. Every detail of this building, the very first in Area F, precisely fits what we would expect of the house of Jacob, whose family originated in Harran, modern Syria. Genesis records that they were given the open area of Goshen to settle, after arriving in Egypt from Canaan (Gen. 46,34-47,6). " Rabbi Michael S. Bar-Ron, THE SEAL OF JOSEPH IN HIS PALACE AT TELL ED-DABA, December 29, 2017, 11 Teveth 5778 Beth Midrash Ohel, Moshe Beit Shemesh, Israel, p. 2
Grave robbers don’t steal bones. Only one tomb was missing it’s bones–the pyramid tomb with the statue. If you recall, Joseph asked that his bones be carried back to the promised land. The other tombs still retained their bones.
The town grows, but eventually the inhabitants fall on hard times, probably due to slavery.
“According to the archaeological evidence at Tell el-Daba, conditions then began to deteriorate with skeletal remains in the graves showing signs of malnutrition(Harris lines in the bones). Anthropological studies show that adults were dying in their early thirties. Strangely there were far more burials of infants and young children than normal(25%) for this sort of ancient civic society. Moreover there were more females than males in the adult grave population. For every three females there were only two males. Where had the adult males gone? The Bible provides the answer. The opening chapter of the Book of Exodus tells us that the Egyptians first enslaved the Israelites, then culled the male infants because the slave populations was getting too large and Pharaoh perceived this as a threat. Obviously, in archaeological terms, this would mean an increase in infant burials and a skew in the adult population in favor of females.” David Rohl, Exodus, (Thinking Man Media, 2015, p. 127
This is what the Bible describes as happening at the birth of Moses.
then some strange things happen. The occupants of the town just up and left, while at the same time, bodies were thrown into mass graves!
“But the literary parallels and evidence from recent excavations do not stop there. It is around the time that, according to the archaeological evidence, from Avaris, Egypt’s eastern delta suffered a terrifying calamity. At the end of Tell el Daba Stratum G, several large pits have been unearthed, in which where found scores of bodies tossed in as if by some act of emergency internment. Non of the nomal burial goods accompanied the dead. Bodies lay on top of each other, many face down, The suddenness of the calamity is obvious by the way that the bodies have been tossed into the pits. According to excavation director Manfred Bietak, these people died from a deadly and virulent plague. Professor hans Goedicke(of Johns Hopkins University) notes that just such a plague is mentioned in papyrus documents of he era following the 13th Dynasty and, interestingly from our point of view, the texts refer to it as the ‘Asiatic Diseas’–in other words, a plague specifically associated with the Semitic population of Egypt.” David Rohl, Exodus, (Thinking Man Media, 2015, p. 153
“The mass graves of Avaris–located at the end of Proto-Israelite Stratum G-0were Quickly followed by an abandonment of the Asiatic quarter of the city (on the main tell next to Ed-Daba village)–all approximately at the time of Dudimose according to the New Chronology. The Semites simply gathered up their belongings and left. Archaeology cannot tell us where they went… but the Bible does.” David Rohl, Exodus, (Thinking Man Media, 2015, p. 136-137
While of course we can’t prove the miracle of the passover as described, but archaeology does fit quite well.
I would add this, if one allows the possibility of God dealing with humanity for far far longer than people want, the desiccated Mediteranean basin fits quite well with the description of Edon and the Zanclean flood, when the Med re-filled in about a year’s time fits exactly what the bible describes as Noah’s flood. It is a scenario that matches the data. The problem is no one wants to believe God has worked with mankind that long ago–That is just a bias.
Anyway, I believe the Bible because I can see a way to make it historical in a way that no other religious document can be made historical. Indeed, most avoid saying anything observational at all. Because the Bible can be literally true (not in a YEC way, but actually matching science), I can say I believe the bible. I can’t prove that it happened the way I say, but I will say this, it matches data and that means that belief that it did happen that way becomes a matter of faith
Klax, I simply don’t understand your position. I don’t know if English is your second language or whether you can’t answer a simple question clearly. I will leave you to your belief system what ever it is.
Yes. His identifiable providential M.O. in the lives of his children is recognized by his people, but, no matter how remarkable, it is not compelling to resolute unbelievers – and also remarkable, even some Christians – they still choose to disbelieve with a handwave.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
70
My position is perfectly clear gbob. Sorry about my English. I’ve only been speaking it for 63 years. What simple question?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
71
That would be remarkable, yes. But I’ve never seen a Christian do that.
My son was a psych major and thankfully he is gainfully employed as a software developer now. Whew, dodged that bullet. Anyway he continues his interest in psychology and told me of a woman who heard things under anaesthesia. I tried to get a reference out of him this morning but it took until this after noon and it is a doozy. Our consciousness doesn’t go anywhere while we are unconscious.
One day in the nineteen-eighties, a woman went to the hospital for cancer surgery. The procedure was a success, and all of the cancer was removed. In the weeks afterward, though, she felt that something was wrong. She went back to her surgeon, who reassured her that the cancer was gone; she consulted a psychiatrist, who gave her pills for depression. Nothing helped—she grew certain that she was going to die. She met her surgeon a second time. When he told her, once again, that everything was fine, she suddenly blurted out, “The black stuff—you didn’t get the black stuff!” The surgeon’s eyes widened. He remembered that, during the operation, he had idly complained to a colleague about the black mold in his bathroom, which he could not remove no matter what he did. The cancer had been in the woman’s abdomen, and during the operation she had been under general anesthesia; even so, it seemed that the surgeon’s words had lodged in her mind. As soon as she discovered what had happened, her anxiety dissipated.
Henry Bennett, an American psychologist, tells this story to Kate Cole-Adams, an Australian journalist, in her book “Anesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness.” Cole-Adams hears many similar stories from other anesthesiologists and psychologists: apparently, people can hear things while under anesthesia, and can be affected by what they hear even if they can’t remember it. One woman suffers from terrible insomnia after her hysterectomy; later, while hypnotized, she recalls her anesthesiologist joking that she would “sleep the sleep of death.” Another patient becomes suicidal after a minor procedure; later, she remembers that, while she was on the table, her surgeon exclaimed, “She is fat, isn’t she?” Awake Under Anesthesia | The New Yorker
In one such study, from 1993, Ian Russell, a British anesthesiologist, ties a tourniquet around the forearms of thirty-two women undergoing major gynecological surgery. He administers his anesthetic cocktail—the hypnotic drug midazolam, along with a painkiller and a muscle relaxant—then, by tightening the tourniquet, prevents the muscle relaxant from entering each woman’s hands and wrist. During surgery, a recorded message plays through headphones in which Russell addresses each patient by name. “If you can hear me, I would like you to open and close the fingers of your right hand,” he says. If the woman moves her hand, Russell lifts one of the earpieces and asks her to squeeze his fingers; if she squeezes, he asks her to do it again if she is in pain. Of the thirty-two patients Russell tested, twenty-three squeezed to suggest they could hear, and twenty squeezed again to say they were in pain. Although Russell was supposed to test sixty patients, he was so unnerved by these results that he ended the trial early. It’s possible, he suggests, that the women were conscious and suffering on the operating table" Awake Under Anesthesia | The New Yorker
**
Klax, I have left you to your beliefs. I don’t have time or energy to prise out of you your position, especially when all your posts remind me of a disastrous first date where all I got was one word answers. At least yours are a sentence or two, but no, I don’t have that energy and I think I clarified which of my two possibilities is the issue. Take care Klax
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
75
And you gbob. If you can link to your simple question I’ll simply answer it.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
76
