He was a little old guy from India, spoke very little English. His family reported what he said about the experience though, and yes, he did say some things about it.

I recall the incident, but I don't remember the specifics as to what he might have seen though.

Actually, in my 15 year career as a health care worker I could tell you of several incidents that I would call "freaky".

Let me just say this...No way in hell would I ever presume to sit on my high horse and proclaim that I know with 100% certainty about anything to do with death or dying or eternity etc etc.

Who gets to decide what is absurd and what isn't? You?

THAT is what's absurd in this thread. Your posts come off like you know without a doubt the answers to all these questions, but the fact is you're like the rest of us.... you don't.

Thus you are basically talking out your ass.

My belief at this moment is to just shut up and respect the beliefs of others. No one is asking you to think their way. Speak about your own opinions/beliefs if you must, but I'm recommending that you start stating your opinion as just that... YOUR opinions. Your posts come off like cut & dried fact with no room for doubt or differing opinions, and that to me smacks of a smug, close-minded know-it-all.

I wouldn't go presuming that you are the enlightened one here. That's all, carry on.

Without going into detail, when I was in my final year at school my heart stopped beating before I was revived. I can still remember what went through my mind before I lost consciousness. The memory is very clear.

Whilst I was 'dying', my hearing began to fail until I couldn't hear the screams of those around me. At the same time I lost my sight until it went black, then when I could no longer breathe, although I think my eyes were closed all I could see was bright white light. I must have fallen unconscious then as that's the last I could remember, apart from thinking 'this is it'. It was quite peaceful even though my lungs felt like they were burning. Then I was revived and everything returned to normal very quickly.

Afterwards, I was no more tempted to believe in god/ fairies/ souls/ Jesus than I was before. A religious friend of mine did however use the experience to try to convert me to Christianity.

People who can.

It is known that souls do not exist. The same as it is known that the gods of Christianity and Islam do not exist and that there is no such thing as magic. Or fairies.

It doesn't matter which orifice I talk out of. It's the content which matters.

Why do we have to respect the beliefs of others? We can only respect the respectable. What's resectable to one person may not be to another.

When talking about absolute truths such as souls/ fairies/ purple unicorns/ Allah/ etc, opinions are neither here nor there. Opinions have value when there are grounds to dispute the answer or when talking about one's favourite colour or type of music.

I think you're right about me sounding smug. We've already covered the closed-minded thing though, and we discovered it was the other way around. And I don't know it all. You got one out of three.

Hmmmm. Scientific fact might have to differ with you on that one :)

it is very silly to talk about death as u cannot avoid it, that's for sure... the girls are nice anyways :thumbsup

You aren't one of them.


yes, but when it comes out of your ass it's worth shit.


Never said you had to. I recommended that you do though, that's all. An intelligent person would be able to see the difference, and understand the greater benefit of that advice, and would already know that people tend to get offended when some know-it-all tries to crap all over their personal beliefs.


Last I checked, science has not disproved the existence of God.


In case you're not getting it, I'm not trying to crap on YOUR beliefs either. Nor am I necessarily disagreeing with everything you've said. I'm only taking issue with your tone of arrogance and ridiculous certainty.

Basically put, unless you've died and come back somehow and can now proclaim to the world "what it's like", you may as well shut the fuck up. :D


Now, if you don't mind I have to go walk my unicorn....

But when it comes to distinguishing souls, fairies, Allah and leprechauns as absurdities I am more than qualified. Along with most other people.


Except if I had already done a colonic irrigation then stuffed a tape recorder full of true words up there first before pressing play.


I'll say it again. We can only respect the respectable. Each person has their own standards when it comes to that. It turns out that I don't respect any beliefs which state that souls, fairies, Allah or leprechauns are fact. Other people might. That is their choice.


You slipped up there. The 'existence of god' was not part of that particular quoted reply chain. Your original "I wouldn't go presuming that you are the enlightened one here. That's all, carry on." to which I replied "Hmmmm. Scientific fact might have to differ with you on that one" to which you replied "Last I checked, science has not disproved the existence of God." made no mention of the existence of god. That was a different part of the conversation.

In any case, science would appear to prove the existence of a 'creative entity' (although the decision to call it god rests entirely with the individual). However, science/ maths/ logical reasoning have proven beyond any doubt that the gods of Christianity and Islam do not, and cannot, exist.


This is GFY. You're upset because someone has come across as arrogant to you? Christ on a friggin' bike, you'd have a full time job addressing each and every post on this forum in which you detected the slightest bit of arrogance.

It can be, and is, known that there is no such thing as a soul, without having to die and be revived to find it out.


No you don't.

And you for some reason think our understanding of science will not change over the next 1000 years? The fact that we do not understand everything (if anything) means everything is possible. Look at the universe my friend. We're a small speck in something that goes on for infinity.

Look at it like this. A human is raised inside of a completely empty room his entire life. No contact with the outside world or other humans, ever. To this human being the world is this room. There is nothing more. He will never learn or understand there is a world outside of this room. Now apply this to us. We live on a planet, contained within this universe. Is there something else out there? A bigger world beyond our universe that we just don't have a means of understanding or even fathoming?

Look at animals. We don't consider them intelligent. You think human beings are the highest form of intelligent life in a universe that goes on for infinity? You have much to learn.

Does this have anything to do with a soul? No, not really. I'm just saying we don't know everything. And it's foolish to think to yourself you know exactly what happens to people when they die, because no one does.

first off,those chicks are shwag,maybe 4 out of 10 at best...

as far as death,i always say its better to not think about what happens when we die cuz were never gonna know,thus you can speculate and create theories all day,but thats pointless.live for the now and dont stress on death,things live and die, what happens before or after is irrevalent to currect issues...

Good points.

The very fact that we can not truly comprehend infinity says a lot also to validate the fact that the unknown is just that.

This week scientists came out with the theory that the Universe expanded from the size of a marble to 13 Billion miles in one trillionth of one trillionth seconds. That is simply mind boggling.

But it still brings you back to the chicken and the egg dilema. What came first? If the Universe at its birth was the size of a marble what was it existing within at that point? They say the Universe is now 13.7 Billion light years in size. Still you can't answer the question ok lets say it is that, then what is on the outside of the Universe?

Basically nothing computes when you start talking infinity. Same problem if you go in the other direction too. They say Quarks are so small they can't even be precisely measured. Yet to have a quark it still has to be composed of something else to exist. What is that something then?

Again your mind can not compute that either.

So if there is so much that is incomprehensible it leads us to the distinct propbability that there is a lot of stuff we aren't able to compute with our minds. Maybe dimensions within dimensions. Parallel dimensions. Anti-matter. Time displacements. Space warps. How about black holes?

Got to remember our eyes are extremely limited in what they can see. Its common knowledge that the electromagnetic spectrum is significantly larger and the visible light portion is just a fraction of it. Maybe there are conscious energy fields around us of people who have died in the physical sense but really only shed their physical body.

What about self awareness? How can that be explained without acknowledging that you have a soul, life force, etc. How can you think of your self without looking inward? If you are looking inward than it is from something outward. Where is the center of one's self? Close your eyes and ask that question. What are you seeing now? Its nothing but an energy force. And that in fact is what each of us really is.

wow what a heavy topic for a Friday, and St Patricks Day to boot! Though it's been interesting to read the discussion so far.

All I know for sure is that it hurts a LOT when people you love die, nothing I've experienced so far has compared to this kind of loss.

It can make it easier if you believe in life after death; to keep up the hope that at some point you may be reunited with those people who have meant something to you. For some it helps to believe that these dead loved ones are 'watching over you' as you go through the rest of your life.

To be honest, I'm not sure where I stand on all that - souls, heaven/hell, etc etc. Personally I'm just trying to enjoy the time I have with the people I care about WHILE I still HAVE life. Life can be extinguished at ANY point, you never can tell.

Who'd have thought there'd be such deep philosophical debate on GFY??!! Did I come to the right place? :winkwink:

You're obviously new. Upset? Please. Whatever gave you the idiotic notion that I was upset?

I'm just sitting back, posting, and letting you convince me you're a dope, that's all.

No upset here.


:winkwink:

WOW, so many different views on this subject.

Actually numbnuts its the other way around. People like you choose to believe what you do out of fear and in order to keep your sanity. Who would be comfortable with the thought of paying the price for being YOU?

"Music wakes us up to the fact that we are not our body,
we are not our mind.

We are infinite, immortal energy.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience,

We are spiritual beings having a human experience."

Michael Sembello

in a way heaven and hell are real. i don't believe in a sense that they're a place you go when you die, but they symbolize the two polar extremes of what humanity can become. just my take on heaven/hell.

I've not said once that I think that our understanding of science will not change over the next 1000 years.

No it doesn't. Everything is governed by the rules of natural law. Nothing which violates those rules can exist. Natural law is constant throughout the universe.

No it doesn't. Infinity does not exist. It is just a concept. The universe has a fixed volume at any one time.

There is most probably a multiverse. However, it is unlikely that we can test this by experimentation.

We don't know.

But less to learn that others. Which is why I can state that souls do not exist whereas others have yet to learn that souls do not exist.

Not knowing everything does not mean that we cannot know that souls do not exist.

Like I've already pointed out in this thread, there is no reason whatsoever for us to suspect that they is anything after death.

Souls don't exist. Infinity doesn't exist. Only natural laws exist.

What the fuck dude, I think its you that doesn't exist. Never seen such a closed mind.

Wake up, go to the ocean and watch the sun set and then tell me we're all there is.

Fucking christ . . . . how young are you? Not to sound jerky, but it doesn't sound like you've experienced a lot of things in life yet.

Self-awareness was explained rather well by a Japanese research team who constructed a robot which was self-aware. It did not require the creation of a soul. All it required was the creation of artificial neurons within the software which controlled the robot.

There's no reason whatsoever for us to suspect that they exist, no.

Infinity doesn't exist. It is a concept.

Correct, and they are unchanging. The natural laws which govern us here on Earth, for example the laws of gravity, weak nuclear forces, etc, are the same right across the universe.

If I didn't exist I would not have been able to post in this thread. Perhaps I died 10 years ago and my soul has been posting for me. Perhaps science will show in 1000 years time that souls in the year 2006 did not need to use keyboards in order to produce words on a forum, since souls cannot type what with them being ghosts or whatever.

You don't understand what a closed mind is. It's open-mindedness which allows one to be able to discard the false and acept the real.

Why would I want to do that? What would that add to a discussion about the existence of souls? If you don't like the idea that humans are nothing more than intelligent primates then that's up to you, but it has no bearing whatsoever on actual reality. Reality doesn't change itself to cater for whims.

Young or old enough to be your younger or older brother.

Usually the prelude to a jerky-sounding comment.

It can sound like however you want it to sound. However, what it 'sounds like' to you may or may not coincide with actual fact. In this case it doesn't.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...liff-notes.jpg

http://www.harvardpilgrim.mimrx.com/...2843202344.JPG Dude you're killin me. :1orglaugh

101 Lost Souls . . .

:1orglaugh

Hahaha. I though maybe you wouldn't want to/ wouldn't be able to carry on. It was fun though.

I do love the internet. There's no way I could come off as this smug in the real world without getting a punch in the face from someone who doesn't like having their personal beliefs shot down.

I've got a friend who is a hardcore lefty and he always goes on about how we'd all be better off living under Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez, and when I prove to him that those systems cannot work due to them being anti to human nature, he punches the nearest wall. It's like because he believes in it he wants it to actually change reality, and then throws a wobbly when he realises he not as smart as he thinks.

Last time I checked modern science has yet to explain how the universe was created. Yes, we all believe in the big bang and I do believe that is what created everything we see now. But you explain to me how something came from nothing. Laws of physics right? Cause and effect. Well something had to of caused the big bang, in which something else caused the cause of the bing bang, from which something else created that cause, and so on, for infinity. Your rules of natural law simply prove infinity does exist. There could of never been nothing. Because if there was we wouldn't be here. Something cannot come from nothing. The universe has always existed in some form. By not believing it has existed for infinity you believe some magical thing occured to create something from nothing. Which side of this debate are you really on?

I think you've answered your own question right there.

Don't assume though that just because I know about such things as the non-existence of souls, that I can explain everything about the universe. I know some things but not others.

On the subject of matter appearing out of 'nowhere', this is something which happens with common frequency. It is suspected that the universe has a 'net zero charge'. This means that all of the charges on all of the particles of matter in the universe add up to zero. For example, if you have a hundred positively charged particles and a hundred negatively charged particles and added up their collective charges you would get zero.
Experiments in space have shown that matter can 'pop' into existence and then out of existence spontaneously. For example, an electon may have been detected to have 'popped' into existence within an otherwise emply chamber, which means that somewhere else in the universe a positron must also have 'popped' into existence at the same time, only to disappear at the same time also, assuming that the net zero charge theory is correct and taking into account that experimentation can show that two particles can be 'connected' across huge distance.

All fascinating stuff, but thats when we start getting into quantum mechanics, string theory, etc and GFY is hardly the place for that. You'd be better off visiting an astrophysics forum for those kind of answers.

Ordinary physics is complicated enough, but quantum mechanics really is a journey into the weird.

Everything in this dimension is governed by physical law, not natural law. And since you have no idea what laws may govern other dimensions your argument is moot.

Take some shrooms and ponder 'self must meet self' and the answer will come.

I wanna go home,
Take off this uniform and leave the show,
But I'm waiting here in this cell because I have to know,
Have I been guilty all this time?

No, but Australia's former richest man Kerry Packer who finally died in December last year was after suffering a massive heart attack in 1990.

This is what he told an interviewer about the experience:

8 characters in search of an exit

All we have are theories that will most likely never be proven. Until we're able to prove how all of this came into existance, there will always be that speck of chance that some sort of greater being snapped his fingers, and put into motion the events that caused the bing bang. If that is possible anything is, because it would mean something occured that was not goverened by our laws.

I'm totally in awe of the process of creating an intelligent human being.

Everytime you see a pic of a sperm, you have to think to yourself how the hell does this all work.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/media/sperm.gif

http://www.arn.org/docs/mm/sperm.jpg

There's got to be more going on behind the scenes. I just can't believe myself and everyone else were just the result of little squigglies at one point in time.

:1orglaugh Its got to be deeper than that. How could such unique characters like Sleazy or Juicy have been just little sperms once? This is why I think the soul incarnates into the equation post the moment of birth.

I have been to the ragged edge of death quite a few times, yet I am still alive. Fuck death in its dead ass.

Physical laws, natural laws, tomaytoes, tomartoes.

By natural law I am refering to the unvarying laws which allow the universe to exist and govern all interactions within. The laws which govern 'other dimentions' are uniform across those dimentions within any given universe.

So what you're saying is, because you don't understand the way things are, we must have a soul.

Something wrong with your logic there KRL. :1orglaugh

You misunderstand that the word 'theory' in common language and in science have different meanings.

I can assure you that there is no chance whatsoever that a 'greater being' did that.

Not everything is possible. Come on, that is junior school stuff.

[QUOTE=KRL]I'm totally in awe of the process of creating an intelligent human being.QUOTE]

The process of creating an intelligent human being is really no more amazing than the process of creating a monkey or a coral.

:thumbsup :thumbsup

to fear death is totally inhuman.....
it's within us to embrace it... you just have to reflect on it.

Today, like any other day, is a good day to die.

Duke

There are two things that bother me about death.

1. The possibility it might be painful.
2. I'll be pissed off about all the cool stuff I'll never get to see as the world carries on without me.

Other than that, no problem.