2012 Off topic thread(basketball,movies,etc whatever)

[SPX]

I guess. But I really don't see how it can be anything bad... so even if there is more than nothingness, it almost can't be bad. So I just operate under the nothingness approach, and maybe I will be pleasantly surprised. Even Christian scholars can't really answer the "Problem of Hell" with any satisfactory explanations. There is either the Universalist approach, or the "humans are too limited to understand" approach. Both are pretty flawed.

So unless you fear that Islam might be the one true religion... you are pretty much good to go.

Not necessarily. Death could be just another natural state that our consciousness passes onto.

On the earth is everything good? No. Some people are blessed with good health, loving families, and above-average intelligence. While others have to deal with such horrors as child abuse, torture, painful illnesses and abject poverty.

So I think it's entirely possible that, just like in this life, the life to come is filled a wide range of experiences, some far better than others.

[MMA_scientist]

Not necessarily. Death could be just another natural state that our consciousness passes onto.

On the earth is everything good? No. Some people are blessed with good health, loving families, and above-average intelligence. While others have to deal with such horrors as child abuse, torture, painful illnesses and abject poverty.

So I think it's entirely possible that, just like in this life, the life to come is filled a wide range of experiences, some far better than others.

Maybe, maybe anything. Maybe I will become a zombie. I have no reason to fear random theories with no basis in anything. Even you want to fear Islam hell, at least there is some basis for it (though you might think it is ridiculous, there is at least some ancient texts and a lot of people following, so that you might at least give pause). But as for anything like fearing becoming a tortured ghost... that is some serious anxiety. But even if you came to understand it some day, would that somehow free you of the possibility?

[SPX]

I think there is at least some evidence to suggest that the afterlife exists and is not the same for everyone.

[SPX]

Tough times for Shonie Carter:

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

[MMA_scientist]

I think there is at least some evidence to suggest that the afterlife exists and is not the same for everyone.

Yes, I suppose if you count Ouiga board use. I can agree that there is some evidence for an afterlife (not that I agree that it is strong evidence), but many people believe it and there is the whole near death thing. But I don't what evidence would suggest it would be different from one person to the next, other than "communication with the dead". I guess you can say that there is evidence of communication with the dead...

[MMA_scientist]

Tough times for Shonie Carter:

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

he is doing a super fight grappling match against Eric Schaefer sometime soon. Or maybe it already happened.

[SPX]

But I don't what evidence would suggest it would be different from one person to the next, other than "communication with the dead". I guess you can say that there is evidence of communication with the dead...

Well even with near-death experiences, there are a minority that are not positive. And even of the ones that are positive they are not all the same. In fact, they can vary pretty wildly.

[SPX]

he is doing a super fight grappling match against Eric Schaefer sometime soon. Or maybe it already happened.

Maybe it's time to just call it a career.

[MMA_scientist]

Well even with near-death experiences, there are a minority that are not positive. And even of the ones that are positive they are not all the same. In fact, they can vary pretty wildly.

I havrn't heard about the negative ones. I am going to have to look that up. It would be interesting if all the people claiming a bad trip down the white light tunnel were all ex nazi's or something.

EDIT: read a quick article about it, turns out, there is no correlation apparently.

They should remake that movie flatliners. That was a great premise.

[SPX]

We all know that near-death experiences occur. There are far too many reports collected at this point to deny that people are having this experience. The question then is what does it mean and is it "real" or is it merely the hallucinatory product of an overactive imagination?

I think there are two things that point to the existence of an aspect of reality to the experience that goes beyond our ability to explain:

1. The fact that many of these experiences are reported when the brain is in a state that has undergone total clinical death. That is, absolutely no electrical activity, no chemical activity, no activity at all. At least as far as our current understanding of the body goes, in this state consciousness should in no way be possible. So either a seemingly dead brain can continue to experience consciousness beyond any current physical explanation or our consciousness can survive independent of the physical body.

2. Many experiencers, while in the out of body state, can come back to reveal details about their surroundings that were later verified to be correct: what a doctor said or did, equipment that was used while they were "dead" and the manner in which it was used, what someone did or was wearing in another room in the hospital, and things that happened or existed outside of the hospital.

One such account of the latter, which ended up sending one doctor on a quest to study these experiences, involves a shoe that the experiencer saw in the out-of-body state that was sitting on a ledge on several floors up outside the hospital. The doctor went on a search to find the shoe and found it. Another doctor intended to disprove these experiences. He collected several reports of things the experiencers said they saw go on in the ER while they were being worked on by the doctors. He matched up these experiences to hospital records of the procedures that took place and verified the vast majority of the details of the reports.

Perhaps most interesting though are the reports of blind people--some of whom were even born blind--who had NDEs and brought back verifiable details of things they were able to "see" while having the experience.

With that said, the biggest problem is that a lot of the near-death experience seems to be somehow illusionary in nature. For instance, even those researchers who have come to the conclusion that there is a real, verifiable spiritual component to these experiences also acknowledge that a lot of what is experienced is based upon culture or previous beliefs. For instance, Betty Eadie's very famous experience recounted in her book "Saved by the Light" was full of Mormon imagery and she herself came from a Mormon background. Other people often experience things that seem to be pulled from their religious upbringing.

So how do you explain this? Do dream-like elements impose themselves upon an otherwise legitimate and objective experience? Is our immediate afterlife experience (because, remember, these experiences only last a matter of minutes . . . who knows what would happen if they were to keep going) intentionally designed to include elements of our cultural conditioning so that the initial transition is as calm and peaceful as possible?

Or perhaps it can be tied into the insights of the quantum physicists who claim that the universe is essentially a holographic illusion and that we can shape reality with our consciousness. Is the realm of the afterlife a more malleable and non-physical realm where our consciousness has a far greater capacity for creation with thought alone?

Who knows. At this point it's a great mystery. But what I do know is that the subject is far deeper, richer and more complex than those people who just watch a documentary or read an article and proclaim all the experiences nothing more than the product of an overactive imagination claim it to be.

[Svino]

ha.

I guess the fact that it is not unique to me makes me feel like a bitch whining/worrying about it...

For me, the worst possible outcome of my life is having one of my kids die or become a serious screw up (like a junkie in the gutter or something)

For me, the fact that everyone else is going to die too doesn't make the reality that I am going to die any better. In fact, it's another thing that sucks. Perhaps someday I will invent a way to leach the life force out of people like a vampire or something, but until that day, everyone else's death does me no good. As for whining about it, you don't have to do it all the time, just occasionally on internet message boards.

I'd say there are worse lives than being a junkie in the gutter. At least you have no responsibilities and your drugs to keep you happy.

[zY|]

Oh good lord, not this bullshit again.

[SPX]

It's always a good topic. . .

[zY|]

Everyone says the same thing over again.

[SPX]

I agree for the most part, though I did try to include a more full-featured reply with some new information this time.