I have no desire to trade insults but it is often difficult to know whether I am conversing with a primary grade student (albeit relatively bright) or someone with a great deal of knowledge and limited empathy and/or communicating skills. So no, I do not find some non sequiturs on this forum particularly amusing. They do not progress the argument in any shape or form, and only serve to highlight the mental limitations of the person who made them. … whoever that person might be.
"No desire" and yet here you are taking a stab at me through various different means - and while it's subtle, it is clearly meant in a way whereby a person would clearly be offended. The difference between us right now is that my comments were reflections upon your statements, not your personality.
Compare if you will me saying using famous people as an argument for support of a claim is 'worthless' to you telling me I either lack communication skills or am a primary grade student. I only hope you can see the distinct difference between them.
As it so happens I am neither a primary grade student and nor do I specifically have any communication problems. Your statements on the other hand are still worthless. Argument from authority has no value, it's as simple as that.
It seems that by making rather feeble requests (‘Got any pictures?’) you are looking to ridicule, when the best way of demolishing a belief is to empathise with it first.
How bizarre.. First you ask me to be more scientific and less emotive and now you're asking me to be more emotive and less scientific. I'm sorry euphrosene but if you're going to make a claim, (while expecting me to be scientific), then me asking for a picture is what you're gonna get. I fail to see how you could consider someone asking for evidence as ridicule... That's how science works euphrosene, but then you're not asking me for that anymore are you? Nope, now you want me to express emotion while forgetting all about evidence.
Once again however, to your claim: What did it look like/was it wearing/where/pictures/video/anything?
Re theory: you have picked your definition. Subjectivity applies to all beliefs. So, for the purposes of balance, here are my definitions
I apologise but you did ask me to be scientific. Now you're asking me to be less scientific and more emotive. I just can't win. As I tried to explain earlier, I was being largely scientific but you focused more on what you would call the emotive statements such as me calling a specific argument style as worthless. Now, I have been kind enough to give you the 'scientific' definition of theory, which concludes my original statement that what you came up with was not a theory but an idea, a belief, a thought. And to that you dare accuse me of not being scientific but emotive?
I have never claimed to be a scientist. As I write about mysticism and spiritual intelligence, I have no need to provide ‘proof’.
Why ever not? I do understand that needing no proof for your mysticism/spiritual stuff is not needed for
you, how about the people you are putting it upon? Do you not care what their needs are? Do you not understand that your say so isn't good enough for everyone? The need is paramount
if you intend to express those beliefs on others and them to take them seriously, (from a scientific standpoint instead of an emotive one).
Unfortunately, with a few honourable exceptions, there is a tendency to disparage any experience or belief that has no current ‘proof’
Why do you think that is?
Evidence is essential. Why, this would be a very messed up world if people just went around believing everything they were told. I'd have 100 people stood outside my house right now believing there was an invisible leprechaun in my garage.
Even with the very basics man is still someone that seeks evidence foremost - if someone told you the cup of tea wasn't hot you wouldn't just throw it down your throat - no, you would still sip it to gain evidence that is vital for progression and for survival. I understand that the example I used could have dangerous repurcussions if you didn't test it - but then being able to claim anything without having to support those claims is just as dangerous.
There is a guy in this very thread making the claim that his grandma had an nde and then low and behold her pneumonia vanished into thin air. Can we really afford to just believe what he says? The same would go for this very same guy and his lungs. Is it not a mockery of man's intelligence to just believe him for the mere sake of it?
Of course having said all of that we cannot question everything. For instance, how could we show right now that Saddam really has been killed? Are we therefore 'just believing for the sake of it' in this instance? To a degree certainly - although evidence will come in the form of photographs, news reports and what not. Now move on to something far beyond that - something that calls into question that which has
no evidence whatsoever and by it's very nature is mystical and magical?
You don't just believe me when I say Lenny the leprechaun is in my garage - and until such time I can show evidence to support that 'belief' I wouldn't go around expressing that belief
without expecting people to call me on it. That is the way things are.
Now you can dismiss out of hand any esoteric experiences with scant or nil ‘proof’. However, any scientist worth his or her future Nobel Prize should display both empathy and curiosity – however difficult that may be. You never can tell what proof might suddenly appear simply by being prepared. As the expression goes Luck is where opportunity meets the prepared mind.
And any prepared scientist must also know and accept that evidence is paramount to claims made. They'd undoubtedly also ask you for photographs of your ghost.. it's a start at least.
Re dream: Was it merely a dream? That begs the question of what is a dream. Many scientists have found their dreams progressed their experiments.
That's what we would need to establish.. Was it a dream?
Question 1) To have defined it as something other than a dream there must have been a significant difference between the event and any other dream you've had. You qualify it as something other than a dream, (an nde of sorts). How did it differ exactly?
Other questions later. The important thing is not to make a conclusion before even going through the questions. Your very original statement was: "I had an nde in 1989". By saying this you have already established what it was and I'm asking you to justify how you reached that conclusion.
Snake
